I added up what I used to spend on alcohol. I was wrong about the number.
I thought I knew.
I figured maybe 300$ a month. Bottle of wine here, six-pack there, a few drinks out on weekends. Annoying but not crazy.
So one day I actually did the math. Pulled up my bank statements. 12 months. Every transaction.
The number was 5,200$.
Five thousand two hundred dollars. In one year.
I read it twice. Then I went back and double-checked because there was no way.
There was a way.
Here's where it was hiding
The grocery store wine I'd grab "just for the week" was 40$ to 60$ every single time. Multiply by 52.
The restaurant bills weren't 80$, they were 140$ because two glasses of wine each, every time. The food was the cheap part.
The bar nights I remembered as "two drinks" were four. Plus the Uber home. Plus the dépanneur stop on the way.
The duty free on every trip. The bottle I'd bring to a friend's place. The case of beer for the chalet weekend. The wedding gifts that were actually wine.
The "free" drinks at industry events I'd return the favor for. The bottle of champagne for my wife's birthday that was 90$. The whisky I bought because I felt fancy that one time and drank twice.
It all just disappeared into "groceries" and "restaurants" and "entertainment" on my statements. I never saw it as one line. So it never felt like one number.
What 5,200$ actually buys
5,200$.
That's a trip to Italy. A really nice one.
That's two years of my daughter's daycare snacks.
That's the down payment on something useful.
That's a real number that was just evaporating because I never bothered to add it up.
I'm not even a heavy drinker
Here's the part that bugs me the most: I'm not even a heavy drinker. I never was. If you'd asked me back then, I would have told you I drink "normally." Whatever that means.
Normal is expensive.
What changed
I cut way back. I'm not going to pretend I'm at zero, I'm not. But I'm probably at 1,200$ now instead of 5,200$. Maybe less.
The 4,000$ difference didn't go anywhere fancy. It just stayed in the account. Which, turns out, is its own kind of fancy.
Try it once
If you've never done this exercise, do it once. Just one year. Pull the statements, add the numbers.
You'll be wrong about your guess too.
Almost everyone is.
SP.
This caught my attention as I’ve had a similar experience after quitting Cold Turkey in 2021 . I’d just retired and had plenty of free time , I realized that I was spending more and more on refreshments and asked myself why did I even need the alcohol. With no good answer I stopped . I still craved some of the social experience of having a cold beer or a glass of wine and fortunately I seem to have chosen a path that was becoming increasingly more popular all the time which means that every week there are more options and better quality products available. The critics will quickly retort that you’re not saving money because the Alcohol Free options are just as expensive but what they don’t realize is that once you’ve broken free of the addiction ( which most won’t acknowledge ) you’ll find that one glass of wine is nice with dinner and you don’t need to finish the bottle. That " just one more " at the golf course isn’t appealing anymore. In the end you’ll drink less , drink healthier and avoid the long term issues associated with alcohol. I applaud Upside for their commitment to doing exactly as Simon says and making all of these wonderful options available. Their product line up is a good as the customer service. Never disappointed , always quicker than expected and I’ve never received damaged goods. Thank you Simon to you and your team.
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Upside Drinks replied:
Hi Todd, thank you for this. You’ve nailed something most people miss: the real savings aren’t at the checkout, they’re in not finishing the bottle and not ordering one more at the turn. Anyone who’s lived on both sides of it knows the math is about a lot more than dollars per can.
It means a lot to hear that the products, shipping, and service have all held up. Cheers, and thank you for being on this ride with us!
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