You're only looking at the cost of the machine. There are several articles (not just the one from the NY Times from 2012 that I've referenced many times on here) that show how you're paying $30, $40 and even $50 per pound when using K-Cups, vs. anywhere between $8 and $20 per pound when buying already ground beans and brewing yourself in a FP or traditional coffee pot. $20+ difference per pound is a hefty fee, at least for me, for the sake of saving an extra minute or two of my day.

NY Times

quote:
Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound.

That’s even more expensive than all but the priciest coffees sold by artisanal roasters, the stuff of coffee snobs.

An exclusive single-origin espresso like the Ethiopia, Gedeo Single Origin Espresso from Sightglass Coffee costs $19 for a 12-ounce bag, or about $25 a pound. La Cima beans for brewed coffee from Stumptown Coffee Roasters, a Grand Cru selection grown at Finca el Injerto, a renowned farm in Guatemala, is $28.50 for a 12-ounce bag, or $38 a pound.

Time

quote:
One fairly typical analysis, comparing Caribou brand K-Cups versus ground coffee, showed that the per-cup cost was 66¢ versus 28¢, respectively. If you make three cups a day, 365 days a year, that adds up to around $723 spent on K-Cups, versus $307 for regular coffee brewers. So you’d easily save $400 a year by going the old-fashioned route—which, again, Sylvan points out accurately, ain’t exactly hard to handle.

For an idea of how much your household specifically would save—or, on the flip side, how much you’re paying for the convenience of K-Cups—check out the coffee maker calculator one economist created a couple years back. Enter a few data points into the Excel calculator, including how many cups of coffee you brew per week, the cost of coffee machines you’re considering, how much you typically spend on coffee, and even how much of the coffee pot you usually wind up pouring down the drain, and it’ll spit out the per-cup price breakdowns. We entered several different scenarios, and K-Cups were at least twice as expensive in all cases.

CoffeeHouseExpress

This post was edited on 12/23/15 at 9:38 am