Your $100,000 Smoking Habit

Have you ever thought about the money you spend on your smoking habit?

A few dollars a day doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up over time.

The CDC estimates a pack of cigarettes in the US costs $4.80 on average. If you smoke a pack a

day, that comes out to $1,752 per year.

If you smoke a pack a day for 30 years, that’s $52,560!

Surely you could think of something else more satisfying that you could spend that $52,000 on.

And that doesn’t take into account the rapidly rising price of cigarettes, which has grown faster

than inflation over the last 40 years. And depending on where you live, cigarette prices can be

even higher. In New York City, for instance, cigarette prices have risen to over $11 per pack!

Furthermore, we are not taking into account interest earned on your cigarette money or the tax

benefits you could obtain by putting this money into a tax-sheltered retirement account.

Not to mention lost days of work due to smoking-related illness. Some employers don’t even

hire smokers to begin with; you may have missed out on higher paying jobs due to your habit.

How about health insurance premiums? Smokers can easily pay hundreds of dollars more each

year just for basic health insurance, although their lifetime healthcare costs may actually be

lower than nonsmokers. Insurance companies might actually be making a sizable profit on the

perception that smoking increases lifetime healthcare costs.

How about the money paid into Social Security? Because of a shortened lifespan, smokers get

the raw end of the deal there as well. If you don’t live that much further after age 65, you won’t

be collecting benefits that are anywhere near the amount that you had contributed with your

taxes.

Let’s talk about houses and cars? Do you think cars that reek of cigarette smoke get the same

trade-in value of other cars? How much longer do houses of smokers stay on the market due to

the stench of stale cigarette smoke in the carpets? And what about home insurance premium

discounts for nonsmokers? You don’t get those if you are even slightly more likely to

accidentally burn your house down.

Clearly, the costs of smoking go well beyond the $1,752 per year you spend on buying

cigarettes. Smoking could easily cost you at least $100,000 over your lifetime of smoking.

The CDC estimates that the total economic costs (medical costs and lost productivity) per pack

of cigarettes smoked in the US are $10.47.

That’s $3,821.55 per pack-per-day smoker per year, and $114,646.50 over the same thirty year

period.

Surely that money could be put to better use, rather than lining the pockets of the multi-billion

dollar tobacco industry.

Quit smoking today and watch your bank account grow!

Get the information you need to stop smoking at http://www.CommitToQuitSmoking.com