Sober Savers—How Much Are You Spending on Alcohol?

Many are cutting back their drinking and it’s not just their physical health that’s improving!

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 It’s amazing how many people I know who have recently cut way back on, or even eliminated, their alcohol consumption. This is a big trend. What’s led to it? Well, some of the meta studies saying drinking is probably significantly worse for us than we previously recognized. That’s played a role. The much-listened-to Huberman podcast added momentum and social media’s unique ability to help these movements gain exposure and thus spread.

It’s all interesting stuff. But the part that jumps at me, as The Wealthy Barber, is the number of people sharing how much money they’re saving from abstaining. Many people have admitted to me that they were drinking more than, well, they’d previously admitted to themselves. I’m hearing things like, “Oh, we were telling ourselves that we were drinking two bottles of wine a week, but now that we’ve quit, we’re recognizing that, frankly, it was three to four. At $25 a bottle.

That’s obviously $75 to $100 a week. Plus, what we consumed at restaurants and the odd alcohol-created-needed Uber drive… you get the point. We’re talking real money. Suddenly, fully funding our TFSAs seems very possible.” This is the kind of math, or versions of it, I’m hearing a lot of. Feel better. Look better. Save better.

That’s what people are telling me. And cheers to that. Actually, I guess no cheers to that.