Drinking cost calculator: what your drinks cost a year
Two numbers, drinks per week and price per drink, are enough to see what alcohol costs you a year and what a few dry nights a week would give back.
Your numbers
You spend about $4,160 a year on alcohol.
In calories, that's roughly 39 days of food
4 dry nights a week gives you back $2,377 a year.
Nothing you type here is stored or sent anywhere. The sums run in your browser.
The math
These are the same sums the Damp app runs during setup.
- Yearly spend = drinks per week × 52 × price per drink.
- One dry night = (drinks per week ÷ 7) × price per drink.
- Yearly money back = dry nights per week × 52 × the value of one dry night.
- Days of food = drinks per week × 52 × 150 calories ÷ 2,000 calories.
A worked example
Ten drinks a week at $8 each is $80 a week, or $4,160 a year. Spread over seven nights that is about $11.43 a night, so four dry nights a week is worth about $45.71 a week, or $2,377 a year. Ten drinks a week is also 78,000 calories a year. At 2,000 calories a day, that is 39 days of food.
What the calculator assumes
- Your drinks are spread evenly across the week. Most people drink on fewer than seven nights, so a real drinking night usually costs more than the average, and skipping one saves more. The estimate is conservative on purpose.
- Your price is honest. Use what you really pay. A drink at a bar costs a lot more than one at home, so if you do both, pick a number in between, and count the tip and the delivery fee if those are part of the habit.
- 150 calories a drink. That is a round figure for one standard drink. A light beer is lower; a cocktail or a large pour can be a good deal higher. The 2,000-calorie day is the general reference used on nutrition labels, not a target for you personally.
It does not count the taxi home, the late-night food or the slow morning after. Those are real, but they are different for everyone, so they are left out instead of guessed.
Why money is the number worth tracking
It is yours, it is big, and you can check it. Once you have seen your own yearly figure, a dry night stops being an abstract good intention and becomes a specific amount you kept. That is easier to care about at 9pm on a Wednesday.
If you want to drink less without giving it up, that approach has a name: the damp lifestyle.
Keep a running total
Damp is an iPhone app that does this sum once during setup and then keeps score. Every night it asks "Dry tonight?" and one tap logs it. A dry night adds a night's worth to your "money kept"; a lighter night adds the difference. When you have a drink your streak resets, but the money you already kept stays.
Damp is a habit tracker, not medical advice. If drinking feels out of control, please talk to a doctor. In the US, SAMHSA's National Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7: 1-800-662-4357.