Budget Q: alcohol $$ if only one of you drinks

[shaynaatl]

How do you treat alcohol expenses in your budget if only one of you drinks (or if one of you greatly outspends the other on alcohol)? 

DH rarely drinks, but I usually have a few drinks when out with friends at dinner.  I also tend to do a lot of girls nights out where I spend a decent amount on alcohol.  We are secure financially and hit all of our savings goals, so it’s not like my alcohol spending is hurting our financial situation.  And DH has never voiced a single complaint about it. 

But sometimes I feel guilty that I’m spending this extra money (approx $100/mo).  Giving him the equivalent of my alcohol spending and telling him to spend it on whatever wouldn’t really work though, because he isn’t the type to buy stuff just for the sake of spending.  This is why I don’t think the idea of separate “fun money” accounts would work for us.  If either of us ever want anything, we just buy it (within reason).  What do you think?  Do I just need to not worry about it since it isn’t bothering him or hurting our finances? 

Also related question- for mint.com purposes, would you consider alcohol spending during dinner to be “Restaurant” spending?  Or would you break it out and stick it in an “Alcohol & Bars” category?

[chessie]

We treat it like anything else, if you use the etc/whatever money thats it no more. DH drinks more then me, he knows he has to keep it in reason though in order to make it through the month. DH normally drinks at home though, so its not an insane amount of money either.  I am not concerned with anything be 100% equal, because it never will be that way--just staying in the budget thats all I care about.

Does your budget work now, does it need more flexibility? 

[glitzy07]

I'm pregnant, so I don't drink now, but here's how we do it. I don't generally buy alcohol for consumption at home, but will have drinks with dinner or get together for happy hour with friends.

H buys beer for home - comes from his fun money account
I go to happy hour - comes from my fun money account
We have drinks with dinner - we consider this part of a "Restaurant" purchase and don't split out the drinks into an "Alcohol & Bars" category
We go out for just drinks together - could come from joint or either of our fun money accounts, depending on what our blanaces look like, and is categorized as "Alcohol & Bars"


ETA: We don't account for every dollar, but that is how we would categorize it in Mint.  Also, I created a separate category for Liquor Store verusus Alcohol & Bars, so in the above scenarios H's beer for home would go under Liquor Store while my happy hour would go under Alcohol & Bars.

[ECB]

I honestly don't know why you're worrying about this!  I like to think we're smart about our $$ and where we spend it, but this is a level of detail in our budget that I couldn't ever get to! 

[maddiepaddy]

As long as you're meeting your overall goals and it doesn't bother your husband, I wouldn't worry about it. Plus, I bet that if you think about it, you'll find a few things that he spends more on than you. For example, the are many grocery items I buy each week that only my husband eats, a ton of vitamins that only he takes, etc... So I feel like when I spend more on certain things, it balances out in the end.

To answer your mint question, I mark all restaurant, bar, fast food, etc just under Restaurants. It makes it easier for me to see our 'out of home' food spending that way.

[ssmjlm]

We tend to be more summer drinkers with cookouts, etc so that all falls under groceries.

Girls nights out, type of thing, is usually fun money.

Dinners out, is just entertainment.

We don't really think about it that much, since we don't have to account for every dollar.

[aspentosh]

I am not much of a drinker (a few times a year, maybe?) whereas H will have a beer with dinner or buy a case of beer for the house. I just build it into our food budget since it's not unreasonable- maybe $20-30 a month?

[kershnic]

We don't feel a need to keep things equal if it's not causing tension. We spend about the same on alcohol, but DW spends more on lunches out at work. It's just the culture at her work. It doesn't do our bottom line any good for me to go out and spend more on lunch just because she did. But I do use it to justify the rare occasion where I want to randomly spend a little more.

I dump alcohol in with restaurants. If I go to happy hour and order an appetizer it's no different than going to happy hour and ordering a beer.

[RandZB]

It's not enough to factor into our budget. I have a drink when I want one. DH doesn't drink at all but if I want a margarita on a girls night I have one. We are gifted with wine every so often so I have a stock at home for the one night a month I might want a glass.

[kateross]

We have an all-inclusive fun money for things like this, so we don't feel guilty about being 'fair'.

But yes, DH buys beer here and there as part of our grocery budget. Considering he has no other vices and we hardly go out to eat anywhere expensive, this don't bother me one bit.

[Deleted]

alcohol comes out of our individual fun money especially if it is for a dinner/night out with my friends. If it is something we pick up while grocery shopping it sometimes comes out of our grocery budget but we are trying to crack down on that.

[Deleted]

I tend to take some of those types of expenses out of my fun money account.

For example, I am a new wine collector (a hobby that I love), so when I'm making investments in the collection, I usually take that out of my account (versus the joint account). If we're just doing a general purchase at the liquor store, or for a party, that would come out of our joint.

If I'm purchasing a few bottles (less than 3 or 4) at the market, that would probably go on our joint account.

The big difference for us is whether I'm investing in my hobby (big case purchases, for example).

Not sure how that helps, but in your example, something like a girl's night would probably come out of my allowance.

[Deleted]

Since no one in your household has an issue with it and it's not stopping you from meeting other goals, I wouldn't worry about it. Why fix something that isn't broken?

In my house, we each get the same amount of fun money per month. If I go out with girlfriends and spend money, that's fun money. If DH buys a 6 pack of a specialty beer for himself, that's fun money. If we go out together for dinner or drinks, that comes out of joint misc money (we lump joint fun in with other general misc stuff, so if we buy more stuff or have a repair that month we have less fun money available).

This works for us because we both generally spend most/all of our fun money and we don't have the budget for me to spend $100 on happy hour on top of what we both already get for fun. If your DH doesn't spend much anyway and doesn't want to budget for higher fun money for himself, then there is no reason to change anything IMO.

[ellipses84]

We put drinks out in the restaurant budget. He orders steak and I order salad, or one of us may eat out more than the other in a month, but its not worth being more detailed if it's not causing any problems. We put drinks at home in the grocery budget.

[Deleted]

We have a "Going Out" category for restaurant and bar purchases. H will go out for drinks with his guy friends sometimes after a couples dinner and it all goes under "Going Out". He also eats lunches at work and I rarely eat out unless I am with him, so he spends more of that money than I do, but I don't really mind as long as there is money left there in case I do want to go out to coffee or lunch with friends during the week. It just isn't worth separating for us.