OK my usual reply to this post would be I am being absolutely unreasonable and Gin should always be bought (especially for me) but I have a special case.
My MIL and her partner are coming to stay at the weekend, she called the other night and asked if they could stay and dont get me wrong we are delighted to have them as they live a long way away and because of the distance she has only seen DS once since he was born eight months ago.
The thing is she drinks a lot of Gin and tonic and it is her only real tipple (she wont drink wine or beer) - she is one of that generation who start the evening with a large G&T and has done since she could drink she'll then go on to have another and sometimes another (I have even known her get a bit ratty if the G&T is delayed). She is never drunk and disorderly and I wouldnt have any problems with her around DS as he will be well in bed before it takes effect.
DH and I are properly, truly skint at the moment and just buying in the food supplies for the weekend are going to be expensive enough without adding a bottle of Gin (even supermarket) and a load of tonic to the shopping list. MILs partner likes wine and beer like myself and DH so I would have to buy that as well racking up the bill even further. We havent been buying it for ourselves lately nevermind anyone else.
We are quite private and dont want them to know how skint we are and it will look really odd if we dont have some alcohol in the house to go with meals - esp Sunday lunch, but I cant get away with just buying the beer and wine (on a very cheap deal) and not the gin but I dont want to spend money we havent really got.
We are both atheists so I cant even say we have given up alcohol for lent!