Giving up alcohol for cash…
I am not an alcoholic.
But every Friday… the occupants of my local liquor store think I am.
About a year ago, I sampled a can of Bud Extra and fell in love with it. As with everything else I fall in love with – Rimel Abracadabra Lip Gloss and every decent mascara in Target – the manufacturers either discontinue it or make it extremely hard to find.
After sampling the stuff, I stopped by the liquor store down the street and asked if they had any. They didn’t but they offered to special order it for me. On Friday’s, I stop to buy 2 cans.
Every time I walk into the store, the owner greets me as if I were the reigning Miss California.
‘HELLOOOOOO REEEBEKAH! Look! Look!’ he shouts in his thick Arabic accent as he walks to the back of the store and pulls out 2 of the bright red cans, ‘I order for you!’
His kindness – often expressed a tad too loudly – generally causes stares from other customers.
It’s bad when the customers in a dark, dingy liquor store question the status of your alcoholism. It’s worse when a guy near the magazine rack, who reeks of cheap gin and whose wardrobe of choice is a t-shirt that reads, ‘One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor’, casts a judging glance your way.
I’m considering giving up my weekly stops.
Not because I think alcohol is the gateway to all that is evil – even though that’s what my mother told me… and continues to tell me – but because I feel kinda guilty about spending $3.25 a week on something totally not necessary. Plus, Bud Extra packs a whopping 400 calories inside its thin aluminum walls. Every time I climb the stairs to the tenth floor at work, I think, ‘Well, that’s 1/8th of my Friday beer. I guess I’ll work off the other 1/8th in my lunch climb.’
If I stopped drinking for a month, I could buy a new work shirt… and perhaps fit into an old pair of pants (the pair I wore before the dreaded freshman 15 that lasted sophomore, junior, and senior years…).
Eh. On the other hand…there’s not anything terribly wrong with flushing $13… and despite what Hollywood says, there’s nothing bad about a size six.
Suggestions?
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Posted: February 4th, 2009 under Life in General, Personality, Saving Money.
Comments: 18
Comments
Comment from Roman @ FinancialJesus.com
Time: February 4, 2009, 5:10 am
I find the idea that the local liquor store owner knows by your first name funny enough!
In reality I think you should consider whether these 2 Bud Extras are important enough for you to keep buying them – it doesn’t seem that you spend too much on them. But on the other hand it’s the small expenses combined that keep most people poor.
I have 2 beers a week as well – 1 after every soccer practice I have and wouldn’t even dream of stopping doing it.
The please I get from those 2 beers is just so much more than the little money I spend on them.
Comment from David G. Mitchell
Time: February 4, 2009, 5:43 am
As you get older, you will find that it is easier to give up alcohol. The savings are great and rather than look at it from a weekly or monthly perspective, consider your yearly savings. If you are drinking 400 calories of beer per week, you are adding 1600 calories per month — about 6 pounds per year. Also, the calories are empty calories so you are getting about 20% of your daily calorie requirements from a source that does your body no nutritional good.
Also, the $3.25 you spend each week amounts to $169 per year — more if you did not include taxes in the price that you quoted. What could you do with that at the end of the year if you did not drink it?
All that said, no one should sit in judgement of you because you do seem to be imbibing responsibly. You might want to consider, however, whether you would feel better and more relaxed if you put your beer purchases into the cost of a gym membership and tried going to the gym for a month in lieu of enjoying a brew or two on Friday night.
Comment from Jay Gatsby
Time: February 4, 2009, 7:26 am
I gave up alcohol not for money, but for health reasons. Specifically, I dedicated myself to eating extremely healthy (low-carb) and hitting the gym five (5) days a week. In 2 1/2 months, I dropped from 190 pounds to 173 pounds, and went from wearing size 33/34 pants to size 30! Body fat dropped from 14% to around 8%! I have a genuine six-pack for the first time in my life at 38 years old.
Getting in great shape becomes far, far more difficult as you get older. It isn’t just that your metabolism slows down (it does), but also because your life is filled with responsibilities (work, children, home maintenance, grocery shopping, etc…) Getting to the gym regularly and sticking to a healthy eating regimen becomes a herculean effort. It is far better to start when you are in your 20s and continue than to try and do it in your late-30s or even older.
Comment from Michelle
Time: February 4, 2009, 7:40 am
I *love* beer, hence I really can’t give you an intelligent answer to your question. But … buying the cans at the liquor store is better than going out and buying them at a bar.
Bud Extra … now I’m going to have to find this. I wonder if they have it in Minnesota.
Comment from t
Time: February 4, 2009, 9:42 am
Buy a case of it instead of just buying 2. I thought Bud Extra was Budweiser Select (cheap and nasty), but looks like it’s one of these vitamin infused gimmick beers.
I look at beer/alcohol then same way I look at sweets. I’ll have some here and there, but I don’t mind if I don’t have them.
Comment from Nicole
Time: February 4, 2009, 11:14 am
I think you’re getting a little desperate for a new skirt, besides a size 4 is highly overrated:) We all need that little something special to keep us sane or help us forget that we’re insane.
Comment from M E 2
Time: February 4, 2009, 11:15 am
Tsk, tsk … don’t you know that a size 6 is the new size 14!???! 
LOL
At least according to THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.
Comment from Sheila Joyce Gibbs
Time: February 4, 2009, 9:12 pm
Thankyou for sharing !!
Just be extremely careful with this scourge of society !
My late hubby & I were basically taught to love it, by our very first employers. Career orientated, sure enough, we hit the heights of those trades no problem. But, after 30 yrs of drinking, we each were dealt severe permenant health affliction, one of 5 often dealt, with no cure, suddenly our perfect lives were near destroyed !!
So, just continue being warey, please !
(Should you like to read our 1 pg story, just let me know.)
Comment from Roman @ FinancialJesus.com
Time: February 4, 2009, 10:30 pm
You’re post inspired me to write a post on why you should keep buying those beers 
)
http://www.financialjesus.com/2009/02/04/some-things-are-too-good-to-give-up/
Comment from mikey
Time: February 5, 2009, 7:21 am
solution? cut your expenses in half – buy one can. some enjoyment is better than none.
Comment from Lynn
Time: February 5, 2009, 1:16 pm
That’s hilarious! Frankly, I think you should just fork up the money for a case and be done with the loudmouth.
Do NOT give up the beer.
Comment from Alicia
Time: February 6, 2009, 2:31 am
I think that this money could be spent much more usefully, and it would not be harmful to health. My friend spends a lot of money on alcohol each week, he understands that could save, but he can not refuse alcohol.
Comment from Dan Massicotte
Time: February 6, 2009, 6:48 am
$3.25 for a beer? Wow…They’re more like $6 bux here!
Comment from kevin
Time: February 6, 2009, 9:15 am
me… i say, ask the guy in a funny t-shirt, what his name is. Oh, and peace of mind is the gateway drug to happiness. So if having your favorite beverage (alcohol or otherwise) once-in-awhile gives you peace, don’t worry, be happy…
Comment from Lizzie
Time: February 6, 2009, 8:47 pm
I’m just cracking up “hearing” the guy call out your name . I was in a liquor store last week and asked the guy if he had ever tried the fruit infused michelob ultra. I thought he would never stop laughing….”I’m a guiness man myself” was all he could get out. Silly me.
Comment from HS
Time: February 9, 2009, 12:17 pm
If you like beer just budget it in, you can purchase a case at a grocery store, probably for less and just keep it in the fridge. You also won’t have to deal with the clerk at the liquor store.
HS
Comment from Andy @ Retire at 40
Time: February 22, 2009, 3:59 am
Heh, what an interesting story. You’re right that 2 cans of beer a week isn’t too lavish. I wonder if you’re less worried about the money and more worried about the calories. Either way, I’ve found that I drink less these days, exercise more and feel more fit and healthy because of it. Let us know what you eventually decide.
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