Money in a glassFederal guidelines define moderate drinking as ‘œconsumption of up to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men.’ Some days I don’t drink, some days I have more than two, but overall, my average consumption is about fifteen drinks per week. How about you?

I’m sure there is a myriad of health reasons to cut down my ‘œslightly above moderate’ drinking, but I consider myself a healthy guy in many other respects. I eat obscenely healthy foods; I exercise regularly; and my only vices are diet soda and booze. If I had any incentive to cut down on drinking, it would be financial.

Drinking drains my wallet, and I’m almost embarrassed to say how much. I like fine microbrews and good wine; I’m a bit less discriminating with spirits, so I save money there. Through tracking my expenses, I’ve learned that I spend between $30-$50 per week on alcohol. Granted, half of the money goes to overpriced bar and restaurant drinks, but if you take the median to project spending by the year’s end, the grand total comes out to $2,080 spent on booze.

Depending on where and what you drink, you could be spending a lot more than $2000 a year on alcohol also.

I don’t mean to be a buzz kill, but it’s pretty shocking to see how much money a moderate drinker will spend on alcohol in a year.

Take a rough guess of how much you spend on alcohol each week. Multiply by 52 weeks. Is drinking still worth the money?

It’s a hard question for me to answer. If anything, I might think twice when someone at the bar says, ‘œLet’s have another!’ But if it’s free’¦