Your bar tab might be high, but that might not be the the highest bill you receive for your evening. A new report found that Americans picked up the credit card and spent close to $40 billion on drunk purchases last year — that’s right, BILLIONS!
According to Finder.com, 26 percent of people made one or more booze-fueled buying decisions in 2018, which equals out to be a whopping 53.4 million people drunk shopping.
More than half of the 2,100 individuals polled claim some of those late-night orders were purely hunger-fueled, but 10 percent admitted to buying cars, and 14 percent admitted to buying vacations.
The number of people drunk shopping has actually decreased in recent years, but how much they’re spending is way up. Collectively, Americans dropped $39.4 billion on drunk purchases in the past 12 months — up from $30.43 in 2018.
Finder reports that on average, we spent $736 on drunk purchases in 2019 — up from $446.57 in 2018 and $206.00 in 2017. It could be that the spike in spending comes from the plethora of food delivery services available to us that weren’t around even two years ago.
Still, as Finder reported, our spending isn’t just on food (52.06%). Drunk shoppers also admitted to buying shoes and clothes (43.22%) and cigarettes (30.26%). Unsurprisingly, gambling was a popular category, with 28.49% admitting to losing some cash at the casino.
Vacations (14.54%), Tech (18.07%), DVD/Movies (23.18%), and other retail purchases like music and furniture made the list.
The top two categories for both genders was food and clothing/shoes, but women were more likely to choose gambling as a third favorite drunk purchase, while men went with cigarettes.
But for everyone of us of who doesn’t pick up the plastic while drunk, there’s someone who is picking up your slack and spiking the average.
Consider the London-based newlyweds who celebrated their marriage with a honeymoon to Sri Lanka — and apparently too much rum, the Mirror reports. Things got a little wild the first night of their three-week trip, when they decided to sign a three year lease. After finding out the lease would cost them $13,200 a year, they then just decided to buy the whole place. The couple has since invested even more money to turn the hotel into a successful seven-bedroom B&B.
With them to compare to, it makes last Saturday’s drunk shoe purchase seem pretty harmless!
ALSO SEE: 17 States with outrageous laws about drinking.
