Outdoorsman

I commented in another thread about how much money I spent on alcohol. I thought it would make an interesting thread to show how bad alcoholism can be financially to all of us.

The other day I added up how much money I spend on booze and its sickening. I easily spent $300 at the bar a week. I was uaranteed $100+ a night on both Fri and Sat. Sometimes I'd spend $150-200 if I was being a big shot and buying shots. It was $25-40 a day during the week which was 2-3 days a week getting blasted on beer. Then a 12 pack or two of off-sale for the house a week on average $20. I spent a minimum of $300 X 52 weeks which is $15,600 spent on poisoning myself. And to top it off, I gambled when I was drunk. It's pretty sickening to think about all the money I pissed away when boozing.

bajosunset

At the end of each day sober I put $20 in a jar - the amount I feel I spent in a day on booze. It motivates to get though the day - gotta bank that $20. Its also quite a reminder how quickly it all adds up. After a period of time - go treat yourself to something special

Alphabet

Great idea, banjo!

bigsombrero

Good thread. At the end of my drinking days I was reduced to buying bottom-shelf plastic gallons of vodka. Those "big shot" days were over...but my drinking habit wasn't.

Good thing you can stop now, when you still have money in your bank account! Keep it there!

least

I spent money on wine that should have been spent on paying bills. Now the bills are paid!

Sasha4

You should still buy yourself something nice to celebrate how well you have done not drinking.

I have a nice diamond sparkler on my finger that I bought 6 months in.
I went for dinner with my little sister at a famous restaurant in the UK after a year.

Still none of it adds up financially to the amounts I spent when I drank and smoked, and that was buying nasty vodka.

I also cannot believe I spent so much money on making myself so ill - physically and mentally.

It really shows how sick I was when at the end of the month, I was struggling until payday so I could still keep buying the stuff I threw up in the shower everyone morning.

neferkamichael

Outdoorsman, FANTASTIC. I pissed away about $300,000 or so in 42 years. Rootin for ya.

BikerAcct

I've started putting away what I spend on what I bought for home use during the week (I'm not including what I spent at bars). I was generally going thru at least 1 bottle of vodka per week and a good 12 pack of expensive Craft Beer. In my little over 4 mos I've save almost 500 bucks. If I were to include the bar tab..wow, I can't believe how much I was spending on booze.

joey8262

me ? in uk we're talking £15 per night without cigarettes-£15x7=£105 PER WEEK-THAT'S £420 PER MONTH-that works out to FIVE THOUSAND UK POUNDS A YEAR-holy fcuk-I've been drinking 20 years-that's MINIMUM £100,000-that's ROUGHLY $157,000-and that's being minimalistic on my average spend-THAT IS A LIFE CHANGING AMOUNT OF MONEY my day just got worse

BuddinK

I've been able to pay lawyer bill, all court costs, as well as paint my place, tile my kitchen, reface kitchen cabinets and put in granite countertops. My second job now pays my rent instead of going back in the register 1 tequila at a time.

kadidee

I've been looking at these calculations too for the past few weeks. The numbers depend, whether I 'treated' myself with a $8-10 bottle of wine (or two) a night, or if I bought the $3 bottles at Rite Aid.

What I spend in one year buying wine and cigarettes (this is my next habit to quit) equals 7 months of rent!!

Another sobering fact (pun intended) is calculating the calories and converting that to pounds gained...

Sasha4

No, your day got better!
You never have to spend that amount of money on alcohol again if you don't want.

If you had not have come here and found help you could be multiplying that yearly figure by 10 for 10 years! That is a lot of money! In some places in the UK it is a house or a very nice car!

Celticgirl

Funny, I was thinking this today. Facing an impending DUI charge, our car insurance going to skyrocket. I figured we spent $230 a month on alcohol, whether at home or while eating out. That will about $2,760 a year - probably enough to cover the insurance increase we're facing.

Good thing we don't drink anymore!

Rascals

Wow when you think about it, it's complete madness how much we spent..

Just shows you how much governments make off tax and Vat on booze...

my drink money was always ring fenced...I missed out on so much because I didn't want to spend the booze money.....

Marcher13

I can't believe how much I'm not spending after five months, I've been putting aside the estimated $80-$100 a week. In a couple of weeks I'm going to spend that first six month's worth on some help in the garden to do some stuff we've really wanted to do. Then I'll save the same amount again with no effort and we don't earn a high wage.

Factor in what I don't spend on headache tablets, indigestion relief, sugary pick-ups for hangovers...wow.

bowder68

Dead on!!I was so irresponsible with money. Just another one of those things I didn't want to face - particularly when drinking. Since I drank all the time I never did!

Zazzzzz

Factoring in all the money I spent on late night pizza makes it even worse. I bought so much terrible food on top of all the cash I blew on beer.

instant

I bought a Gibson SG guitar when I was sober a year. Definitely a luxury

The other day I spent $3000 on an acoustic guitar to commemorate my second year sober. The only other thing I have spent so much money on for me was grog (lol)

Outdoorsman

Tomorrow I won't be logging into my bank account to see how much damage I did over the weekend!

Alphabet

So true, Zazz. All the "drunk eating" I did just added insult to injury. Why did I order so many pizzas? I love cooking!

On average, I'd say I spent anywhere from $60 - $100 a week on booze alone, and that's not counting going out, in which case I would likely spend $40-$80 in a night just on drinks. So much money spent just to be perpetually miserable.