Braving Dry July: how to transform your booze budget

Are you going dry this July? Apart from the myriad of health benefits, including more quality sleep, better moods and increased concentration, will abstaining from alcohol for a whole 31 days have an impact on your wallet?

We’re a country of drinkers, which is why initiatives like dry July are so successful but even for the more occasional tippler, quitting booze for a month can have a huge impact on your hip pocket.

The average Australian household spends $32.25 on alcohol per week. That doesn’t sound like much but when you look at that over a year, that’s a whopping $1677 annually.

To break it down even more, Pocketbook Australia did the sums and tell us that during the Australia Day holiday period, Australian’s triple their average spend on alcohol.  This takes the average weekly spend from $32.25 to just under $100. In the same vein, Santa and the silly season has us spending 25% more than our average booze haul. How does this play into our financial health?

In the spirit of dry July’s alcohol abstinence, here are some healthier options for your $140 average monthly booze spend, that are sure to please both your body and your bank account:

• Become a gym bunny! Invest in some active wear, find your local gym and at an average of around $60 a month for membership, you could be power lifting or doing combat classes and keeping the change of around $80 a month.
• Take up a hobby. Get creative and take some art classes or buy a camera and dabble in photography. Try out cooking classes – these local Brisbane classes all come in at around the same or less than our average monthly booze spend.
• Invest in education. Sign up for an online course – learn Spanish in 9 weeks for less than $30 a week or become a barista for as little as $150 in total. Quieres un café?
• Put the extra on your home loan. Download your lender’s interest calculator and have a look at how much time you will save on the life of your home loan if you pop that extra $140 a month on your loan. Even better – chat with one of our financial advisers and we can check the health of your home loan and help you save even more.
• Save for a trip. Stack away your $140 a month for a year and take yourself on a holiday. Head down under to NZ for a 4 night snow covered sabbatical in Queenstown for $1600 per person, including flights from Brisbane or head north to the warm sunshine in the Whitsundays, with packages starting from $1100 for 4 nights and flights to Hamilton Island.
• Invest in your financial future. Starting with as little as $1000, use your $140 a month for contributions and turn your booze budget into wealthy wisdom. With small regular contributions and a compounding return, that investment could grow in as little as a couple of years.

Whatever your lifestyle habits and whichever month of the year, a little self-awareness around spending habits could go a long way. If you want to spend better and live easier, give us a call at Campbell Green and we can chat with you about your financial future.