Want to retire early? Skip that latte

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

You probably won’t want to read this kill-joy advice from a Texas investment advisor, but here it is: Skip latte and lunch, and over your career, you could save at least an extra $83,000 toward retirement.

And if money now spent at Starbucks is put into an interest-earning retirement savings plan instead, the payoff can be even greater.

Such is the wisdom of Steve Orr, a Texas investment advisor who preaches that reducing everyday impulse purchases can turn into big bucks down the road.

According to Orr, many workers drop nearly $4 a work day on latte and other variations of upscale joe. At lunch time, these same folks can plunk down another $8 for mid-day chow.

Throw in a few dollars more for a morning muffin and an afternoon energy drink, and over the course of a worker’s 35-year career, the totals can really add up.

For the purposes of his calculations, Orr reckoned that a worker ordered such items every work day for 40 weeks of the year over 35 years. On annual basis, that works out to $790 for coffee or latte and $1,600 for lunch.

“If you were to put the total of all these items into your 401(k) or Roth IRA, or any other type of retirement investment vehicle every year for 35 years, and you earned a minimum of 3 percent interest every year on that money, you’d have an extra $246,560 in your retirement account at the end of that 35 years,” Orr said in a statement.