20 Ways to Save Money on Getting Drunk

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If you sit down and make a list of the things in your life that you don’t need to have and then rank them by how much they cost you, there’s a good chance that you’re going to find “alcohol” somewhere on the list. None of us really needs to drink. But most of us like to drink at least now and again. Whether it’s the occasional glass of wine with dinner or the weekend-long beer binges with friends, drinking ends up usually costing us a pretty penny.

You can save yourself a lot of money just by giving up the alcohol but what fun would that be? Instead, use these twenty different methods of getting drunk for cheap:

1. Become a fan of art. The best place to get your drink on at no cost is art gallery openings. Artist’s receptions almost always offer free wine. Sometimes they offer beer or hard alcohol, too. Heck, sometimes you can even get hors d’oeuvres! The receptions are free and sometimes they’re even fun. And if not, well then you just duck in and get your drink, make a round through the art and then go to wherever you’re really going for the night.
2. Make friends with bartenders. Most people who work in bars really love to drink. And most of them are more than happy to let loose with the alcohol for their friends who come to hang out with them at the bar. Even if you don’t get your drinks for free, chances are that your bartender friend will make them strong so that you don’t have to buy too many of them to be happy with what you’ve got.
3. Throw parties at your house. If you’ve got the right kind of friends, they are going to bring alcohol with them when invited to your house for a party. If you plan things right, you can provide snacks for the group super cheap and get everyone else to bring the alcohol. If you’re lucky, there will be plenty left over and it will stay in your fridge when the guests leave. Whether it’s a Sunday Night Football party or a board games night, you end up with cheap alcohol and your friends don’t even realize that you used them.
4. Learn about good cheap drinks. There are some kinds of alcohol that you really shouldn’t get cheap because it’s just gross. Cheap vodka, for example, isn’t a good alcohol. But there are some cheap beers, cheap wines and cheap spirits out there that you may find that you actually have a liking for. See if you can find some that you like.
5. Get your drinks over-the-counter. There are all sorts of medicines and toiletries that include alcohol and that let you get drunk for cheap. Take a deep breath and drink them down. Whether it’s mouthwash or after shave, it’s probably cheaper than a bottle of spirits and it’ll still give you that buzz.
6. Go to tastings. Many cities have various types of tastings including wine tastings and tequila tastings. These are often free. The idea behind them is that you will show up at the bar where they are being held and also purchase other alcohol or you will choose to purchase bottles of wine after the tasting. If you can refrain from these extra purchases, you can get your drink on for free.
7. Take a bartending class. Check out the events and classes that are offered through your local bartending school. There’s a good chance that these schools will be offering a free introductory bartending class. Their purpose is to convince you to pay loads of money to take the official bartending course from the school but you’re under no obligation to actually do so. You can just go, learn how to make awesome drinks and make sure that you taste everything that you try to make while you are there.
8. Become a party person. Get yourself invited to parties and what you’re getting yourself invited to is free alcohol. If you feel obligated, show up with a cheap bottle of wine or some inexpensive mixers. And then partake of all of the libations that are flowing freely around you. All this requires is a high tolerance for having lots of wild friends.
9. Sign up for email lists. There are a lot of places out there that are happy to tell you about their drink specials and cheap drinking events. There are even entire websites (such as My Open Bar) devoted to the topic. Start getting on those lists and paying attention to the places where your drinks are going to be cheap. Make sure that you go during those times and don’t get sucked into drinking at those places when the drinks get expensive again.
10. Always suggest pre-drinking to your group before you actually go out. Meet at someone’s house where everyone pools their resources to get drunk together. This way, you don’t actually have to pay for alcohol at the dance clubs or events that you are attending together. You just show up already drunk.
11. Buy a flask. You can sneak your own alcohol in to most places if you get a decent flask and you are subtle about the drinking. Take your flask to the cheap move theatre, the bar, the bowling alley … wherever you want to drink without paying a fortune for the alcohol.
12. Learn the art of flirtation. Both men and women can get drinks bought for them at the bar fairly easily. Ladies should look for the guys that look like they are used to buying drinks for a girl to chat her up. Guys should look for that hot cougar who is all too happy to spend her excess money on avoiding loneliness with a guy for awhile. Yes, you are essentially selling yourself for alcohol but you’re hardly the only one at the bar who is doing it.
13. Encourage your friends to get married. Weddings are one of the best places to go to get drunk for free. You even get a whole meal plus cake out of the deal most of the time. Everyone else is there drinking, the drinks are usually made from “the good stuff” and the happy couple is usually footing the bill. If you don’t have friends who are the marrying type then maybe you should think about becoming a wedding crasher.
14. Don’t eat or sleep. You are going to get drunk a lot more quickly if you are over tired and have no food in system than you will if you’ve had a good night’s rest and a big meal. Getting drunk more quickly means you need to buy less booze and you end up saving money. Plus you save on the cost of the meal that you didn’t eat.
15. Drink quickly. The faster that you get that alcohol into your system, the sooner that you’re going to feel the effects and the less alcohol you’re going to have to buy. You should try to drink high-alcohol content shots instead of drinks that are watered down with juices and sodas.
16. Make your own home brew. It is possible to make your own beer without spending a whole lot of money once you’ve learned how to do so. Think about looking in to this if you’re the kind of person who would prefer to drink at home and / or alone but you want to do it as inexpensively as possible.
17. Be friends with drunks. If you have friends that really like to go out and drink then there’s a good chance that they’ll be happy to pay for you to go out and drink with them. They invite you to the bar because they don’t want to go alone. You say (sadly) that you can’t go because you don’t have any money. They say, “it’s okay, it’s on me”. You do the obligatory fake protest, “oh no I couldn’t” as you put on your jacket and head out for your free drinks.
18. Learn to slum it. A seedy dive bar and an upscale trendy spot are most likely to go offer more or less the same types of drinks but the dive bar is going to have those drinks at a much lower cost. Don’t be afraid to slum it a little bit in order to have a great drunken night at a cheaper price.
19. Don’t be afraid to get dirty. Have you ever been that person at the bar who was already so drunk that you were picking up the half-empty glasses of random strangers and finishing whatever drinks were in there? If you’re not afraid to catch a few germs then you can do this instead of paying for your own drinks. Mixing alcohol like that, you’re sure to get drunk super fast off of other people’s leftovers.
20. Steal alcohol whenever you get the chance. Quick - there are twenty bottles of wine sitting on the table at your company Christmas party. What do you do? You sneak one away from the table and stick into your backpack to be taken home and enjoyed later. Didn’t get that one right? Let’s try another one – you’re housesitting for someone who has a huge liquor cabinet that looks untouched. What do you do? Skim a little bit off of the top of any bottle that has already been opened. You get the idea.