A thousand dollars. On coffee beans. That I haven’t used yet.

I’m 40 years old. I make decent money. I have a 401(k). I have a mortgage. But I also have a climate-controlled storage unit filled with $1000 worth of unopened coffee beans, and I need to explain why this is not the mistake everyone thinks it is.

This started innocently enough. Three years ago, I decided to track my coffee spending. Simple spreadsheet: date, beans purchased, price, origin, roast date, varietal. The usual optimization nonsense.

The beans arrived: Ethiopian, Kenyan, Yemenese, Brazilian, Colombian, Vietnamese, Indonesian. Each one carefully selected based on flavor profiles, reviews, altitude data. I documented everything.

But then something shifted.

The Escalation

I wasn’t just buying coffee. I was collecting it.

Week 1 of this new phase: I discovered a roastery doing single-lot micro-lots from a specific farm in Kenya. Limited edition. 200 bags worldwide. I bought 6.

Week 3: A coffee auction house released beans from a competition winner’s entry. Ethiopia, naturally processed, 2023 harvest. $40 per 12 ounces. I bought 8 bags.

Month 2: I found myself on coffee forums at 2 AM, arguing with strangers about whether a particular bean was worth $52 per pound. (It was. I bought it.)

Month 4: I had a moment of clarity at work. I was in a meeting about Q4 metrics and my brain was actively calculating how many bags of a rare Indonesian bean I could buy with my annual bonus.

My Xiaomi scale showed I hadn’t gained weight despite increased coffee spending. My Galaxy Watch confirmed my heart rate was elevated. My spreadsheet showed my coffee budget had tripled.

I told myself I was investing. Collector’s items appreciate. Rare beans increase in value.

I was lying to myself.

The Storage Unit

One day I realized I couldn’t keep the beans at home. My wife found me buying a third freezer.

I didn’t ask permission. I just installed it.

She found the receipt. We had a conversation that lasted three hours. It didn’t go well.

That’s when I rented the storage unit.

It’s $150 a month to keep 400 pounds of coffee beans at optimal temperature and humidity. Do you understand how insane that sentence is? I pay more monthly to store beans than some people pay for their car payment.

But here’s the thing: the beans are there. In perfect condition. Waiting.

The Rationalization

I’ve spent considerable time justifying this.

First justification: I’m an investor. Coffee futures exist. Rare beans appreciate. In five years, these beans could be worth $2000.

(I have no actual evidence of this.)

Second justification: I’m a collector. There’s an entire community of coffee collectors. I’m not unique. I’m part of a broader ecosystem.

(I am absolutely unique among my peer group, and everyone knows it.)

Third justification: This is a hobby. People spend money on hobbies. Somebody spends $10,000 on vintage sneakers. I spend it on coffee. Who’s to say which is crazier?

(They’re both crazy. I’m just self-aware about mine.)

The Truth

Here’s what actually happened: I discovered something I could measure, track, optimize, and control. I could assign value to it. I could prove I was making smart choices with data.

For someone like me—someone who tracks sleep on a Galaxy Watch and body metrics on a Xiaomi scale and productivity in spreadsheets—coffee beans became another variable to optimize.

The difference is that coffee beans eventually get consumed. Used. Gone.

But not yet.

Right now, in a climate-controlled storage unit 15 miles from my house, they exist in a state of potential. They could be the perfect cup. They could arrive at the precise moment I need them. They could be exactly what my palate craves.

Or they could just be sitting there, slowly aging in ways I can’t predict or control.

Which is probably why I can’t open them.

Why I’m Telling You This

Because someone out there has their own storage unit. Their own thing they’re collecting and rationalizing and not using.

Because somewhere you’ve crossed a line from hobby to obsession and you’re not sure when it happened.

Because you’re probably paying money monthly to keep something you’re not actually enjoying, and you’re telling yourself it’s an investment.

And because I think we’re all doing this with something. We collect things that represent potential futures we never actually pursue. We spend money on optimization without considering what we’re optimizing for.

I have $1000 worth of coffee beans I haven’t used.

I’m not sorry about it.

But I also understand now that I’m not sorry because I’m still in the phase where it feels like a choice. Ask me in a year when I’m storing the second round of purchases.

The beans are waiting. Perfect temperature. Perfect humidity. Perfect potential.

I’ll open them eventually.

Probably.