Yesterday, my weekly post “Where Did The Dough Go?” which details our weekly spending got 2 great comments. Unfortunately, my reply was a post in it’s own but also very necessary. I was fully aware that by putting our spending and other financial stuff on my this blog that I would be opening us up to scrutiny and possibly a lot of mean responses.

That’s not really the case though—I am blessed to have wonderful people reading and commenting without an ounce of buttheadedness (not sure that’s a word), and that’s just so awesome. Also, I truly appreciate the great comments you all leave here because everybody’s opinion is important and unique and can help as well as inspire.

Okay, so the comments focused on why we spend so much money on alcohol and why I don’t have any control over my husband’s consumption of it. I have to start off by saying this last week, I spent around 7 bucks on alcohol—6 pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

That was actually the first time this year I’ve have bought/drank any alcohol myself, and I still have 4 of them left. I used to drink often, but cut down like 6 years ago to barely nothing. Usually once every 3 or so months, we will plan a fun margarita night and have our daughter stay at her grandma’s.

Growing up, my mother never really drank much but my grandma did. My grandma is pretty much a life-long alcoholic and I know how extreme alcoholism can get. I can’t really go into details about that as it isn’t my place, but I know that alcohol can change people and ruin/destroy/endanger their lives as well as those around them. That is not something I want in our home or around our daughter, and if my husband’s drinking ever so much as sparked that possibility, I’d get him help whether or not he wanted it.

When I met my honey, he drank 5 or more times what he drinks now—amazingly, he has cut down. Poor little liver. Not as an excuse, but more for understanding the situation, my husband has an extremely stressful and labor-intensive job. He always is sore or in actual pain from the the toll this has taken on him over the years.

He says that drinking helps him relax, and I think it probably helps with the soreness and pain too. He doesn’t ever drink and drive, not even after a sip. He and I both feel that we shouldn’t ever drink and drive because aside from endangering our lives, more importantly it would endanger the lives of others. That’s something neither one of us could live with.

I do agree that he drinks too much and it breaks my heart. I worry about his health all the time and he knows this. He doesn’t ever get drunk (aside from when we have a margarita night) though, you really can’t even tell that he’s had anything to drink. I imagine that’s because he used to drink so much years ago that he probably has some kind of tolerance built up or whatnot.

He doesn’t get mean or violent, he just the same wonderful guy that he always has been. His drinking only affects his health and our budget; obviously I would prefer him to cut down a lot, but that’s not my decision. His drinking really doesn’t cause any problems in our lives, aside from the health and money aspects. My honey is a really good person, a wonderful husband and a great father.

Why don’t I have any control over the amount he drinks? He’s his own person and makes his own decisions. No matter how much I want him to cut down, it won’t do any good unless he wants it too. Since it isn’t really having much impact on our lives, I figure let him make decide if and when he cuts down or quits.

As much as I want it, I’m not going to try to change him—he’s still the man I fell in-love with and I knew how much he drank way back then. Nobody is perfect and I have no right to judge him. All I can do is let him know that I worry about his health and hope that one day he realizes what all the alcohol can do to his body—which would affect more people than just himself.

Why do I separate the alcohol spending by his and mine? Sometimes my honey reads my blog and I do it for contrast with the hope that he will realize he might be drinking a little too much. Nagging and b*tching at stubborn people will only make them resentful and angry with you, so I try other avenues.

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned how much money we spend on dining out, I really thought that would come up first. Yesterday was my 5th week reporting our spending, and so far we’ve spent $155.67 on alcohol and $289.17 on dining out. The dining out thing is almost always my fault.

I am such a crappy cook and I don’t even know how to cook, so it always seem easier to eat out. I know I have to stop this, otherwise we might never reach our financial goals. This week though, I doubt we’ll be eating out at all since we’re almost out of money—but that’s good.

Not dining out for a week is going to be strange for us and maybe we’ll be able to keep it up until we only go out for special occasions. That would be cool and undoubtedly better for our health. Does anybody have any advice for learning how to cook when you totally suck?