The Money You Save From Quitting Smoking

I quit smoking last August and it was one of the best things that I've ever done, both from a money-saving and good-health standpoint (though I have to admit it wasn't all that good for my waistline. Now you know what my resolution is.

I know that a lot of people are trying to quit smoking as a New Year's resolution, so I thought I'd do a bit of math to figure out the amount of money you will save from quitting smoking.

Of course, it's hard to get exact figures because cigarette prices vary so much from place to place. I generally smoked "fancy" cigarettes when I smoked (American Spirits) and I lived in big cities where cigarettes tend to be more expensive. So what I did was I figured how much cigarettes cost at $6 a pack (a typical price for my brand and area) and then in parentheses I've figured the price at $4.50 per pack, which I think is more common in America.

The Money You Will Save from Quitting Smoking

If you are a two-pack-a-day smoker, you will save:

• $4380 ($3285) in a year
  
• $43,800 ($32850) in ten years
  
• $$219,000 ($164,250) in fifty years
  

If you are a pack-a-day smoker, you will save:

• $2190 ($1642.50) in a year
  
• $21,900 ($16425) in ten years
  
• $109, 500 ($82,125) in fifty years
  

If you are a half-a-pack-a-day smoker, you will save:

• $1095 ($821.25) in a year
  
• $10,950 ($8,212.50) in ten years
  
• $54,750 ($41,062) in fifty years
  

If you are a three-cigarettes-a-day smoker, you will save:

• $330 ($247.5) in a year
  
• $3,300 ($2,475) in ten years
  
• $16,500 ($12,375) in fifty years
  

Pretty sobering when you see it all spelled out like that isn't it? I'm not going to get on a soap box about quitting smoking or anything, because I know how you feel. I used to smoke. And I liked it. I quit several times before this last time. Every time it would be so easy that I would just go back to smoking.

If you're not ready to quit smoking yet, I highly HIGHLY recommend switching to American Spirits brand cigarettes. It sounds silly, I know. But the fact that this brand has no other chemicals added actually makes it easier to quit smoking. I used to smoke Camels, but I think that no matter what Your Brand is, you've probably had this experience:

When you run out of cigarettes and you bum one off of someone else, if it's not Your Brand, it's not as satisfying. You feel like you didn't really smoke a cigarette. That's because the special blend of chemicals in Your Brand has gotten you addicted specifically to Your Brand. I'm not even joking about this. I know it sounds all conspiracy theory, but it's true.

Switching to American Spirits breaks you of the addiction to the chemicals in Your Brand, but you're still addicted to the nicotine. However, it was my experience that it was much easier to break the addiction to the nicotine than it was to break the addiction to the chemicals in Camels.

Just my experience.

I found that the book "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking" by Allen Carr helped me to quit. To be honest, it didn't do that much...but it did make me see how silly I was to start smoking again after quitting (which I'd done in the past). I suggest getting this book out of the library.

However, if you can't wait, the EasyQuit Method (aff) seems to be a comparable program.