Alcohol Cost Calculator
See what drinking at the pub, at home, or a mix of both really costs over a year — plus a rough weekly-units check against the NHS low-risk guideline.
Not medical advice. Prices, units-per-drink and the 14-units-a-week guideline are editable examples and general NHS guidance — this is a spending and rough-units estimate, not medical advice. If you're concerned about your drinking, speak to your GP or visit drinkaware.co.uk.
13.8 units/week
Within the NHS low-risk guideline of 14 units a week.
- Move pub drinks to home prices
- £770
- Cut 2 drinks/week
- £381
Ways to save more
- Building in 2 alcohol-free nights a week cuts both spend and units without a big lifestyle change.
- Home drinks are usually cheaper per unit than the pub — but it's easy to pour a bigger measure at home than a bar would serve.
- Many pubs and bars run happy-hour or midweek deals — timing a night out can meaningfully cut the per-drink price.
- Tracking a few weeks of real spending (not just "a couple of pints") often reveals a higher total than expected.
Invest the saving instead?
If you cut back and invested the saving every month rather than spending it, here's roughly what it could grow to.
| Years | Projected pot |
|---|---|
| 10 | £9,958 |
| 20 | £26,360 |
| 30 | £53,373 |
Illustrative only, not investment advice — growth is never guaranteed and real returns will differ.
How this is worked out
Your weekly drinks are priced at pub and/or home rates and multiplied by 52 weeks. A UK pub pint averages around £4.90 (more like £6.75 in London), while the supermarket equivalent is typically around £1.20 — so where you drink makes a big difference to the annual total. We also give a rough weekly alcohol-units figure using an editable units-per-drink value (a pint of ~4% beer is about 2.3 units) and flag it against the UK Chief Medical Officers' low-risk guideline of 14 units a week, spread over 3 or more days.