How much are your vices costing you?
Is alcohol killing your finances? Be honest now. You don’t need to be an alcoholic to spend a shocking amount of money on wine, beer and spirits. A couple of bottles of wine a week between two of you at $15 a pop adds up to $15,420 over 10 years. Two or three more drinks in a bar each week thrown into the mix doubles that spend.
If you’re buying in rounds your spend is likely to soar. And most people who socialise this way can recount spending up large on food later in the evening when their inhibitions became alcohol-infused.
I did just that with industry colleagues one night before Christmas; blowing my budget and healthy eating in one fell swoop.
In late 2016, the Health Promotion Agency published Attitudes and Behaviour towards Alcohol Survey, which looked at the drinking habits of New Zealanders aged 15 years and over. Of those who reported they had consumed alcohol in the previous week before the survey, 20 per cent had at least one experience that may be considered harmful as a consequence of drinking alcohol. The most common harmful experience reported (10 per cent) was “spent too much money on alcohol”.
This equation isn’t just limited to alcohol. Even coffee, which contains the highly addictive psychoactive substance caffeine, can cost the same as those two bottles of wine a week. Coffees at $5 aren’t unusual these days, which can add up to $35 a week.
Cigarettes are more addictive and a one-pack-a-day habit can add up to an entire house deposit. At $40 a pack you’ve spent $143,920 over 10 years. In KiwiSaver at a growth rate of 4 per cent that cigarette habit would have turned into a $177,499 first-home deposit over the decade.
Spending money on alcohol, tobacco, coffee and other additions can become habitual, says Tom Hartmann, managing editor at the Commission for Financial Capability. The big nights out can really put a dent in your budget, especially if that’s a tight budget with very little “me money”.
I have often wondered what percentage of the average student loan was spent on alcohol as opposed to the percentage on living costs and education. Research at New Zealand