How Much Money Do You Save By Quitting Smoking?

You’ve been smoking for years now. It’s a habit you didn’t have any plans of giving up; until now. Your health is beginning to deteriorate, and you’re at an increased risk of developing respiratory complications from the COVID-19 virus. It’s time to take charge of your life, health, and wallet by giving up the ritual of smoking.

That’s right, smoking is burning more than just your lungs to dust. You’re also burning a hole through your wallet and throwing away thousands per year on cigarettes. That’s money you could be saving, investing, or spending on something that doesn’t have a good chance of putting you six feet under.

Just how much money does quitting save, anyway? Let’s dive deeper into the costs of smoking and how quitting today could be the best financial decision you make this year.

Cost of Cigarettes

The cost of a pack of 20 cigarettes varies by state. You can expect to pay anywhere from around $5 to well over $11 per pack, depending on your location. That’s right; eleven dollars for one pack of cigarettes. Let’s do some math here and take a look at what your cigarettes are costing you in terms of cold, hard cash.

Let’s take the cost of a pack of cigarettes from somewhere in the middle. We’ll go with $6.50 per pack. A “light smoker” is someone who smokes a pack or two per week, so for the sake of argument, we’ll focus on heavy smokers; those that smoke over 25 cigarettes per day. That’s about a pack and one-quarter.

Let’s just round it up to two packs per day at $6.50 each. That’s $13 per day, $91 per week, $364 per month. Let that number sink in for a second. That’s the cost of a car payment. Half the rent. Insurance for two months. New clothes. A car part. A new TV. There are so many things that $364 can buy. How about the annual cost? $364 at 12 months comes to $4,368.

You’re essentially paying money to give yourself cancer, increase the risk of developing disease and other ailments, and shorten your lifespan. That’s a lot of money to spend on destroying your health, and that’s just the cost of cigarettes.

Cleaning, Disinfecting

You probably spend hundreds of dollars each month on top of the cost of your cigarettes to clean and disinfect surfaces and clothing. Cigarette smoke seeps into everything, causing surfaces and fabrics to hold the odor for weeks. If you smoke inside, you’ve probably spent time trying to clean that brownish-yellow film off of your walls.

Let’s be conservative and say you’re only spending $100 extra per month on cleaning and disinfecting. That’s not too bad, right? You forgot to add that to your monthly total. Now your habit is costing you about $464 per month.

At this point, you’d have better luck investing in tobacco alternatives (like Black Buffalo) or CBD products to help curb the nicotine addiction and remove the dependency you have on tobacco products. You’d certainly be spending less money per month by switching to CBD oil or tobaccoless dip!

Home, Vehicle, Personal Property

Did you know that smoking inside your home can devalue your home by up to 30%? That’s right; when you go to sell the house and move, you’re going to take a hit, because your smoking habit has more than likely caused extensive cosmetic damage and even damage to the ventilation system. Not to mention, the smell of cigarettes is very difficult to remove from the home of a heavy smoker.

Let’s say your home was worth $150,000. Subtract 30% and that comes to $45,000. You just lost $45,000 because of your smoking habit. Is it starting to add up now? So far, we’re at $45,000 + $5,568 per year (including the new cost of disinfectants). That comes to $50,568.

Medical Bills

But wait, there’s more! We haven’t taken into account the average medical bill for someone who develops complications due to smoking. One of the most common ailments that develop from smoking is lung disease. Lung disease is painful and expensive to treat. The Lung Health Institute reports that costs can range from $3,000-$76,000, depending on the severity. That’s right; $76,000.

We’ll go ahead take a number from the middle for the sake of argument and say that you’ve spent $25,000 on lung disease treatments this year alone. Let’s add that to our current total of $50,568, and you’ve got $75,568 lost to smoking alone in just one year.

The Extra Cost

We know the numbers, but what about the unseen costs of smoking? The stress, anxiety, and pain that you and your loved ones go through costs more than any financial blow. What happens if your smoking habit claims your life like the other 500,000 people that die every year from it?

Often, it’s difficult to see the cost of a habit like smoking, but we hope this article has been revealing enough to make you think twice. There’s never been a better time to put down the habit for good. We believe in you!