Do you want great coffee but are on a strict budget? You've come to the right place. I'm going to tell you how you can brew great coffee with coffee makers that cost less than $50.

You can brew great coffee on a budget and buy your more expensive brewer later. Here are some choices that you can feel good about. Just know that at this price point, you'll lose the extra convenience and assorted bells and whistles found on more expensive coffee makers.

We'll tell you about the different types of coffee brewers you can get for less than $50. We also give you links to product pages at Amazon.com. (As you know, Amazon.com has some of the best prices and their convenience can't be beat) Or you can buy them at a local store.

Manual Filter Cone

The best way to start with budget coffee making is with a filter cone. Once you get the hang of this, you may not want to use more expensive coffee makers. The filter cone is a plastic cone that sits on the top of your mug or caraffe. You put a filter in the cone, add coffee then pour hot water into the cone and the coffee grounds. The hot water seeps through the grounds, delivering a delicious cup of coffee drip by drip. You can heat the coffee on the stove or in a microwave, and you are in control of the process from start to finish.

Coffee making just doesn't get any simpler than this. And you can buy the cone and a pack of filters for under $10.

Here is a secret that makes this even better: stir the coffee as you pour hot water into the filter. Remember too that the water should be just below boiling. Stirring the grounds lets the hot water contact more of the surfaces of the coffee particles, and you get richer tasting coffee. This is another advantage over more elaborate coffee makers, where the whole process is enclosed and you can't stir the coffee as it brews.

If this sounds right for you, here is a single travel cup cone filter coffee maker . Here is a cone filter with a porceline carafe from Melitta , so you can brew several cups of coffee and keep them hot.(Yes, it is a few dollars more than $50 but still pretty close to your budget.) Here is a Single Cup Coffee Filter Cone for under $5.00.

French Press

A step up from the cone filter is the French press. This is also called a push press, which describes how it works. This is a very old and respected way to make coffee and used at some of the finest restaurants (such as Ruth's Chris). The French Press is simply a glass container with vertical sides, with a mesh filter on a fitted plunger. You place ground coffee into the container, add hot water at the right temperature, and let the coffee brew for 3 to 5 minutes. Then press the plunger down to push the grounds through the water and to the bottom of the container, and get ready to enjoy a delicious cup of coffee. You can buy a French press for anything between $10 and $30, depending on the size and options you chose.

We recommend trying the French Press even if you could afford a more expensive coffee maker. You may enjoy the convenience of making a small batch of coffee. We also recommend getting a glass carafe because you get to watch the brewing process. Again this is something you don't get to do with more expensive coffee makers, so enjoy.

You can browse a selection of French Press coffee makers. The AeroPress Coffee and Espresso Maker is a very popular French press coffee maker at a great price.

Drip brewers

Drip brewers are in millions of homes and office kitchens in the United States and Canada, and around the world. You can think of a drip coffee maker as an automated version of the filter cone brewing method described above.

The drip brewer (instead of you) heats the water to the correct temperature. The water drips into the ground coffee placed inside of a filter in a basket. The brewer then sprays hot water over the ground coffee, where it seeps for a brief time and drips into the glass carafe under the filter. The carafe usually sits on a heating element (hot plate) to keep it warm for serving. Be careful though, this coffee needs to be served fairly quickly before it  "cooks" on the heating element.

The more elaborate drip brewers, with grinders, thermal caraffes, programmable schedules and more can cost hundreds of dollars.

For a drip brewer that works well and stays under $50, we like the DeLonghi 12-Cup Digital Drip Coffeemaker , available for around $40. This is a good move if you want to brew 12 cups at once, and want the convenience of an automated coffee maker. We suggest trying it...and chuckling when your neighbor braggs about his coffee maker that he bought for $200. Maybe you can offer him some of your special gourmet coffee beans that you bought with what you saved with your budget coffee maker.

If you're ready to consider the added conveniences of more expensive coffee makers, check out the Best coffee makers under $100...

Back to find the best coffee makers.