My liver is groaning at me, and my purse sympathises.
Let me give you an extract from my week:
On Friday I drank with my Grandad. It’s not often we get through a bottle of wine these days, because I’m usually driving afterwards. Last week, though, I stayed over, so we got the corkscrew out.
On Saturday I had a date and drank rather more than usual to compensate for my nerves.
On Sunday I met up with a friend for a drink post-church.
On Monday I helped out at a graduate recruitment evening, and, surprise surprise, more wine was involved.
You get the picture.
In London this is no cheap thrill. Although some of those glasses were free, some had to be paid for. Oh dear.
Another problem with drinking, especially after work, is that I need something to soak up the alcohol in my lightweight body. Last night I ended up spending £6.50 on my post-drinking alcohol sponge. Six pounds fifty! So annoying in the cold light of the sober morning. All I got was some fruit, a sandwich and a chocolate bar. I’d never hand over a crisp ten pound note for so little during the day.
Once the bottle is uncorked, though, money starts to feel like those little Monopoly notes. Somehow not real, with no impact on real life. It does impact, though, of course.
Have you ever had that horrible feeling of looking at your bank statement and seeing a series of amounts you’d forgotten about, post-booze? I just looked at my online banking, and remembered a few amounts I’d pushed to the back of my mind. Some amounts I’m not sure I even noticed at the time; I blindly punch in the PIN number on the terminal, without noticing the number before it.
I blame it on the wine, of course I do. But someone (okay, me…) makes the choice to drink in the first place. So now I’m going to make the effort to cut down. I’m not going teetotal (that would just be silly) but I’m going to start out by limiting myself to one night a week. That way I should also limit the surprises on the bank statement to a more manageable figure.
Cheers!
Shopaholic Cuts Back 