BullDog777

So last month I did a little experiment. I pulled out exactly what i used to spend on booze every day and stuck it in a box. Today I counted it.


HOLY S#IT. I counted 863 dollars. That's not bar money either...just snacks and liquor for the month.


It's incredible how much i used to spend.

So how much did you used to spend on booze and smokes and snacks...anything that went with drinkin?

anxiousrock

That’s an amazing savings! I think I am saving about $100 a month. Some months more, some less.
I very rarely went to the bar. Maybe once a year, so just liquor and occasional pizza for me.

Grungehead

I almost always just drank at home, and I usually drank cheap high octane beer. It still came to over $400 a month.

steve-in-kville

I did the math, and when I drank cheap (handles of Canadian whisky, fifths of vodka, seltzer to wash it back) it was a shocking amount! Not gonna give an exact amount, but it was half my rent payment for a large farm house!!

Can't imagine what it was when I went on my $40 - $50/bottle bourbon kick for a few weeks... makes me want to cry some days!

steve-in-kville

What I did there for a while was put that cash away in a can. Every month I'd split the cash with my wife. She got some spending money, and so did I. It was a joke for awhile that she was getting her "drinking money."

Dee74

Everything BD.

I wouldn't know the figure but I ate homebrand hamburger meat mushed up with tomato sauce and pasta for a week cos of the money I'd spent on booze.

D

Eaglelizard

When I was approaching peak-******, the manager at my favorite bar told me that I was his second best customer thus far that year. At that point, about halfway through the year, I had spent about $15K at that bar alone. They really set a high bar these days. So probably about $3k a month on booze and related stuff, like missing flights because I was too drunk to make it to the airport, etc. As for the rest of my money that I didn't spend on booze and women, I reckon I basically just wasted it, ha ;-).

MyLittleHorsie

I never worried about the money on booze - cigarettes, between my husband and I, each a pack a day smoker, it's close to $10,000 we aren't spending on smoking each year. Booze, maybe $2,500 - but add in extra bar bills, dances where you drink at $5 a drink, last year at the one gala we attend the bar bill was $200, then cabs or service cars everywhere... babysitters. If we could get away with only $250 on a date night - dinner and dancing, once a month, easily $3,000 + $2500 booze in the house. for the year - not smoking and drinking saves us about $1,300 a month. If we add back in a $200 a month date night, still saving 11 hundred and that doesn't count ball gowns or the year I sabotaged dh's diet and he had to get a new suit 2 weeks before a ball we were going to. (We had a diet challenge and he was winning LOL Until, I brought home a case of his favourite cookies LOL) Or vacation booze which was it's own tidy little number.

Thanks for this thread, I never thought about booze costing me, cigarettes, absolutely, but alcohol, what's a few bucks here or there...

zjw

I cant recall how much it added up too but it was at least a case of beer every other day (30 pack) sometimes i couldnt make it every other day cause i drank so much well it was more then sometimes... *Sigh*

top that I smoked over 2 packs a day too.

I have absolutly no i dea how i afforded it. like no matter what there was always money for booze.

for a little bit i felt that extra boost in my wallet tho and it was nice. Now adays the money is just going to other nonsense.

So i think well wtf did all the money go? well... back when i drank we went no where did nothing. I said no to so much stuff but yes to my booze and smokes.

now i still dont really go anywhere or do anything myself. But my wife does shes all over the stinking place it seems and my kids are involved in activities that cost money that I'd never coulda afforded back when i drank.

DesertDawg

I never worried too much about what I was spending on booze, per se, but I know I was much, much less responsible with my spending in general when I was drinking. Things like just buying groceries for ill-conceived, booze-inspired cooking projects, for example, or another pair of sneakers I don't need.
Also -- booze + Amazon Prime is a *bad* combination.

Forward12

I always would look at my bank statements and wonder where the hell all my money was going, and after seeing "liquor store, liquor store, liquor store" for about 70% of the purchases, it became pretty obvious.

steve-in-kville

I thought I was really sneaky.... I'd buy a gallon of milk and get cash back on my debit card. Use the cash to buy my liquor. Every once and again, I'd use my paypal debit card, and then it would just show as a paypal transfer on my bank statement.

ljc267

Good post OP.

I drank almost exclusively at home and only beer. I figure, conservatively, I saved 3,500.

wastedpotential

I was always pretty good with my money even though I wasted about $350/month on beer. Which still sickens me when you think over 6 years of drinking how much more I'd have in the bank. I'd always leave my amazon shopping carts open for a few days before I'd hit the trigger. I was never a black out drinker, didn't even like being drunk I would just keep a steady buzz going at night.

One of my former drinking buddies on the other hand is getting worse with his drinking and thinks its awesome when he comes home to packages from amazon he doesn't remember ordering. He thinks its like a christmas present and does it all the time. He buys crazy stuff like $500 drones then crash them drunk the day he gets them. He was doing good with his money for the longest time even while drinking had like 20k in the bank. Then the amazon thing started and I think he started spending alot of money on lottery scratchers hes blown through his 20k and all his pay checks over the last year.

daredevil

Saved money not buying booze, but spend what I save on other stuff. Save for the tax on my body. Just on recovery-meeting donations, I reckon I could have bought a handle of Kettle One, monthly (approaching 3 months).

ljc267

I used to be really ashamed of that.

MyLittleHorsie

Me too. Even if it wasn't that often, it was enough. The mortgage company we have does darn near a financial audit on us, including bank statements, their rates are impossible to get anywhere else. This time handing them over I was like whatever, nothing to hide. Previously it did bother me.

JimmyJam

"approaching peak-******" LMAO on that one......

SoberCAH

The beer, liqueurs and whiskey was really expensive, because I drank so much everyday.

The smokeless tobacco I did back then was expensive enough.