Did you know, that tobacco use negatively impacts personal finance? Tobacco users spend around $25,000 annually which could have been saved.

Tobacco ruins savings

What would you do with an annual savings of about $25,000? It’s a tempting offer, made much more so once you consider the effort required to reap the benefits. If a smoker consumes a pack a day, their monthly costs will average around $2,000. Some examples of these are the expense of medical care, the opportunity cost of lost income, and out-of-pocket money. In other words, if you live in North Dakota, based on U.S. data, some smokers can save as much as $50,000 per year. Statistics Canada. Is cigarette usage truly so detrimental to our health?

More than a billion people worldwide smoke cigarettes, with over 80% of them residing in low and middle-income nations. Some people use smoking as a means of ‘self-medication’ to calm anxious sensations. If you used to smoke, or if you smoke now, think about the times of day when you were most likely to light up. Is it when you’re unburdened by responsibilities? Or, are you like many people who work in stressful environments and enjoy taking a break to go outside and have a smoke?

The smoke break is so well-liked that it has inspired an entire game. The more cigarettes you smoke, the less ‘anger’ you feel. But if anything unpleasant happens at work or in your personal life, you’ll want to grab more smokes and you’ll end up losing the game if you don’t. This is the reality for many people around the world, including many Americans, so the idea is both cool and personal.

Smoking costs a lot

The game’s outcome is symbolic of the millions of lives cut short by tobacco use in the twentieth century. If current trends continue, by the 21st century, the number of deaths attributable to tobacco usage could top one billion. In fact, over 1.2 million of the 8 million deaths brought by tobacco usage each year can be traced back to passive smoking. Including $240 billion in healthcare costs, and around $185 billion in lost productivity due to smoking-related illness and health conditions. Nearly $180 billion in premature deaths, and an additional $7 billion in lost productivity due to secondhand smoking. Smoking cost the United States over $600 billion in 2018.

Why cigarette businesses keep advertising their products despite the obvious financial downside is not hard to fathom. Getting the word out about cigarettes costs businesses billions of dollars yearly. Tobacco businesses spent an estimated $8.2 billion on advertising in the United States in 2019.

Pandemic and smoking

If we could recall the challenges during the height of the pandemic. Producers had a 0.4% gain in sales compared to 2019’s numbers, with 2020 sales of $203.7 billion in cigarettes despite the health problem. Repeatedly giving your money to these businesses is a drain on your finances. If we use the standard American model of 20 cigarettes per day, we’ll lose about $2,300 per year if we smoke.

You won’t have to worry about future health problems or the loss of valuable work time. With the money you save from not smoking for a year, you could buy the iPhone 14 Pro with 1 terabyte of storage. The money you’ll save on medical bills might put you in the driver’s seat of a brand-new car in about the same period of time.

It should be an easy choice between taking an annual vacation and continuing down a road that will cause you to age more rapidly than anyone you know. Nicotine, the highly addictive ingredient in cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and e-cigarettes, further compounds the difficulty of quitting cold turkey. When we smoke, our brains respond by releasing dopamine, making us feel in control. By stimulating the adrenal glands, which then secrete adrenaline, it can also provide a burst of energy. However, the very definition of the phrase should serve as a warning that addiction to any substance can have devastating consequences.

Bad habits die hard

It’s possible you don’t realize it, but if you make this shift, your entire life will change. Quitting smoking will improve the quality of your life in many ways, not just financially. Many of us have successfully kicked the habit of smoking thanks to a friend’s casual question. “Have you ever thought of leaving your job? The question is well-posed since it allows you to reach a conclusion on your own. While they can’t make you quit, their concern has caused them to at least give it some thought.

One of my friends replaced his smoking with playing the guitar on days when he felt the urge to light up. Instead of frittering away his money, he kept himself and his hands busy by jamming with a friend every weekend. If you tried to give your children a hug and they could smell smoke on you, would you feel the same way? Try to put yourself in their shoes and try to guess what they’re thinking and feeling. It’s been shown that smoking can shorten your life expectancy by ten years and cost you tens of thousands of dollars. That could have been better spent on experiences and memories with loved ones.

Time is gold and so is our personal finance

Stop wasting so much time and money on tobacco and you’ll save yourself from arguments, conflicts, wrath, and despair. Do not assume that because you are feeling fine right now that you will never get a smoking-related illness. Tobacco usage increases the likelihood of getting sick. It resulted in lost work time, health insurance exhaustion, and unpaid medical costs for many individuals.

You owe it to yourself and those around you to seriously consider giving up this habit. It’s icing on the cake to know you’ll be able to save a ton of money. Saving the money you would have spent on cigarettes and putting it in a jar is a terrific activity to try. It’s not an actual swear jar, but it can serve any other purpose you see fit. We now answered the subject of tobacco’s effect on our lives and wallets. It should be obvious that giving up this one vice that many of us have can completely alter the direction of our lives forever. What form this shift will take, that we must determine.

To manage your finances more, check out my blog for money-making ideas before 2022 ends.

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