Around 2007, I started using a service called ShareBuilder, which was an online broker dealer that offered regular, automated, and dollar-based trades in the stock market. You set the amount, and the equity, and they took care of the rest. I recall signing up for a paid plan through them which came with some perks, including a ShareBuilder exclusive version of David Bach’s The Automatic Millionaire.
Chapter two of his book is titled THE LATTE FACTOR: Becoming an Automatic Millionaire on Just a Few Dollars a Day, and the premise is that most people don’t really think about the little things we spend our money on. We tend to focus on “big ticket” things. For example, when we decide we need to cut back our spending, we often look to huge chunks to cut, rather than looking at the little nickel and dime items that we pay little attention to throughout the day.
“A latte spurned is a fortune earned”
—People Magazine
Interestingly, I found someone out there in the world actually putting this exact thing into practice. They are calling the project “Invest Your Coffee” (website, Twitter/X profile), and they are doing exactly that—investing (approximately) the cost of a daily cup of coffee, $5, into SPY, the S&P 500 index fund.
Can That Really Make a Difference?
The short and sweet answer is yes, investing as little as $5 a day will absolutely make a difference. And the best part is, you’re likely to not even notice that $5 missing. Hell, most people are likely to spend more than that on a handful of impulse purchases every day.
Probably the most powerful aspect of this is building consistency. That’s right, boring old consistency. Which is, by the way, a super power.
And they have made it automatic, like chapter four of David’s book suggests doing. They use M1 Finance and have automated buys set up (I personally recommend Fidelity, and I will write about that separately, but ultimately you should use what works best for you and you can stay consistent with.). And that’s it. Every day, like clockwork, they buy in to the S&P 500. $5 at a time. Slowly compounding their wealth.
Take Action
Now is the time to take action. New Year is in 2 days. New year, new you, all that jazz.
Go ahead and take your own action right now.
Start your own $5 investment every market day.
I did. On Monday, the 29th of December 2025, I initiated a daily (every market day), $5 buy of VOO, the Vanguard S&P 500 Index fund.
I missed the cut-off for starting an auto buy on Monday, so I did a manual buy for $5, followed by establishing the auto buy instructions for $5 every market day, as demonstrated in the above screenshots.
But Why This?
Why did I choose VOO? Great question.
I was between VOO and SPYM for this. There would be a (purely psychological) win with SPYM in that I’d accumulate more shares overall, given the price disparity. But the total invested matters more than the share count.
Yes, SPYM has a lower expense ratio (0.02% vs VOO’s 0.03%) but in the grand scheme of things, it won’t matter that much.
But why the S&P 500? After all, the Vanguard Group expects the S&P to be relatively flat over the next few years. Ultimately, it’s a little bit of home country bias and the thought process that American business will continue doing well in the long run. Besides, I already hold VT so I have worldwide exposure.
Ok, That’s Great. But Where Do I Do This?
Now, where am I doing this? Good question! I could use either of my favorites, Fidelity and Vanguard, to execute automatic buys. But, neither have a daily option. I’d have to set up 5 weekly buy orders for each day of the week.
Now that’s not the end of the world, it’s just a tad bit more work. But, there’s also the fact that both brokers only go out so many decimal places—Fidelity to 3, and Vanguard to 4. Both will get me close, but I’d still end up with some “loose change” after each buy.
So, I built the auto investment in Robinhood. They go out to 6 decimal places, so for my “paltry” $5/day, they use up every bit of it. Further, they offer an every market day schedule for automatic investments. Win/win!
Day 2, the First of Many Auto Investments
Today, December 30th, 2025, was day two, and technically the first day of my auto investments executing.
Well there you have it, I’m off to a great start, already building momentum going in to 2026. I will update you all at the end of 2026 on the results of this little experiment. I’m stoked to see this thing through!
Your Turn
I’d love to see you sign up as well! Make sure you start your $5 daily auto buy in to 500 of the largest companies in America!