When I began my sobriety journey in July of 2022, the amount of money I spent on pot and alcohol wasn’t something I thought about too much. If I needed pot, I scored some. And I pretty much kept my garage fridge stocked at all times with a wide assortment of top shelf craft beers. Yet, a few weeks into my journey, I began to notice I was saving money in sobriety and a lot more than I expected. (Read how the Sobriety Investment Portfolio is doing in the latest update!)
I Saw Immediate Sober Savings On My Visa Statement
Look everywhere you can to cut a little bit from your expenses. It will all add up to a meaningful sum.
– Suze Orman
I think it was after I got my first post ‘sober curious‘ Visa statement that my interest was piqued. My statement was close to $500 less than it normally was! Diving into the charges, and comparing this statement to previous months, two things jumped out at me:
- There were hardly any alcohol purchases – previous months averaged $200 – $300+
- I was eating out at restaurants significantly less often
Now the first observation requires little reflection. I was drinking significantly less, so I’d obviously be buying less beer, but $200 – $300 less beer? That surprised me.
As for #2, after thinking on it, I came to realize that being in restaurants, especially those with beer on tap, had become unappealing. The temptation to drink and feelings of deprivation weren’t worth it. Therefore, I chose to eat at home and brown bag it on the days I went to the office. That added up, too.
These savings didn’t even include what I was spending on my marijuana habit. And I was due for a trip to the local pot dispensary!
Quantifying My Savings
To figure out how much money my sobriety was saving me, I took an average of my monthly beer savings ($250) and added that to my monthly pot outlay ($100). This netted me a monthly savings of $350, not counting drinking alcohol in restaurants.
Since I generally only bought pot quarterly (once every three months), I thought it made sense to translate the money I was saving in sobriety into a quarterly number. The number I arrived at was $1,050 or $4,200 a year! Again, this number does not include expensive drinks purchased in restaurants and bars. If I throw that in, the annual savings would likely be a couple thousand dollars higher!
Don’t save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after savings.
– Warren Buffett
But rather than guess at what the higher number might be, I decided to settle on the conservative $4,200. Because, let’s face it. That’s not chump change! Okay, maybe it is to some people, but not to me.
Saving Money In Sobriety = $4,200+
After I finished calculating my $4,200+ annual sober savings, I felt like someone had given me a salary bump. When you consider that many people need to earn over $5,500 pre-tax to take home $4,200, the savings become more significant.
What if you walked into work today and were handed a $5,500 bonus? I imagine that would feel pretty good. I can tell you in no uncertain terms, that it really does! And the cherry on top? This bonus also comes with no hangovers, no awkward moments, and wondering how you got home.
“Okay,” I thought, “this is fantastic, but now that I’m saving money in sobriety, what should I do with it?”
Sober Investments & Investing
Let me start out by clearly stating that I am NOT an investment or financial professional of any kind and hold no credentials, certifications, or other designations in these areas. What follows is one potential example of myriad options available to anyone saving money in sobriety. I strongly recommend that you speak with a Certified Financial Planner before making any financial decisions with your newfound sober savings. You’ll be glad you did!
I got to thinking of all the nice things I could buy with $4,200. That’s a downpayment on a car. It’s a nice local staycation with the family. It’s my son’s annual tuition at Junior College. And a whole lot more. Many people would probably choose to blow this money on frivolous crap. That seemed, to me, like a missed opportunity.
Since I was working so incredibly hard on my sobriety, I decided this ‘hard won’ money should now work for me. So, in October, I opened an investment account with my first quarter’s sober savings and started my ReturnOnSobriety portfolio. Here’s what it looked like after I funded it:
If you do the math, you’ll see the investments add up to $1093.91. I actually opened the account with $1,100, a little more than the $1,050, but I felt I could easily justify another $50. Moving forward, however, I’ll keep it at the $1,050. That way it’s consistent.
The first security I bought, PLTR, is a speculative stock that’s gotten hammered in the current bear market. It’s my ‘risky’ investment. STOR is a REIT that pays a nice dividend (and is a stock Warren Buffett owns) and T is good ol’ AT&T, which also pays a nice dividend.
Therefore, my opening position consisted of one speculative tech and two dividend stocks. I figured why not have the two dividend stocks pay me while I watch PLTR get bounced around a bit.
How Am I Doing?
I was waiting to write this blog until after I had survived the first quarter’s vicious bear market and had a chance to accumulate another $1,050 to deposit. So, now that I’m saving money in sobriety and investing it, how am I doing? Here’s what my brokerage account looks like today:
As you can see, my $1,100 has grown to $2,234.51. Very little of that has come from stock market returns. The first $2,150 came from my return on sobriety. It’s the money I haven’t spent on pot and alcohol during the past six months. Since my initial investment, I’ve earned $84.51 on the initial $1,100 or 7.7%. Not bad! That’s after losing $50 on PLTR and before any upcoming dividend payments from STOR and T.
As I mentioned above, PLTR is my speculative stock, so I’m not all that surprised I lost 11% on it given how tough the market has been with tech stocks in particular. STOR has held up nicely and T had a bit of a rally.
You’ll also notice that this quarter I added a whopping five shares of AMZN to the portfolio. I expect this one to be a wild ride for a while, but Amazon has gotten so hammered of late I thought it was worth opening a position.
Lastly, I still have $485.98 available to invest. Not sure what I want to buy with that, but it’ll probably be another dividend payer. Afterall, I want this hard won money to work for me, and dividend stocks not only pay cold hard cash, but they’ll balance out the riskier investments.
See how my sober savings investment continues to grow in Part 2: Playing With The House’s Money!
Author of Sober On A Drunk Planet, Sean Alexander, does an excellent job of quantifying the financial costs of alcoholism.
