Oh, you don't believe me? Have you done the math? Check it out:
Using an average bought cup of coffee, after tax, in Canadian dollars, starting when you think you knew everything as 18 and going to early retirement of 58, using the average market return of 10%:
$606K
And that's just coffee. Most people don't understand the power of compound interest. You can add a few more in there that you surely didn't need to spend on and you would be rocking over what most people every see in their bank account.
But you think you are worth that coffee in the morning. Maybe. But you are just handing over your retirement funds to the coffee shops in this way.
... And I'm not the only one who is seeing this. Coffee shops and restaurants are the top regrets of millennials. The fact that the study was done on millennials is important because older than that, you already had a high likelihood that your routine did not include having others serve you. You made your own coffee and just stuck with it mostly.
In the end, what you do daily, is your average outcome. If you spend daily, you won't have as much in the end. If you use going out as a treat, then you'll be more likely left with mostly treats later in your life.