Marshall Brain's Blog

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This is from "Revenge of the beer geeks", NewsObserver.com, by Julie Johnson Bradford:

Here are the facts: In the past five years, beer sales fell from 56 percent to 53 percent of the U.S. alcohol beverage market, while spirits sales rose from 28 percent to 31 percent (according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States). That's a 3 percent loss for beer, and a 3 percent gain for spirits. Since this is 3 percent of a $48 billion market, the loss is nothing to sneeze at, but it's hardly fatal. Beer still claims over half the dollars Americans spend on alcohol. And, considering that it is less expensive per drink than spirits or wine, beer is clearly the leading adult beverage choice by a good margin.

If the "alcohol beverage market" is $48 billion, and there are roughly 100 million households in the United States, that means that each household is spending $480/year on alcoholic beverages.

That gets you wondering, "what about other drinks?" According to this article: "the nonalcoholic beverage industry... posts about $100 billion in annual sales." That's about $1,000 per household. Also: "More than 10 billion cases of carbonated soft drinks were sold in 2004, generating $66 billion in revenue. The market has grown more diverse, with juices, bottled water and sports, health and energy drinks grabbing a larger share." Energy drinks (like Red Bull) -- just energy drinks -- makes up about $2 billion of the market. According to this article, Milk accounts for about $11 billion.

So, overall, on alcholic and non-alcoholic beverages, the average household in the U.S. spends about $1,500 per year.

What about gasoline, that other essential-to-life beverage in America? According to this article, "Americans guzzle 65 billion gallons of fuel a year." That's 650 gallons per year per household, which is a little lower than I would have expected. At $2 per gallon, that's $1,300 per year on gasoline per household. So we are spending more per year on beverages than we spend per year on gasoline, on average. That is a pretty interesting statistic.

What it also means is that if you could ride a bike and drink rainwater, your family could save nearly $3,000 per year!