Need an extra push to move your investments around? Try a shot of liquid courage.
Some Reddit users shared their tendency to make drunk financial choices that were actually positive. User sealclubber281 wrote that he checked his bank account and was shocked to see that his tax refund had disappeared — until he remembered that while drunk the night before he used it all to pay off his credit cards.
“After six beers, I start beefing up my savings and paying off credit cards like a mad man,” he said. “Wise move, drunk me. Because I probably would have gone shopping otherwise.”
Other Reddit users have dealt with similar “problems” in the past: Last month one person said they drunkenly upped their 401(k) contribution, and another said he started shaving down his budget after a few drinks. “I honestly think the reason is we’re too afraid to look at our financial situation sober,” the user said. “While drunk you feel more distanced from it and are able to focus on the whole picture, and decide to do things differently that we are habituated to.”
Making investments and credit-card payments is better than the usual effects of drinking on financial decisions: Americans spend an average of $206 on drunk purchases in one alcohol-fueled shipping spree, a study from Finder.com found.
Some 46% of people who regularly drink alcohol each week also make spontaneous purchases while drunk and two in five of these people (39%) admitted to buying shoes or clothes while intoxicated.
Like drunk shopping, drunk financial reorganization is not sustainable, or even advisable in the short term, said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at personal-finance site Bankrate.com. Alcohol is expensive: Americans spent $225 billion on alcohol in 2016, up from $175 billion in 2007, according to Euromonitor International, a market-research firm. American households spend an average of $970 per year on alcohol, according to personal-finance site ValuePenguin, and $3,935 a year on groceries (including $384 on non-alcoholic beverages).
Besides the cost of alcohol itself, reckless choices made while drinking can be costly: a DUI raises car insurance an average of 92%. “Many people have a tough enough time making good financial decisions when they aren’t impaired,” Hamrick said. “Without some kind of intervention or change in behavior, the risks are high that this can spiral out of control, if it hasn’t already. To do otherwise raises the chances of financial disaster.”