True cost
How Much Does Drinking Cost Per Year?
The price right now
$637.00 — per household per year, US average (BLS)
- $294.00 · at home
- $343.00 · away from home (bars, restaurants)
Prices as of July 2026. This is a household average across everyone, including non-drinkers, which drags it far below what an actual regular drinker spends. The $2,500 weekend-drinker figure below is a computed scenario from drink prices, not a surveyed number — the page shows both because the gap between them is the real story.
Sources: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — household alcohol spending
What it really costs per year
| Cost item | Per year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Drinking at home | $294 | Per household per year, BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey. BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — household alcohol spending |
| Drinking away from home | $343 | Bars and restaurants. Slightly more than the at-home half despite far fewer drinks — venue pricing does that. BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — household alcohol spending |
| A regular weekend drinker (computed scenario) | $2,500 | Roughly what a few rounds every Friday and Saturday costs at bar prices. Illustrative arithmetic, not a BLS figure — but far closer to a real drinker's year than the household average. |
| Everything that travels with a night out | varies | The taxi home, the late-night food, the wasted next morning. None of it appears in the alcohol line, and all of it is caused by it. |
| Total per year | $637 | The BLS household average. If you actually drink regularly, the weekend scenario above ($2,500) is the number to reason with — it is four times larger, because the average is diluted by every household that drinks little or nothing. |
The price in hours of your life
The same yearly figure, converted into working time — one year of this habit costs you:
| Income level | Hourly | Hours of work / year | Work weeks / year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal minimum wage | $7.25 | 88 | ≈ 2.2 |
| Median US full-time income | $30.83 | 21 | ≈ 0.5 |
| Higher incomeexample | $50.00 | 13 | ≈ 0.3 |
Sources: US DOL — federal minimum, unchanged since 2009 · BLS Usual Weekly Earnings, Q1 2026 — median weekly earnings $1,233 ÷ 40h
Prefer to start from your side of the math? Calculate your exact hourly rate first — it's remembered for the session.
Is drinking worth it?
The average is misleading and worth saying so plainly: $637 a household is what you get when you average drinkers with non-drinkers. If you have a few rounds most weekends, your number looks like $2,500 — 81 hours of median-income work, two full work weeks, and that is before the taxi and the ruined Sunday. The at-home versus out split is the most actionable fact here: the same alcohol costs roughly the same annually whether you drink a lot of it at home or a little of it in bars. Venue, not volume, is where the money goes.
For
- The at-home half is genuinely cheap per drink — the average household's $294 is under six dollars a week
- Highly elastic: moving a fraction of your drinking from bars to home cuts the cost sharply without cutting the amount
- Unlike most habits on this site, the social value is the point and does not reduce to a cost per unit
Against
- $637/yr household average ≈ 21 hours of median-income work, and 88 hours at minimum wage
- A realistic weekend habit is closer to $2,500 — 81 hours, or two full work weeks a year
- The alcohol line hides the whole cost: transport, late-night food and a lost morning never get counted
Frequently asked questions
How much does drinking cost per year?
The average US household spends $637 a year on alcohol, split $294 at home and $343 away from home, per the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey. A regular weekend drinker is closer to $2,500.
How many hours of work is a year of drinking?
About 21 hours at the median US full-time income of $30.83/hour for the $637 household average, and about 81 hours — two full work weeks — for the $2,500 weekend-drinker scenario.
Why is the average so low?
Because it averages every household, including the ones that drink little or nothing. The $637 figure describes the population, not a drinker; that is why this page also shows a computed regular-drinker scenario.
Is drinking at home much cheaper?
Per drink, dramatically. The BLS split shows US households spending $294 at home versus $343 out — almost the same money for far more alcohol at home. Where you drink moves the annual figure more than how much you drink.