How much is your drinking habit really costing you?
Take your wealth planning to the next level with my Wealth Planning Toolkit for Google Sheets – just $20.
Plan for recurring monthly income over different time periods as well as windfalls and one-time purchases in the future.
Includes 10 year Net Worth Tracker with Dashboard, Asset Rebalancing Calculator, and advanced FIRE and Coast FIRE Calculators.
Drinking alcohol is deeply ingrained in cultures across the world, and for many people drinking alcohol can help with to reduce stress, become more sociable, and simply have a great time. However drinking alcohol comes with downsides, including impacts on both short-term and long-term health as well as emptying your wallet.
Andrew Huberman covers the impacts of alcohol consumption in his famous podcast titled What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health.
I made this calculator to help you understand how much you spend on alcohol each month and year, and the true financial opportunity cost of your drinking habits.
How to use this calculator
- In the Drinking at home section, you can enter the number of days per week that you drink at home, the number of drinks that you typically have on each of these days, and the average cost per drink at home.
- In the Drinking when going out section, there are a few more inputs. You can enter the number of days per week that you drink while going out, the number of drinks that you typically have on each of these days, and the average cost per drink when you go out. In addition, you can enter the frequency that you order a taxi or ride-share like Uber or Lyft as a percentage of the time that you go out, as well as the average cost per ride. The calculator assumes that when you do order a taxi or ride-share, you will take two rides, to both arrive at your destination and return home.
- In the Opportunity cost section, you can use the slider to adjust the investment rate of return. This rate of return is used to calculate how much your money could grow if you invested it in the stock market instead of spending it on your drinking habit.
The opportunity cost of not drinking
Just like anything else in life that you spend money on, drinking has an opportunity cost. As an alternative to spending your money on drinking, you could instead save it and invest it in stock market index funds like VTSAX. The graph shows how much your money could grow if you invest it in the stock market each year instead of spending it on alcohol, using the investment rate of return that you set with the slider.
