More and more Americans are shopping drunk

Perhaps it doesn't happen often, perhaps you had never even heard of the concept, yet according to a new study by Finder.com, the number of Americans shopping drunk or otherwise under the influence of alcohol has become high enough that the "drunk shopping" business has grown to $14 billion annually. The study states that one in six Americans, or 17 percent of all respondents, like to shop after pouring themselves a nice drink and that, on average, they spend up to $309 per person. In terms of the goods that are purchased, the top two categories are clothing and food, with 47 percent of consumers with a fondness for a nightcap saying they mainly shop in these two categories. Not surprisingly, then, most items bought by drunk shoppers are additional alcohol (we've all been there) and cigarettes but they also spend liberally on gambling - all categories on which 34 percent of respondents said they spend. The most expensive things people buy when they are a little tipsy are motor vehicles, which, by the way, are the most expensive category with an average expenditure of $2,038. Let's just hope they are sober when driving them.

Other things you buy after drinking? Movies and DVDs, music, vacations and travel, and even pets. More than a quarter of these drunk shoppers however are men, accounting for 26 percent versus 10 percent of the female audience. Fifty percent of the female audience surveyed say they mainly buy clothes while 47 percent of men prefer food to tie with clothing. Gambling and cigarettes are the other two favorite spending categories of the male audience. Of all these people, one-third are part of the Millennial generation, which, together with Gen Z, accounts for the largest number of post-third-drink clothing buyers. Obviously, this habit affects the more affluent classes: those earning more than $100,000 annually, or 26 percent of respondents, are almost twice as likely to shop while intoxicated as those earning less than $100,000, who account for 15 percent.