I deleted the line item for “beer” from my budget the other day. In its place, I added a line for “ice cream.” And while eating a bowl of sweet frozen goodness, I realized this: I am such an adult.
As a younger adult (translation: as a junior and senior in college and for the first year or so after I graduated), I wondered why my parents and other parent-aged people drink so rarely. I’d heard the theory that the novelty of being old enough to legally drink wares off. And I knew career-world life has a different rhythm than college life – a rhythm that’s more marathon than sprint and leads to less long nights at the bars and slightly more sleep.
Still, I wondered why the bottle of Crown Royal had been in our family’s pantry for more than a decade and why any leftover beers from holiday get-togethers would have gone stale in the fridge if I hadn’t come to the rescue. All the evidence was before me, but I still couldn’t quite figure out why drinking had become such a rare occurrence for my parents and their counterparts.
Worse yet, I denied the change as it was happening to me for quite a while. For two years, I’d say.
When I moved out of my parents’ house, I created a pretty detailed budget to make sure I’d never be spending a penny more than I was taking in. That would just make me uncomfortable. And I know the presence of a carefully calculated budget makes me pretty darn adult right there, but at least there was a line item for beer!
I mean, c’mon, I wanna be able to go out, right?!? I was living in Chicago for Pete’s sake, and I didn’t want to feel like I didn’t have the money when a text would come in inviting me to some new place on Division on a Saturday night or to a boozy brunch with my soccer team in West Town. So I budgeted for beer, too, just to be safe.
At first, I was glad I did. The very first month I moved out was probably the month I drank the most (bachelorette parties and three-in-a-row brewery tours while on vacation not included). So it was good to know the money was available.
But over time, the beer line item became a benefit for another reason: I was pretty much guaranteed not to spend it, so the $30 I set aside for my drink of choice became a solid cushion to help out if I overspent elsewhere. Like on ice cream.
I was definitely in denial at this point. Sure, my beer money was going unspent and a chunk of my restaurants budget was going to the aforementioned sweet treats, which I would enjoy with my boyfriend during the majority of weekends. All the evidence was before me, in dollars and cents tracked with scribbled notes jotted on a budget printout. But I still couldn’t quite admit that drinking – even in the form of one lonely beer with dinner – had become a once-in-a-while thing for me. Just like it had for my parents.
I guess the final straw that snapped me out of denial was moving to the suburbs. The move sparked some retooling of my budget, and with the help of my accountant-boyfriend, the document migrated to Excel, where it should have been in the first place.
The idea of an ice cream line item started as a joke, and it certainly wasn’t in the first draft of my new, suburban resident budget. But when the phone rang asking if I wanted Dairy Queen on the spur of the moment a few days after I’d moved, I knew it was time.
If I’m ever going to beat myself up for eating too much dessert (which I do sometimes – caring too much about my weight and what I eat is a bad habit I’m trying to break), then I should also credit myself for no longer drinking very much beer.
And if I’m going to admit I hardly ever drink beer, then I shouldn’t leave $30 sitting in my budget to pretend I do.
So Dairy Queen? Heck yes! Culver’s? Check – custard is ice cream budget-approved. I’m an adult, and if ice cream is my favorite and most frequent splurge, then so be it. In fact, bring it on. My taste buds – and my pocketbook – are ready.
Twenty-something Times 