Best Friend With Benefits

My non-human, non-living best friend is Folger’s Coffee. I have been a loyal Folger’s fan for years, and I can honestly say that Folger’s has returned the favor and been a good friend to me. (I have five furry best friends and a human best friend, too. But my human best friend lives 1500 miles away in California, so I have to make do with my buddy Folger’s most days).

Folger’s has lots of great advantages. First of all, it smells great. Second of all, it’s much cheaper than Starbucks. And third of all, it does a great job of getting me going in the morning. To me, it tastes better than Starbuck’s, too. Homely ol’ Folger’s just beats Starbucks all to pieces in my opinion.

Folger’s saves me money by helping me to not patronize expensive, fancy coffee bars. But it has also saved me huge money in more intangible, but nonetheless very real ways. For instance, it saved my bacon numerous times when I was working full-time to put myself through college. College tuition is very expensive and many is the time that coffee helped me to stay awake after work, long into the night to study to pass an exam or to finish a paper (or to just get me to class in the first place before or after work) so that I wouldn’t fail a class (and thus waste that expensive tuition). It also helped keep my brain focused to remember where I needed to be (those were very crazy days, schedule-wise). If it wasn’t for Folger’s coffee, I honestly don’t think that I would have ever finished college.

A few years ago Folger’s switched from metal cans to plastic containers with snap-on lids. I really like these containers; they also have a handy carrying “handle” that makes them very easy to grab. When the coffee’s gone these containers find a second life in my pantry. I usually line them with gallon Zip-Loc bags, then fill them with all sorts of things. I use them for flour, sugar, dried beans, baking soda - well, you get the idea. Using these containers keeps my staples handy, easy to deal with, and bug-free (I really don’t like bugs in my homemade bread, though it is free protein). They also work great in areas of the home that need a bit of organizing - the garage, the sewing room, the bathroom, the office. Possibilities are endless. The only way these containers could get any better is if the Folger’s Company made them in a square shape instead of round. They would fit in my pantry much better, and not waste so much space.

I usually write what the contents of the recycled Folger’s can are on the “handle” part of the container. I use my good, fat Sharpie for this. On other websites I have seen some very clever people turn these homely objects into works of art. They paint the cannister a color that they like. Next, they mask off a rectangle in the middle of the container, and paint that area with chalkboard spray paint. When it dries, they can write the contents of the container on that chalkboard-rectangle area with chalk, which can be erased when you put something different in the can (unlike a Sharpie). I think that this is a very smart idea, and makes your pantry look extra-nice, too; but since I am lazy I’m not going to do it, and will just stick with my Sharpie.

What about price? Well, Folger’s is not the cheapest coffee at the grocery store. You can buy store brands for less (not always a lot less, though; coffee is fairly expensive no matter what label you buy it under). Sometimes you can find coupons. However, I almost always buy it at Sam’s Club where it is usually less expensive than at the grocery store. I see that the last time I went to Sam’s Club (on 4/26/08), I paid $12.83 for two 39 oz cannisters. This week, CVS has one 39 oz cannister of this exact same “style” of Folger’s coffee on sale for $10.00. So I think I get a pretty good deal with Sam’s Club’s regular price (though, like everything else, coffee has gone up considerably in the last few months). Looking on the website, it appears that today Sam’s Club is charging $11.74 for 2 39 oz cannisters, so it has gone down a bit (surprise, surprise).

For my $12.83 I get 540 6 oz cups (according to the container). I know that I typically drink more ounces than that in each cup. Practically speaking, one 39 oz container of ground Folger’s lasts my husband and me just over one month of a combined 5 cup-a-day coffee habit. That works out to about 150 cups a month, which is $.04/per cup. Even with our extravagant and liberal use of coffee, this is an excellent deal (especially compared to Starbucks). I like a little milk and sugar in mine (which ups the price a bit), and my husband likes his black.

I owe a lot of my success to Folger’s. Why, many is the time I have managed to finish one of these posts only through the good offices of my kind friend, Folger. It truly is the pause that refreshes.