If you were to quit smoking today and rack up all the savings incurred, you could have saved more than a quarter million dollars within the next 20 years. Think it's another exaggerative or inflated figure used to lure smokers away from their habit? This article will show you bits by bits how quickly it adds up.



To begin with, let's calculate the money you spend every year by figuring out how many pack of cigarettes you smoke per day and multiply that number by 365. Right now, the current average price for a pack of cigarettes plus taxes is around $4.50, and using this figure, a pack a day smoker burn through $1,643 per year.

Be forewarned that smoking is a very expensive habit, and never exclude the possibilities that as nicotine addiction goes deeper (which it would, and in rather short time too), you may find yourself upping the number of cigarettes to more than 2 packs a day over the course of years. The annual smoking expense above is an accurate long term average, valid even for those currently smoking under a pack a day.

Until you quit smoking, the financial consequences of lighting up stretch far beyond the cost of cigarettes. For instance, try quoting a 20-year health and term life insurance now and you'll find non-smokers paying a breathtaking $3,000 less every year in premiums than smokers. It doesn't matter even if you think "Oh... I never have any intention to buy health and life insurance anyway", the huge uninsured medical bills associated with illness from smoking in long-run will be an effective wallet-burning substitution.

Need to sell your car? On a trade-in, dealers can easily knock off more than $2,000 just because the car's interior has been smoked out. The same applied to homes as well, only on a bigger scale. What's more - numerous studies and surveys found that smokers earn anywhere from 4% to 11% less than their non-smoking counterpart. That's another few hundred dollars down the drain every year.

These costs don't even factor in the new paint or wall treatments for your rooms, the professional drapery and carpet cleaning, or the hefty bill for teeth cleanings just to get the yellowish stains and odors out. You need to do them regularly or your social life may go limbo. How often have you clean your clothes one extra time just to remove that smoke residue tainted there? Let's get all these totaled up and it's not something negligible.

There you have it, a safe estimation of approximately $5,000 each year which otherwise you could have saved as a non smoker. Remember Albert Einstein once declared compounding interest to be the most powerful force in the universe? If you were to quit smoking and put the $5,000 you're using toward cigarettes each year (you spent all those anyway, did you?) into a retirement plan or pension fund, 401(k) instance, that earns at least 9% annual interest, then you would have $278,000 within next 20 years.

Now close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think of what you can do with all those extra money? But whatever is in your mind, it's slowly moving further and further away thanks to this smoking habit of yours. Don't let it vanishes, now that you know the benefits of quitting smoking, take action and start your smoking cessation endeavor today, not only for your health but also to reduce your financial waste and to put that money toward your lifelong dreams.