Amount of Money You Could Save With the Sober Curious Concept

I regularly listen to Chelsea Handler's podcast "Dear Chelsea". In October 2023, she had the author Ruby Warrington on as a guest. They were talking about her book "Sober Curious". For more important reasons, aside from money, “sober curious” is a great way to encourage a different type of demographic with a specific personality type to either slow down on drinking or quit altogether. It’s taking the first step to recognizing the potential benefits of cutting back.

Here’s a breakdown of how much money the average person could be spending on alcohol. Let’s say each weekend in a typical, expensive city like Manhattan or Los Angeles, each alcoholic beverage on average is about $14.

• According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the average American adult spends about $862 per year on alcohol.
  

  • For the average drinker, $862 would be about $70+ per month.

  • That would get you 5 drinks over the entire month.

  • If you go out every weekend, that’s only about 1 drink per weekend.
    

• A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heavy drinkers spend an average of $3,120 per year on alcohol.

  • For heavy drinkers, that’s $260 per month.

  • That will get you about 18 drinks per month.

  • If you go out every weekend, that’s about 4-5 drinks per weekend.

Let’s pretend you are a “social” drinker who feels these numbers are low and you can at least double the monthly number for the “average” and/or “heavy” drinker:

We’re looking at $520 per month on JUST alcohol for “entertainment”.

Now, you know you’re not just drinking wherever you’re socializing:

• From BusinessofApps.com, in October 2023, the average monthly observed sales per customer at Uber was $97.
  

We’re at $24 per weekend to and from social events/gatherings. With $520 per month on alcohol, that’s $617 per month.

You can’t just have a typical dinner with drinks, then call it a night! Alcohol makes desserts and other munchies seem like the best idea ever when you’re in the zone.

Say, you spend about $20 per weekend on desserts and munchies = $80 more per month.

Now, we’re at $697. Multiply that by the 12 months of the year and the total comes to $8364 per year.

Of course, saving money is just the major short-term benefit. Long-term benefits can be a lot of positives, like being more present, a healthier liver and improvement in relationships, just to name a few.

Your Big Sis