When I quit drinking coffee last year, and thus my once-twice-thrice-sometimes daily habit of white mochas, I didn’t think that I would still be called into the mermaid’s lair so often. I didn’t give her or my lack of willpower and abundance of boredom credit. I simply replaced coffee with tea. And then I changed things around again, and started getting tea lattes made with soy.

Because I needed convincing that I was doing something healthy?

I average one visit per day to the green-and-white coloured dealer in my financial fate. The latte effect has come upon this house, taunted it, kicked it in the balls and then called its mama fat – that’s how bad the habit has me. But no more.

See, the great thing about being the stocking stuffer-er at Christmas time is that I get to decide what goes into my own stocking. So, I got the cheapest, largest, easiest-to-hand-wash travel tumbler with a humongous Starbucks logo on it. Because I’m a coffee-label whore, apparently.

And so that I can stop throwing out (what I really mean is recycling, but still) so many disposable cups, given how often I’d visit the stores. Add in this whole let’s save all the money we possibly can scenario and the tumbler becomes the whip in this Starbucks S & M goal fantasy.

Zee Goal: I can only get Starbucks once a week, and only if I have my tumbler, unless I have a client-meeting there (in which case, I should get a ceramic mug) – no more often and no more disposable cups. The added bonus of not being an asshole to the environment is that Starbucks gives you a $0.10 discount, when you bring in your own cup.

This goal can run in conjunction with Dossier #1a, since neither one of them is gonna help the other guy out. It’s every bad habit for them self, out there.

Estimated annual savings: $1240