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True Cost of Drinking Calculator

Beyond the bar tab. See what alcohol really costs you in money, time, sleep, health, and years of your life.

A year of your current drinking
$4,805 a year, in money alone

Everything below comes from the figures in “Refine the estimate”. Change one and every number here moves with it.

Per month$400
Per week$92
Per day$13
Money $4,805 a year, drinks and rides
Time 520 hours a year — 21.7 days
Sleep 135 hours of REM lost a year
Calories 109,200 kcal a year — about 31.2 lb of fat
Life expectancy Within guidelines at 14 drinks a week or under, on the Lancet thresholds

Drawn to scale

Two axes that cannot be redrawn under you: what ten years of this buys, and how much of a year it takes.

Ten years of drinking, against what it buys $48,048

A thousand dollars to two hundred thousand, log-stepped so the first mark is visible against the last.

$48,048
Gaming console PS5, Xbox, or Nintendo Switch — $1,000
Dream vacation A week-long international trip — $5,000
Reliable used car A solid pre-owned vehicle — $10,000
Home down payment A down payment on a home — $20,000
Child's college fund A full 4-year college tuition — $50,000 · $1,952 short
Early retirement fund A strong start to retiring early — $100,000 · $51,952 short
Financial freedom A serious passive income portfolio — $200,000 · $151,952 short
A year of drinking hours, against a year 520 of 8,760 hours

Drinking time plus hangover time, against the 8,760 hours in a year. The denominator is a year, so this bar cannot flatter anybody.

That is 21.7 whole days a year, counted from the hours you gave for drinking and for the mornings after.

The same ten years, two ways

One column is what leaves your account. The other is the same money paid monthly into an index fund at 7% — an illustration of compounding, not a promise about a market.

Spent on drinking $48,048 ten years at today’s rate
versus
Invested instead $69,303 the same monthly amount, 7% a year
The other side of this number

Sobriety Savings Calculator

This page prices what carrying on costs. The savings calculator counts what stopping has already given back — money, calories and hours, from the day you quit.

Count what you have kept

Refine the estimate

Five groups, each one folded away until you want it. Every control is live — there is nothing to submit.

Financial cost $4,805/yr
14
170
A standard drink, not a glass: 12oz of 5% beer, 5oz of wine, a 1.5oz shot. A large pour is closer to two.
40%
0% — all out100% — all at home
This is usually where the number surprises people: the same drink costs three times as much on the other side of a bar.
Time cost 520 hrs/yr
6
140
Door to door: the pub, the pre-drinks, the wait for the ride home.
1
07
The nights that cost you the next morning. Only these carry hangover hours.
4
116
Not the whole day — the part of it you would count as gone.
Sleep cost 135 hrs REM/yr

Alcohol disrupts REM sleep, the phase critical for memory consolidation, emotional regulation, and cognitive recovery. Even moderate drinking before bed significantly reduces REM time.

3
112
The REM cost steps up with the count and then flattens — the reference below is the table this uses.
3
17
Nights, not drinks. A dry night costs no REM at all.
REM sleep loss reference
1 drink−24 min
2 drinks−38 min
3 drinks−52 min
4 drinks−66 min
5+ drinks−80 min
Calorie cost 109,200 kcal/yr
Primary drink type
Calories are per standard drink. A cocktail is mostly its mixer, which is why it tops the list.
Life expectancy Safe range

Based on your weekly intake of 14 drinks, research estimates the following impact on your life expectancy.

Estimated impact Within safe guidelines
Reference levels, drinks per week
  • 0 – 14: Within safe guidelines
  • 15 – 21: −1 to −2 years
  • 22 – 35: −2 to −5 years
  • 36+: −5 to −10+ years
Source: The Lancet, 2018 — “Risk thresholds for alcohol consumption”. Population risk over a lifetime, not a countdown for one person.
Cleared.

This is a price, not a verdict. Every figure above is arithmetic on numbers you typed in, and the arithmetic is the same for everyone. It cannot see your life, and a large total is information about pace and price rather than a statement about you.

The useful next move is the same sum run forwards: the sobriety savings calculator counts what stopping gives back from the day you stop.

How this is calculated

Financial cost is your reported spend projected forward with no inflation or interest assumptions. Calorie figures use about 7 calories per gram of pure alcohol, and weight equivalents use the common approximation of 3,500 calories per pound of body fat — a rule of thumb, not a physiological guarantee. Health and time figures are illustrative averages drawn from public-health sources, not personal predictions.

Sources

Our editorial policy explains how these tools and articles are researched and kept up to date.

Most people underestimate what drinking actually costs them. Beyond the price of drinks, there's the lost time, the degraded sleep, the empty calories, and the measurable impact on life expectancy.

This calculator adds it all up across five dimensions so you can see the full picture — not to shame you, but to inform your choices.

Asked and answered

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this calculator include the cost of alcohol-related health problems?
We only calculate direct costs you can control: purchase price, rideshares, and lost time. Health costs (medical bills, lost productivity, insurance premiums) can add another $5,000–$15,000 per year for heavy drinkers — our calculator is the conservative estimate.
What counts as one drink?
One standard drink = 12oz regular beer (5% ABV), 5oz wine (12% ABV), or 1.5oz spirits (40% ABV). All contain approximately 14 grams of pure alcohol.
Is the compound interest calculation realistic?
It assumes 7% average annual market return, which is roughly the inflation-adjusted historical average of the S&P 500. It's a reasonable illustration, not a financial guarantee.
Why is the sleep cost measured in hours?
We translate REM sleep loss into hours because it makes the scale visceral. If alcohol is stealing 52–80 minutes of REM sleep per drinking night, that adds up to hundreds of hours of lost restorative sleep annually.
How was the calorie-to-fat calculation derived?
One pound of body fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. We divide your annual drinking calories by 3,500 to show the fat-equivalent. This is a simplified model — actual weight impact depends on metabolism and total diet.

Sobriety Savings Calculator

What you have not spent since your last drink, from your own habit, projected out to a year.

Alcohol Calories Calculator

The calories in what you drank, shown beside the food you would have to eat to match them.

Alcohol Units Calculator

Any drink turned into UK units and US standard drinks, measured against the weekly guideline.

Go deeper

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Not everyone quits for the same reason. This structured list covers 10 categories of reasons to stop drinking — find the ones that actually belong to you.

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Every day sober is money back in your pocket. Watch it grow.

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