Save Money, Quit Smoking

Smoking’s expensive, if you’re a smoker, you already know that.  The price of cigarettes in my town is now over $8 a pack. Maybe that doesn’t seem to be a lot of money to you, but if you smoke a pack a day every day, you’ll pay close to $3000 a year to watch your money go up in smoke. You can save money, quit smoking.

Quit smoking and save money

Save Money, Quit Smoking

Let’s start with smoking doesn’t improve the quality of your life and has serious health-damaging side effects. All tobacco products are linked to cancer and heart trouble. It’s not hard to say smoking or the use of any tobacco product is not frugal.

First, my story: I smoked for a long time (over 40 years).  Many times I tried to quit. I tried the gum.  It upset my stomach horribly.  I tried the lozenges.  Those worked well until I stopped taking them.  Without them, the urge to smoke became overpowering.  I even tried hypnosis.  That was a joke for me; my willpower didn’t increase, and the desire to smoke didn’t decrease.  Anyway, you don’t have to tell me it’s hard to stop smoking. I know from experience that it’s terribly hard.  Like anything else worth doing, it requires discipline and hard work.  And that takes motivation.  Nothing helped until I found the right motivation.

The right motivation.  If you know me, you know that my “ah ha” moment would involve saving money.  One day, I realized—I knew, I accepted, not just acknowledged—that smoking equals burning money. I was faced with a choice: continue to smoke and be out the cash (and I knew the price of cigarettes would do nothing but increase) or quit and increase the potential of my disposable income.  I chose to quit smoking.

Ok… To be honest, for a few months, I had to use some of that cigarette money on a program to help me quit.  (I went back to the nicotine gum, but the determination to start saving that money—to be done with the cigarettes and the stop-smoking aids—got me through.

After about six weeks into the quitting program, I saw that my savings were slowly increasing.  After another six weeks of progress, I was impressed with how much money I was putting away.  It took a bit longer to totally get off the gum, but I was hooked on the savings.  It felt so good to have that money left over at the end of the month.

Done correctly, the amount of money I’m talking about could be life-changing.  What would you do with an extra $,3000.00 a year?   Now hold that thought!

The cost of smoking in central Illinois is about $8.00 a pack.  A person who smokes one pack a day spends $42.00 a week or almost $2,200.00 a year on cigarettes.  Over $2,000 a year!  You could save that much if you quit smoking for a year.  But, knowing the amount of savings you’d be giving up (and the effort it took to quit in the first place), why would anyone want to start again?

Are you trying to become free from debt?  Rework your budget with an extra $56.00 a week.  How much faster will this amount of money get you there?  Maybe, you are trying to save money for your emergency account or to add to an existing one.  Would this amount of money make a significant difference?  Are you trying to save for a big-ticket appliance?  A nice vacation? How much faster would you be able to meet your goal?  I am willing to bet the answer for any of these questions is very favorable.  The point is that (in the beginning) $58.00 a week is big. Over the course of several years, it’s huge.  To stop smoking is a way to start saving money now, and you’ll improve the quality of your life in more ways than one.

For smokers: The urge to smoke lasts (on average) only 90 seconds.

Tips:   The urge to smoke will go away.  During an urge, do something/anything and concentrate on that

activity.  Avoid dwelling on the urge.

Cinnamon disk candies help to lessen the intensity of the craving.

You can do it: Don’t let anything talk you out of it: Stop smoking: Save money.

Conclusion

Smoking is expensive. Not only do you buy tobacco products, but the long-term health problems you may encounter due to smoking will also cost. No matter how you look at it. You will save money if you become a non-smoker. Save money and quit smoking.