How much money you can save giving up alcohol: After my first sober month since 2010 – I was shocked at the cost, says ADAM LUCK

Just my luck. I manage to lose my raffle ticket number 583 and still win the prize of a lovely bottle of £8.75 rioja at the jazz club draw, when I am meant to be ‘enjoying’ Sober October.

When my wife picked the third raffle ticket out of the hat after no one claimed the first two tickets, it so happened to match my remaining 584 ticket.

Cries of ‘FIX!’ went up when the club crowd thought my wife who was sitting beside me had knowingly pulled the matching ticket from the hat.

I know how they feel because trying to avoid the demon drink in this country, as I career towards 60, and my line of business, journalism, does feel like a fix at times.

Don’t worry, however, my intentions in taking on the October challenge to stop drinking alcohol are not pure.

I will not be crowing about my clear head or dramatic weight loss because I’ve taken on this task simply as a financial exercise.

Just how much could I save ahead of the Budget, what impact would it have on my domestic budget, and could the money put aside turbocharge a pension push?

My family will tell you that I am too mean to be classed as a spender and I am too disorganised to be categorised as a saver but surely it is not too late for this old dog to learn a new trick.

I should start with a confession: I have not managed an entirely dry month since the last Labour government, which was turfed out in 2010, when the average price of a pint was £2.48. It now stands at £4.98.

Remarkably, to me, at least, that £4.98 barely covers the average UK adult total spend of £5.94 per week/£23.76 a month on alcoholic drinks, with £3.60 worth being consumed at home and £2.34 for 2023, according to government figures.

This represents a 29 per cent decline in alcohol consumption on the average total spend of £8.44 in the pandemic year 2020.

These are the kind of numbers that make me very thirsty indeed.

Surely, by the national yardstick, my savings at the end of the month of £23.76 would be so meagre that I would struggle to even by a decent single malt.

When I told my wife that I was embarking on this challenge, she shook with mirth.

Sober October sees participants giving up alcohol for the month to improve their health

To make matters worse I can no longer hide my consumption behind hers. She really only drinks when we head for sunny climes. It makes life for me, largely a home drinker, that much harder.

I’ve also got two boomerang kids in the house, both back from university, and unable to afford London’s stratospheric rental market.

Much as I love them, stress comes with the territory, and I cannot even pretend to take the moral high ground with them when it comes to a drink.

As they both belong to Generation Z, born between 1995 and 2012, they exemplify their age group in that they both drink moderately, if at all, when they grace the dining table.

Neither of my children care for wine, which is my downfall, and they really only drink on a rare night out.

By contrast I belong to Generation X, born between 1965 and 1980, which has a somewhat more chequered record when it comes to alcohol.

With my Generation X, 86 per cent reported drinking in the past year and 55 per cent at least once a week, compared to 75 per cent and 36 per cent for Generation Z respectively, according to the NHS.

One in four members of Generation Z is completely teetotal, which is twice the level of my generation, according to a survey this year by charity Drinkaware.

Its annual survey also shows a decline in binge drinking, which is defined as drinking more than eight units in one session, roughly three pints of beer or a bottle of wine, to its lowest level since it started collecting data in 2018.

This stood at 31 per cent of adults aged in 2018 but now stands at 22 per cent.

But this should come as no surprise because the UK reached ‘peak booze’ in 2004 when consumption reached 9.5 litres of pure alcohol, or the equivalent of 100 bottles of wine, per person per year.

That was three times the consumption in the 1950s.

How the cost of my drinking added up 

My own consumption has reached the point where I drink probably four-five times most weeks. Half a bottle here, or half a bottle there, of an evening. The damage? Between £3.75 to £5.50 a night.

Alternatively, I might reach for a couple of beers at £4.10.

If you are tempted to reach for the low alcohol, or no alcohol, alternatives in order to save money, then best think again.

A 70cl bottle of Gordons Gin will set you back £17 in Tesco but the non-alcohol equivalent Seedlip costs £22.

Beer is a little better with 8 x 500ml of Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5 per cent costing you £11.49 and its alcoholic Double Ghost costing £16.99 for 8 x 500ml.

But the pandemic put me off low-alcohol beer for life. 

My family would tease me about the piles of empty cans of Brew Nanny State, my alcohol-free vegan beer that littered the house, as I contemplated the end of the world.

My approach was to order a pint of lime and lemonade or soda to quench my thirst at £1.50 a pop. 

And it would stop at one as there’s not many people who would go for two pints of lime and lemonade (or similar).

One in four members of Generation Z is teetotal, twice the level of the older Generation X 

What the sober month saved me 

But I cannot pretend my sober month was easy and temptations were plenty.

One evening I went to meet an old acquaintance at one of London’s swankiest restaurants. I tried to cancel on the basis I could not drink. My contact assured me we did not have to drink but proceeded to ask me if it was OK for him to order a glass. I could hardly refuse, through gritted teeth.

But I saved at least £25 on a carafe of house white.

Our holiday week in Crete, however, was rather harder to endure.

I’m not a good flier so I would have shelled out £5.50 for a Black Sheep Ale on the Jet2 flight to steady the nerves.

The next day we went to a posh taverna for some octopus and at the very least I saved £12.50 for two white wines.

The following day we nestled into a more traditional neighbourhood taverna for a long Sunday seafood lunch. I would have happily sunk two beers and glass of white wine, so around £9.

On the Monday we had discovered a bar with a stunning view over the Venetian harbour. Two large beers would set you back nearly £11. I settled for a fresh orange juice at around £3.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I was in charge of a hire car and we were back late so perhaps just a couple of glasses of white. That would be around £7 saved.

On Thursday and Friday, it was back to that harbourside bar. So, I reckon £22 saved, give or take. Then that flight back would require a tranquiliser beer at £5.50.

Even allowing for the odd soft drink I still think I saved around £50. My wife dabbled in the occasional glass of semi-sweet Greek wines, but her damage was minor.

But at the end of month I really hit the jackpot when I went to a pub wake for a former colleague. When I ordered a pint of soda with a lime slice, there was, frankly, astonishment.

My fellow mourners were only placated when I told them it was for an article. Conservatively, I think I saved paying for two small rounds, worth £40.

By the end of month, I had lost 2kg but my sleep pattens were still chaotic and, I strongly suspect, my blood pressure was no lower.

After totting up my careful calculation I’ve saved around £180 courtesy of Sober October. Imagine if I multiplied those savings over decades. Why, perhaps I could even retire.

Money expert Sarah Coles says giving up alcohol can give you more time to plan your finances

Where to put the money you could save

Sarah Coles, of investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, says: ‘Adam’s results demonstrate just how powerful it can be to cut an expensive habit from your life, especially one you’re not benefiting from.

‘It can work for everything from evenings out with people you feel you ought to see, to takeaways that never deliver quite the joy you were expecting or subscriptions you don’t get much value from.

‘Giving up alcohol also has the benefit of giving you more clear-headed time, and while you might not want to spend every second of it planning your future, freeing up a bit more time for your finances could also pay dividends.’

If I funnelled that £2,160 I’d save a year into a fixed one-year Isa paying 4.6 per cent, at the end of the year I’d have £2,261 – a decent £101 boost.

If I saved it into an easy access savings account paying 5 per cent, I’d have £2,271. But rates are variable in an easy access savings account.

But the biggest boost could come from redirecting the money to a pension.

Someone who is 37 and earned £30,000 a year could add £109,000 to their pension pot by the time they retire at 67, Ms Coles tells me. This assumes there’s 5  per cent growth and added tax relief.

A higher or additional rate taxpayer could also reclaim the additional tax relief on their self-assessment tax return – but this wouldn’t automatically go into a pension.

Although I’m not 37, there’s still lashings of savings to be had by redirecting that £180 per month into my pension.

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