Coffee is getting too expensive

I know right? Like $7 now for a latte? Rid

Yeah, I had to start making my own at home because $6 for a latte every day was starting to hurt. The cheap instant stuff is barely drinkable but it beats nothing lol.

For real. I used to get coffee every day and now it's basically a weekly luxury — started making my own at home which is fine but definitely missing those cafe vibes sometimes lol.

I mean it's already ridiculous but what bothers me more than the price increase itself is how everything that costs money has become a status symbol for some reason, which brings up this funny thing that happened to my cousin about six months ago when she decided to quit her job and start an artisanal mushroom farm in her backyard -- not because of economics at all because she's actually quite wealthy from the inheritance situation with her aunt on the east coast but she had this genuine desire to be a maker, you know? And the first week was hilarious because everyone kept calling her 'unemployed' while she was literally growing edible fungi out of old coffee grounds which is ironic given what we're talking about here -- and then one morning I walked past her fence and saw these enormous Lion's Mane mushrooms hanging off a cedar log like something out of a fantasy novel, and honestly it made me realize that the expensive coffee problem isn't actually about the beans at all but about our relationship to consumption as an identity marker rather than a functional need.