The Cost of Smoking Tobacco

[finesse_r]

Reading another thread where someone bought duty free cigarettes for $20 a carton and was real happy about it got me to thinking about the cost to smoke today. Since I quit in 1984 when smokes where still relatively inexpensive, the cost today is a real shock to me.

So I did some rough calculations just to see what it cost each year for the privilege of scaring up your lungs and clogging up your arteries.

Average cost per pack in USA = $5.51

Typical cost per carton in USA = roughly $50.00 or more

1 pack a day by the pack = $2011 per year. I know some smokers by them by the pack as they think it helps to keep down the number of cigarettes they smoke

2 Packs a day by the pack = $4022 per year.

3 Packs a day by the pack = $6033 per year.


1 Pack a day by the carton = $1825.00 or more per year. So buying them by the pack can save you a couple of hundred more or less depending on cost per carton in your state.

2 Packs a day by the carton = $3650.00 or more per year.

3 Packs a day by the carton = $5475.00 or more per year.

Can you imagine the truly nice collection of pristine S&W revolvers and Third Generation Semi-Autos a man could buy with that much money over say a 20 year period.

When I quit in 1984 I was a 3 pack a day smoker, but a carton of cigarettes was under $5.00 then, but the price was starting to climb each year. So I know there are people smoking as much as 3 packs a day because I used to be one of them.

So looking at the most outrageous situation. Lets say someone smokes 3 packs a day and buys them by the carton and get a good price of only $5000 per year X 20 years = $100,000.00 Since we know cigarettes will go up much more in the future, it will really cost even more. Also few people always buy them by the carton. So $100,000 is a very low estimate of what it will cost them over the next 20 years.

Lets look at a 2 pack a day guy who buys the buy the pack. First of all he will pay more than $5.51 many times but let’s use that figure. $4022 per year for 20 years = $80,440.00. This does not count the damage done to clothes and furniture from dropping burning ashes on them or the added danger of smoking while driving. Ever see someone drop a hot ash in their crotch at 70 miles per hour in heavy traffic! Can you say serious high risk situation.

So what could a man do with an extra after tax $80,000 over the next 20 years? College education for two kids at a state university. Pay off the house note. Buy 3 new cars. Retire early. Get lower cost health insurance. Possibly live an extra 10 or 15 years.

All I can say is smoking certainly must be a lot more fun today than it was when I smoked, because it costs about 25 times as much today as it did when I first got hooked on nicotine, and about 15 times as much as it cost when I decided it was too expensive to continue, when a pack was still under a $1.00 and a carton was $4 and some change.

Any way if your health is not getting your attention, maybe the expense should.

Official estimates by anti-smokers is that it costs society $18 per pack for each pack smoked, so I can promise the cost of cigarettes is going much, much, higher in the next few years.

Smoke’em if you got 'em and want to. I think the cost to society is way over stated. But the cost to you personally is enormous. Good luck if you keep smoking or if you find the strength to stop.

If a heavy smoker also makes a daily pilgrimage to Star Bucks, He probably blows more on caffeine and nicotine than it costs me to live each year.

By the way I do not support all the government taxes on cigarettes, as using taxation to legislate behavior is onerous and illegal to my way of thinking, and it certainly will be used against guns and ammo before to long if we don’t oppose it on cigarettes. The money is not the real important cost of smoking. Personal health is and I think each person should be allowed to make up his own mind about what he puts in his body. But I certainly recommend anyone stop smoking immediately for their own health. That said it is not my job or right to coarse you into doing so.

Since I have not priced cigarettes in decades, my estimates may be off some so feel free to make corrections.

 

[NYlakesider]

Wow I can remember cigarette packs at .25 per. No sales tax.

My folks used to get cartons at a time. Dad was a 2 pack of (unfiltered only way back then) camels a day That was a normal day, if his business problems got him going he could easily do 3 or more packs a day.. Mom was two packs a day of Old Golds!


You would have to be rich to smoke at that schedule today!

 

[williamlayton]

Yes, I can relate to the OP.
Blessings

 

[Rustyt1953]

Three heart surgeries, cancer and a pacemaker.

I'm still payin'.

 

[BC38]

I quit two years ago when the changes to the health care system started allowing insurance companies to charge smokers extra for their health insurance.

My tobacco was already costing me a couple of grand per year, but when they told me that my health insurance premiums would increase
$150 a month if I continued to use tobacco, I decided that doubling the cost to $4 grand a year was more than it was worth to continue indulging in the nasty habit.

After 35 years smoking I still miss it a little sometimes, but I sure don't miss how easily winded I always felt or the strong urge to smoke. And not watching $4 grand a year go up in smoke (literally) is nice too. I can do a lot of things that are a lot more fun with that money.

I'm glad I quit.

 

[Frank237]

Or......

I have a couple of neighbors who are retired, never had a lot of money....living pretty frugally.

Then one day I did the math on their lifestyle. All of them smoke, drink and gamble.

One of them buys a 12 pack and two packs of smokes at the truck stop EVERY day on his way home from work. I often see their vehicles parked outside one of the local Casinos.

The one guy I used to feel sorry for as he's a disabled Vet, not from combat but an injury on active duty. So I used to bring him a deer every season, on my dime and often shared elk with him as well.

Then I noticed him at the Casino...mixed drink in his hand, butt in his mouth. The more I saw him at the Casino's the less I felt I should help him.

Fiscal irresponsibility as well as personal irresponsibility...the root cause to so many issues I saw as a cop. And it never seems to end. They never learn.

 

[Old cop]

I quit in 1969 when filter tip king size were .35/pack, but my annual salary was about $8K. I'd have to take a second mortgage to smoke today.

 

[venomballistics]

Switched to vape nearly a year ago, learned how to mix ejuice .... I figure it out to be about $150 a year if you take on all it's diy options.
But, since eliminating nicotine, I found it pointless and found some hard candy recipes so I can keep most of the flavors I cooked up in vape juice.
Here's to tooth decay and diabetes.

 

[regalsc]

I was going to try to quit when they became $4 a pack. Back in 2006 I found that I could make my own for about $1 a pack. I use a top o matic machine & spend about 90 minutes on Sunday morning making a carton. Of course I think about the health risks involved but I gave up alcohol which was more & expensive & in my case more harmful. Smoking doesn't get everybody but if it does start to get me (already 61) I hope I will be able to quit.

 

[GatorFarmer]

The same people who want to control guns, or even ban them, are often the ones who want to control, or ban, smoking. If you do not trust their slanted figures about guns, why would you believe them about smoking?

The same Surgeon General's office that lies about guns won't lie about cigarettes?

The only sensible conclusion is that, per the best 1957 science, smoking is not only harmless but is in fact beneficial. (Some of the longest lived humans were and are smokers.) So long as you avoid firesafe cigarettes and any pre made filtered cigarettes. Filters are unhealthy.

I smoke a pipe myself.

 

[finesse_r]

The same people who want to control guns, or even ban them, are often the ones who want to control, or ban, smoking. If you do not trust their slanted figures about guns, why would you believe them about smoking?

The same Surgeon General's office that lies about guns won't lie about cigarettes?

The only sensible conclusion is that, per the best 1957 science, smoking is not only harmless but is in fact beneficial. (Some of the longest lived humans were and are smokers.) So long as you avoid firesafe cigarettes and any pre made filtered cigarettes. Filters are unhealthy.

I smoke a pipe myself.

While I don’t trust the Surgeon General’s office or the EPA or their estimates of the actual cost of smoking to society, I do believe smoking is harmful to most people’s health. I can understand why you might assume if they lie so often they are always lying, but I think the evidence against smoking is too strong to ignore. Suggesting it may actually be healthy is laughable as far as I am concerned.

From personal experience I had sore throats, and frequent colds, and a hacking cough, and poor wind when I smoked. I no longer have any of those problems since I quit several decades ago. Even without the Surgeon General and other data, I knew it was not good for a person. Even a cursory look at all the chemicals added to cigarettes would convince most.

Good luck with you decision, and I wish you a long a prosperous life.

 

[walkin jack]

Y'all please pardon my bluntness but as a reformed smoker and the survivor of numerous losses of friends and family to lung cancer and emphysema I'd say the ultimate cost is likely to be a long, slow, painful, miserable and premature death. The cost to survivors is a sadness and sorrow that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

 

[Krell1]

The first post sums it up so well. I know it's hard to quit but, looking at those numbers is a very good incentive indeed.

 

[Bajadoc]

I'm so glad I never got into smoking. It's icky.

 

[BC38]

The same people who want to control guns, or even ban them, are often the ones who want to control, or ban, smoking. If you do not trust their slanted figures about guns, why would you believe them about smoking?

The same Surgeon General's office that lies about guns won't lie about cigarettes?

The only sensible conclusion is that, per the best 1957 science, smoking is not only harmless but is in fact beneficial. (Some of the longest lived humans were and are smokers.) So long as you avoid firesafe cigarettes and any pre made filtered cigarettes. Filters are unhealthy.

I smoke a pipe myself.

Only one thing here I can agree with. Smoking 100% natural tobacco like pipe or cigar tobacco is far FAR less harmful than the paper made from tobacco that gets shredded and rolled up to make cigarettes. My doctor confirms this. All the processing chemicals used to treat tobacco to make it into paper to be shredded and rolled into pre-made cigarettes are the cause about half or more of the bad health problems associated with smoking.

The 1957 "science" you refer to was funded by the tobacco companies to try to "prove" that tobacco wasn't bad for you. It was about as honest and ethical as the skewed "science" that supports global warming (or climate change as they prefer to call it now that it has been shown the planet isn't really warming).

While I don’t trust the Surgeon General’s office or the EPA or their estimates of the actual cost of smoking to society, I do believe smoking is harmful to most people’s health. I can understand why you might assume if they lie so often they are always lying, but I think the evidence against smoking is too strong to ignore. Suggesting it may actually be healthy is laughable as far as I am concerned.

From personal experience I had sore throats, and frequent colds, and a hacking cough, and poor wind when I smoked. I no longer have any of those problems since I quit several decades ago. Even without the Surgeon General and other data, I knew it was not good for a person. Even a cursory look at all the chemicals added to cigarettes would convince most.

Good luck with you decision, and I wish you a long a prosperous life.

This also matches my own experience. I had pneumonia two years in a row - the last two winters that I smoked. I've had two winters in a row since then without getting pneumonia - even though I'm living in a much colder and snowier climate now than I was then.

From any kind of logical examination of the simplest of evidence - from what inhaling other forms of smoke do to you, to how a pipe gets all gummed up with tars - anyone can see for themselves that taking tobacco smoke into your lungs cannot be good for you. Unless you somehow think that gumming up the organs that absorb the oxygen you need to live from the air you breathe is somehow going to be good - rather than bad - for you.

Here's a good example one for you. Have someone hook you up to an O2 sat meter both before and after you have a smoke and compare the readings of the oxygen levels in your blood. When you see your blood O2 saturation drop by 5 or 10 percentage points in a matter of a couple of minutes you can instantly see that you are reducing the supply of oxygen in your blood - and therefore to every tissue in your body. Now if you can somehow make a logical case that oxygen starvation of your entire body is somehow beneficial - especially doing it all day every day for years on end - then I'll believe that smoking is good for you.

 

[Tradewind36]

It cost 6 of my friends and my brother, their lives. Put 4 live rounds in a 6 shot revolver and play Russian Roulette, same difference. Smoking is stupid. End of rant.

 

[Comrad]

I smoked for 40 years and loved it, I started before they changed the rules, back in the days when you could choose a brand that doctors recommended. I swore I would quit when they got to .50 a pack, then $1.00 then 2, and 3 and chased that number up to probably 5 or 6 bucks then quit. Happiest day of my life, love not smoking, been clean for almost 9 years. In NJ they are about 8 bucks a pack.
You have to be crazy to smoke these days. And that story about how hard it is to quit is not true.

When you are ready it's EASY. I quit cold turkey and never looked back. Nothing to it, I recommend it.

 

[italiansport]

I will be going to a memorial service next Tuesday for a friend who just died - Stage IV Lung Cancer. he was a life long smoker until around 5 years ago. Watching him waste away was agonizing for his relatives and friends.
I quit myself(for good) 17 years ago and at that time I decided I would use to extra money to broaden my own gun collection. It has been a wonderful experience over the past 17 years.
Jim

 

[Tradewind36]

Congrats to all those who have quit. The pain and suffering of dying from lung cancer is unimaginable, both for the smoker and family/friends.

 

[rick1085]

Quit a fourty year smoking habit a little over six years ago. Decision was not based on the money. Was motovated mainly by an upcoming surgery. Failure rate for a smoker was more than twice that of a non smoker. The foot surgery failed and had to be redone. Never regretted quitting one bit.

Did use the savings to buy guns as a personal reward for a most difficult quit. Beretta 20ga silver pegion lll, custom rifle, s&w combat magnum, sbh 44mag, and continuing.

Been both a confirmed smoker and nonsmoker. Non smoker's way better!