Are you a smoker? Quitting smoking means an extra seven hundred dollars — or more — in your wallet in the next year. The average American smoker spends more than seven hundred dollars each year on tobacco products according to a study from Ohio State University.
That same study looked at smoking and wealth in people born between 1957 and 1964. Why? That is the first generation that was warned against smoking and tobacco use by the U.S. Surgeon General. Non-smokers had a much higher net worth — almost fifty percent higher — than people who smoke less than a pack a day and nearly double the net worth of people who smoked a pack a day or more.
Want to look at it another way? If you smoke a pack a day or more, you’re losing around eight thousand dollars every thirteen years. If you just light up a few times a day, you’re still throwing away more than two thousand dollars in the same time period.
And here’s more bad news: an Australian study on smoking found that female smokers had twice the risk of dying from lung cancer than male smokers. The American Cancer Society estimates that more than seventy thousand women will die of lung or bronchial cancer this year. Why are women smokers at higher risk for cancer? Experts aren’t certain but they suspect that women’s smaller bodies may be more susceptible to the toxins in cigarettes.
Here’s one more disturbing statistic: more than seventy percent of smokers WANT to quit… but only around seven percent actually do.
Are you ready to quit? There is lots of support out there. Talk to your family for moral support and your doctor for quitting strategies. Quitting smoking will put money back in your wallet and add years to your life.