Homemade Starbucks Medicine ball dupe // Honey Citrus Mint Tea

It’s January, and the mornings are cool , and it’s nice to have something soothing and warm on your throat to wake up to. I am going to let you in on a little secret in on how to get the popular medicine ball drink, but for a fraction of the cost.

Now at our house, we are Panera club members. If you haven’t heard of the Panera club, let me tell you about one of the best deals around. Panera has a yearly sit club membership. You could also pay monthly however, this is more expensive. The yearly membership is $119 for unlimited drinks for the entire year. When I buy this subscription, I always look for a coupon code that takes an additional $20 off. So for $99 for the entire year you get unlimited drinks at Panera.

This works out great for our family as we lived close to two different Paneras. We each have our own account and can drop in whenever our hearts desire.

At Panera, instead of getting coffee, I get a large coffee cup and fill it with some of their delicious homemade agave-sweetened lemonade, and then the rest with hot water. Panera has a honey bottle always sitting at their coffee station. They do have teabags, but I do bring my own as I want my drink to taste exactly like the medicine bowl from Starbucks.

I have made Little Ziploc’s that I keep one in my purse and one in each of my cars that contains the peach teabag, as well as the peppermint teabag that I need to make the medicine ball drink.

Here is the Free printable that I made to stick inside your Ziploc as of course, we like everything organized and labeled: 

Starbucks Medicine Bomb Packet.pdf

Download PDF • 112KB

So let’s look at the price breakdown: 

Panera sub club membership $8.25 per month (yearly subscription) unlimited drinks

Celestial country peach teabags 20 count $3.99

Trader Joe’s peppermint tea teabags 20 count $2.99

So it comes out to $.35 in teabags and $.28 for one Panera drink, even if you only get one per month.

That comes out to $.63 per drink for a large. Again, this is made with Panera’s homemade lemonade that is sweetened with agave and 100% real honey, not the half sugar substitute that Starbucks uses.

Starbucks price for one Vente medicine ball drink is $5.50 and then a tip, because you know that barista makes you feel guilty if you don’t. 

So let’s do a little comparison. If you go to Starbucks five days out of seven in a month versus five days out of seven in a month for Panera, here is the price difference.

20 trips to get the same tasting drink:

Starbucks $6.00 x 20 =$120.00 

Panera sip club $.63 x 20=$12.60 

And there you have it a yummy treat that you can drink it’s day of the week for an insane fraction of cost, you still get out of the house to grab a beverage and have zero guilt doing it saving money, especially on these unnecessary luxuries is something that I’ve tried to instill in my own children so they can start seeing how a little tweak can get you what you want and save you so much money along. I might’ve been there and I do know that.

Xo, 

Mama