It isn’t like I drank all the time. I only spent hard-earned money on alcohol for special occasions like everyone else.

Finishing up a the work week.

Casually hanging out with my friends.

Gathering to watch a game of football on TV.

Getting together for the latest MMA fight.

These are all great reasons to down some of my favorite booze and while each individual occasion isn’t going to break the bank, the cumulative costs of drinking weekly will surely put me over-budget in no time. In fact, it has done exactly that for many months.

The sad part is I never created a separate line item in my budget to handle these type of expenses. It simply was added to the family budget as a “grocery” item. Disregard the fact that I was the only one drinking in my family – our three children’s ages combined wouldn’t break 21 and Mrs. Simple FI hates the flavor of alcohol.

I thought this was ok since it was considered a grocery item right?

How It All Started

Weekly drinking didn’t start out at age 21 for me. I was too busy lifting weights that I didn’t give drinking much thought. My life was filled with too much fun for me to think about it. Actually, it was a rare occasion to see me drinking. In fact, that’s what I was known for.

The guy who hung out at every party but refused to partake in the alcoholic adventures like my peers. I valued social interactions and building friendships more than drinking anyway.

So how did it all start for me?

Well it literally started when my first born was about 6 months old. I was cooking dinner while Mrs. Simple FI was working and decided it’d be a great idea to pastime with a few beers.

It was only meant to be a short term thing. That’s what I believed.

That plan turned into experimenting as many different beers as I possibly could. Even asking my hardcore drinker friends what they recommended became the goal for the weekend. Intensely searching every single supermarket within a 3-mile radius to try their recommendations.

Eventually I narrowed down my list to just three to five selections but that period of drinking was close to ten years. Nine years and eleven months longer than I expected it to be.

Alcohol Was Used As A Crutch

I wasn’t drinking like I initially intended it be – for casual, infrequent occasions. For times when friends invited us over to watch the Super Bowl or celebrating a wedding.

You know, rare events.

Instead, I found reasons to drink. And if there wasn’t a reason for the day, I literally made one up.

Stressed out from work. Everyone could relate to this. More than half of U.S. workers are dissatisfied with their job.

Boredom kicking in. I could be at home relaxing with my family then suddenly get the urge to head to the store and buy a case.

Needed something to drink while playing video games. It started getting bad when the mini-fridge in our bedroom was used to store mini-kegs rather than our son’s baby milk.

It’s the ‘weekend’ routine. As soon as Friday night came, I’d be hitting up all my drinking buddies. If there wasn’t a get-together, I’d open a few by myself at home.

Life wasn’t going as expected. The curveballs life threw at me weren’t always easy to take on by myself. So I drank.

Because an article said drinking was good for my heart. I easily exceeded the recommended one beer per day Dr. Google told me.

Didn’t want to be the only guy at the party not drinking. I went from the guy who seldom drank to the one bringing a cooler full of ice and beer. How the times have changed.

For pure enjoyment. This was when I knew it hadn’t gotten much worse than I had originally planned. I no longer needed to do anything else because I had found pleasure in drinking that was easier to attain than other instances.

Like I stated earlier, it wasn’t hard for me to seek out a reason to drink especially when I found contentment in doing so. Dealing with the aftermath was the worst part of it.

The Day (Or Two) After Drinking

This was the toughest part when it came to drinking. How would the next day play out after I drank the night before?

It usually involved me being lazy, unmotivated, and suppressed. All my financial, physical, and mental goals had no effect for the current state I was in. The only thing I wanted was to lay in bed longer, adopt a hermit lifestyle, and come up with another reason to drink oddly enough.

Those weren’t the only feelings though. What effected me just as much was when it came time to pay off the credit cards and seeing how much was spent on “grocery” items.

I could count on exceeding the family grocery budget by at least $100 per month. If there were events or parties to attend that month, I’d easily spend closer to $200 more.

As much as it hurt us financially to support my bad habits, it’s funny how it didn’t phase me much in the moment I swiped my card. All financial sense went out the window. I only thought about the current moment I was in.

This hurt our finances more than I had realized. By spending more on alcohol that meant spending less on food and ultimately pushing us further away from our financial goals.

Finding What’s Important In Life

Our goals never included me drinking it all away. It meant minimizing our expenses to the absolute amount required for us to live comfortably. It included both of us retiring early or at least giving us a chance to.

Drinking was like a side hustle for me, it became the norm. The difference was this wasn’t paying me anything in return. There needed to be a turning point in order for me to change my lifestyle. A reason to get back to healthier living.

Honestly, I had a difficult time finding inspiration to stop drinking so much. I countered it with working out more in the gym. If I burned enough calories and built enough muscle, it would neutralize all the liquid calories. At least, this is what I told myself to be true.

But I knew deep down that living this way wasn’t going to be successful in the long term.

A higher grocery bill meant we required more in our retirement to sustain this way of living. More drinking equates to substantial increase in health costs when I’m older. Studies show overly drinking during younger years can cause physical damage to vital organs later on.

Life expectancy is much lower for drinkers compared to the general population too.

So in short, I’d live less with my family but if I’m lucky enough to live longer than expected, I’d be spending much more money just to keep me alive.

That was enough for me to stop misusing alcohol or at least minimize it bare minimum.

It was the turning point I needed in life.

Finally Waking Up Sober

After I had the epiphany that spending less time with my loved ones and spending more money was not the end goal I had in mind, I finally made the switch.

It took a change in my environment in order for me to really settle into this new way of living.

First, I needed to make the habit harder for me continue. If I surrounded myself with beer like in my home or attending a party knowing there would be drinking involved, I was only shooting myself in the foot. I needed to remove the temptation to drink by setting up obstacles.

No more alcohol in the fridge. That made it too easy to just grab a cold one when life got hard or I was stressed from work.

Kindly decline attending any parties. At least in the short-term until this new habit became second nature. When my friends asked me what was happening, I was just straight up honest with them. They understood what I was trying to do.

Fill the white space with a hobby. Rather than sitting around the house being bored, I started looking up different interests to improve on. Hobbies like sports photography, playing ukulele, or vlog tips helped me to past the time.

Stop lying to myself. All those made-up reasons to drink were fake and I knew it. They were excuses to get me back into drinking more and spending more of my hard-earned money.

Find a purpose at my job. Waking up everyday to commute was much easier when I did. It felt less like I was leaving my family and more like I was making a difference for the better.

Finally life was beginning to feel whole again. But the benefits didn’t stop there.

The Benefits Kept On Coming

There were 3 main benefits I experienced from drinking much less (sometimes nothing at all) compared to before.

Woke up happier

Hangovers were a thing of the past. Now I can wake up to tackle the day head on. It is enjoyable rising up before the sun does. Watching my beautiful family as they sleep should be every father’s daily goal. You get to experience so much more simply by waking up earlier than everyone else.

Family was happier

Without a beer in my hand, my family gets to play with me more often. We chat more about our day. There are even times when we walk around the neighborhood together now. How we live now is exponentially satisfying compared to before.

Bank account was definitely happier

Maybe the most advantageous of them all. When I’m not stressing out about our finances, I’m more fun to be around. And if I’m spending less money, that means we are marching closer and closer to our financial goals.

Drinking less allowed me to be more productive with my time. It enabled me to have choices of where my time goes. Since we have three children to raise, it wasn’t like I have much time to waste drinking.

Now I can use that time doing more of what I love. This blog was actually created from the “free” time I found. So much has been done since I put the bottle down that I sometimes am amazed from it.

The potential to do all the things I wanted was always there. I just wish that I could have realized it sooner. But forget that, I’m checking off all the boxes on my list moving forward. Building up that emergency fund was first on the list.

The biggest goal I have is achieving financial independence. That would be the ultimate achievement for my family and I.

Day in and day out, it felt like life was improving by a tiny 1%. But even with a tiny percent improvement everyday, the potential is limitless.

How Does Alcohol Relate To Personal Finance?

Exchanging time for money is a huge sacrifice for everyone. It’s time away from loved ones. It means less time to do what you love doing like taking photos or working on a home project. For most people, it is the main source of income we have.

Devoting all those hours to receive a paycheck is huge. I try to be as productive as I can with those hours. I really hate wasting them because of the sacrifices I listed earlier.

But what’s funny was how I was ok with using that money, the one I earned being away from my family, on something that didn’t bring me a massive amount of happiness.

Wouldn’t that be an equal payout? Now that I think about it, it’s what everyone should strive for. Time in, happiness out.

For some, alcohol does bring them joy but I knew it wasn’t for me. It was becoming a bad habit. If I didn’t regain control of it, it would eat up our finances and most likely tear our family apart.

I don’t mean to be extreme when I say that but that’s the best way for me to quit something. When I think of the absolute worst-case scenario, I don’t want to partake in it anymore.

Thankfully I was able to significantly decrease drinking to a mere two drinks in the last seven months. That is a big deal considering how often I was drinking not too long ago.

Now I’m able to focus more on the important things in life like family, finances, and financial independence.

Conclusion

Drinking really isn’t the worst thing you could do to your body. But when it came to my family and our finances, it was taking its toll on everyone around me. Once I found a purpose – pivotal reason – to put the bottle down, it helped me to attain financial goals I never thought I could before. It’s exciting to know that there is way more to earn in the future with that out of the financial picture.

Do you have any vices stopping you from achieving your dream goals?

How Did Alcohol Almost Destroy My Financial Goals?