Great idea! I've been trying to run in my head for myself, a few expenses at a time, but it's fun to get ideas from other people. I feel like I'm starting to hit the part of frugality / Mustachianism where I've done most of the low-hanging fruit, have good general habits, but need to shake up what I consider the lowest-possible option for any given expense. So, this month, it's Alcohol Expenses!
It was eye-opening to total up our 2016 expenses and discover we spent $2K at various liquor stores. We thought we were reasonably frugal about our booze (not ordering drinks at bars/restaurants, taking advantage of the "buy in bulk" discounts from Total Wine & More (buy 6 bottles, get 10% off), Costco brand hard liquors, etc), but seeing the grand total made us wonder if we could do better.
Progress so far:
* We live in a HCOL city / state with hefty alcohol taxes and some irritating blue laws about where alcohol can/can't be sold (no Trader Joe's 3-buck-chuck). We do, however, visit family members who live in lower COL parts of the country that have lower alcohol prices. With some planning ahead and research for hard liquor purchases, we can "restock the bar" for $3-5 less per bottle if we make our hard liquor purchases out of state when we visit them.
* My wife likes Angry Orchard and similar hard ciders, so I borrowed inspiration from the MMM post about brewing his own apple cider (
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2014/04/22/brew-your-own-cider/) -- I did need to buy a carboy bung and an airlock, and I did have 2 undrinkable attempts, but we got it right on the 3rd try! (Additional step to his recipe -- sanitize the airlock and bung using One-Step cleaner or similar. More expensive, but we lost our first batch to slime mold. Ew.)
** $3 for 64 oz of apple cider + $0.30 for a quarter of a packet of yeast + $0.25 of sanitizer mix (5.5 cents / ounce) < $9 for an Angry Orchard six-pack (12.5 cents / ounce).
* I get suckered in by the end-cap marketing at the larger liquor stores that have the lowest prices on the basics (Total Wines & More always has that one end-cap of "Have you ever tried ___?" that I can't seem to resist.) because unusual liqueurs and digestives/aperitifs (limoncello, ouzo, anise, elderflower, ginger, horchata, etc) interest me a lot. I like to read about what country they are from and the traditions that go with them (many were originally produced for religious or seasonal holidays based on ingredients that were readily available at that time; there are a lot of local cultural traditions in producing alcohol too!). I know this is how the large stores make their money, but damn, it's effective.
** To combat this, I'm instituting a new rule to limit purchases unusual-to-me liqueurs to a single drink when we go out to eat once per month (living in the large city helps us here -- there are a plethora of locally owned restaurants that are actually owned/staffed by someone from that country/ethnicity and the booze tends to be imported or as close as possible to the authentic version too). Counter-intuitive, but I feel like a $10 drink is better than paying $25-35 per bottle every month, IMO.
** Also, buoyed by my cider success, I experimented with making my own limoncello earlier this year and it turned out decent! I already had a lot of the equipment needed from canning (large mason jars, sealing lids, fine mesh strainer) so it didn't involve buying additional equipment for me. And, it turns out you can vary the fruit used and get mandarin orange -cello, grapefruit-cello, and pummelo-cello, which I can't buy at the store at all!
***$6 for organic lemons + $10 for a store-brand vodka + $0.50 worth of sugar for the simple syrup at the end ($0.99 / shot) < $25 for the least expensive bottle of limoncello I could find at the store ($2.25 / shot)
