Quit Smoking and Save Money

Although the most important, health isn’t the only factor in why people should quit smoking. Cigarette smoking is expensive! The cost of smoking has a direct impact on a smoker’s way of life. It adds up and can really subtract from the amount of money they can contribute to the living expenses of their household.

Smoking is a very expensive habit. It’s worse when you smoke more than one pack per day. Most smokers start out smoking relatively few cigarettes per day, but as they become more accustom to smoking, the number of cigarettes they need to use each day to feel the same type of mood enhancement increases, as does the cost of their habit. This can continue to spiral upward until they make the decision to quit smoking.

Let’s do some math. Right now, let’s calculate the money you spend on cigarettes. How many packs per day do you smoke? If it’s a quarter pack write down .25, a half pack write down .5, a whole pack 1 etc. To calculate your weekly cost simply multiply the number of packs per day by 7. After you have that number, multiply it by your cost per pack.

Here’s an example: You smoke a pack a day. You spend $4.48 per pack.

1 pack x 7 days = 7 packs/week
7 packs/week x $4.48 = $31.36 week

So if you smoke seven packs per week to figure out how much you spend per year just multiply that number by 52. So for our example this is how it would look:

$31.36 week x 52 weeks/year = $1,630.72 year

If you took this out 10 years (not including interest) this would equal $16,307.20. Now let me ask you an obvious question, wouldn’t you rather quit smoking and do something extravagant with $16,307.20 in ten years than have the health complications you’ll get from your smoking habit? I know the answer is yes because you’re still reading this. And this is just for one pack a day. If you smoke two packs, simply double that number to $32,614.40. You can buy a really nice car for that!

If you were to quit smoking a pack a day today and put only the money you’re using toward cigarettes into a 401(k) that earns you a safe 9% interest, then you’d have a quarter of a million dollars within the next 30 years.

If you don’t quit smoking, then you’ll also end up paying other costs associated with your habit. For instance, smokers have heftier dental bills because smoking will cause your teeth and gums to decay. Smokers have to have their clothes dry cleaned more, just to get the stains and odors out.

Life insurance costs more if you smoke. So does health insurance. This is because health care providers are very aware of the impact smoking has on the health economy of our nation and are making smokers pay for that increase.

Do you need to sell your car? If you’ve been smoking in it, you won’t get as much for your trade-in as you would if you had quit smoking. Plus, recent studies have shown that smokers earn less and in today’s workplace and they are at risk of becoming unemployable as more and more companies assume a no-smoking policy.

These costs don’t even factor in the healthcare costs associated with smoking, the costs of heart disease, lung cancer, cancer of the mouth and larynx, emphysema and the rest of those smoking related diseases. When you consider these costs, the cost is even greater.

Here’s the bottom line. Quit smoking for your health, but also quit smoking to reduce your financial waste. Put the money you save to use toward your lifelong dreams.