The Myth That Quiting Smoking Saves You Money
By S. Shugars, special to pfadvice
I know that what I’m about to write goes against everything that the experts say, but the truth is that quitting smoking does not save money. Let’s put aside whether smoking is a nasty habit and look at it purely from a financial perspective.
The main problem I have with the assertion that quitting smoking will save those who quit money is that it fails to take into account that most people who quit smoking will replace the smoking habit with something else. In a perfect world this would not be the case and those who quit smoking would instantly begin living healthy in all aspects in their lives, but the fact is that for the vast majority of smokers this will not happen. To discount that smoking will be replaced with something else, and the money that is involved with that replacement, is where the financial experts fail in their assertion that quitting smoking saves money.
Let me illustrate from my personal example. I smoked half a pack a day for a number of years. That came to about $2.25 a day for my cigarettes. When I quit smoking last year, the conventional wisdom is that I should have saved about $820 this year. The reality was far different.
What really happened is that I ended up spending far more money when I quit smoking. When I stopped smoking, I found that I had the desire to eat much more than when I did smoke. According to my records, I ended up spending about $5 a day more on food to quench my desire to smoke which added up to a net loss of $820. But the spending didn’t stop there.
Eating the extra food when I stopped smoking made my weight balloon. While smoking I never had a major weight issue, but as soon as I stopped, weight quickly became one. That meant that I spent money on diet plans and exercise programs. Adding the costs of these in addition to the extra food put my net loss at close to $2000 for the year compared to if I had continued to smoke. And that doesn’t even take into account the higher cost in non smoking programs and devices that was spent during the 6 months it took me to fully quit smoking.
I do not regret quitting smoking. I think that in the long run it will make me a healthier person and I will live longer. But I think the financial experts do a disservice by not taking into account the reality that most smokers will end up spending more money as they tell you quitting smoking will save you money. The truth is that quitting smoking is going to cost you more, at least for the first year.
While everybody is different, I don’t believe that my circumstances are so unique that they deviate from the average person that quits smoking. My guess is that most people that quit smoking are glad they did so, but also spend more money doing so than if they had kept smoking. This might not be the case for extremely heavy smokers, but I do believe it is for most smokers.
I still believe that there are good arguments to quit smoking and that is the reason I did, but for those who are expecting a windfall of extra money in their budget from doing so will be sorely disappointed.
Great argument. Next you’ll tell us that we shouldn’t solve the gun-control problem because people who want to commit murders will just use a different weapon is guns are to hard for them to obtain and thus we won’t solve any problems. Interesting!
In your argument you neglected the long-term healthcare costs of a smoking habit.
Finally, in the “Quitting Smoking Saves You Money” argument there is an implicit ceteris parabis. If one quits smoking but one replaces it with a junk-food habit, that’s a different discussion. Methinks you might want to consult with Bishop Aringarosa.