"I stop in the morning for a 44-ounce pop and a licorice, and that's my breakfast," says a cherubic, middle-aged woman sitting in the conference room where I am attending a budgeting basics workshop.

Broad of beam with a poodle perm and a down-to-earth, humorous demeanor, the woman typifies Missoula's working class.

The instructor responds: "OK, you do that five days a week? And you spend how much every day?"

"Two dollars and 30 cents," the woman says.

The instructor punches these numbers into her calculator. She is about to illustrate to us what she calls the "latte factor. "

"Five hundred and ninety-eight dollars a year," the instructor announces.

The cherubic woman's husband, a balding man in a maroon Montana Grizzlies windbreaker, says with mock outrage, "How much did you say that was?"

"Never mind," says the wife, playfully smacking his shoulder. With a confidential glint in her eye, she tells the room, "He buys bottled water everywhere."