Can You Still Afford to Smoke?
By Sandra Bright

About 25% of our population still smokes! Each year 440,000 people die from smoking related diseases, according to the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org).

Cost of Cigarettes

Most smokers cannot tell you how much they spend on cigarettes each month. When asked, they can tell you how many they smoke in a day and how much each pack costs, but they tend to avoid completing the math. We like to keep ourselves in the dark about some matters, because when we understand the consequences of our behavior, we are forced to reconsider whether or not it is appropriate.

Now, since gas prices are soaring and the economy is slowing, people are indeed beginning re-think this expensive habit. So, let me help you out of the dark by stating some of the costs of smoking.

Direct Cost

If you are smoking a pack a day, you are spending about $129 per month or $1,551 per year on cigarettes, assuming you smoke a standard, full tar cigarette, at $4.25 per pack. A 40-year-old who quits and puts the savings into a 401(k) could save almost $250,000 by age 70.

Cost of Insurance

“The average smoker will pay at least 40% more for life coverage than they would if they were a non-smoker. While some insurance companies are more forgiving than others, you could pay up to 55% more for your life insurance. Being a smoker affects all forms of life and health based insurance, including critical illness coverage and income protection.” (http://ezinearticles.com)

However, once you have stopped smoking for even one year, your life insurance could be significantly reduced, and could be reduced again after being a non-smoker for two years. Contact your provider for specific information.

Cost of the Smell

Many of today’s smokers are closet smokers. Nobody knows they smoke (or at least they would like to believe people don’t see or smell them). They want to avoid smoking around their family so they sneak off to the garage. If the kids come out to talk with them, they are dimissed (to avoid the second hand smoke). Some of my clients say that after they smoke a cigarette, they don’t want to hug or kiss their boyfriend or girlfriend, spouse, or their kids. The effect is less love and affection and separation from loved ones.

Then there is the cost of selling a car that smells like cigarette smoke, or selling the house with the smell of cigarette smoke on the walls, carpets and drapes.

Social Costs

Closet smokers say it is very stressful to arrange time and places to smoke, hide the paraphernalia and cover up the smell.  Smokers often complain that when they are at a movie, out to dinner or at a party that they have to leave their friends or families just to have a cigarette. The effect is that they miss out on whatever fun is going on.

Cost of a Compromised Immune System

Cigarette smoking adversely affects every single organ in the body.  The real cost of smoking may be a compromised immune system and the collective cost of all the common colds for which you must pay a co-pay at the doctor’s office; the cost of overusing antibiotics; it’s all the sick-days off work, periodontal disease, the asthma, the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), emphysema, heart attack, stroke or cancer, to name just a few.

Cost of Health Care

The total cost of caring for people with health problems caused by cigarette smoking -- counting all sources of medical payments -- is about $72.7 billion per year, according to health economists at the University of California.  (http://www.berkeley.edu)

Cost to Businesses

Smokers may take a break before beginning a project or after completing a project. Now that they have to go outside to smoke, they take extra time away from their work. Sometimes they avoid co-workers or clients because they don’t want to offend with the smell of the smoke on their breath, hair and clothing. Many say they are embarrassed that they are a smoker. They take time to brush their teeth, spray cologne and wash their hands often. In some cases, while a smoker is “out back” smoking, valuable customers are left at the counter, in the waiting room or on the phone.

Smoking cost the nation about $92 billion in the form of lost productivity in 1997-2001, up about $10 billion from the annual mortality related productivity losses for the years 1995-1999, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new lost productivity estimate, when combined with smoking-related health-care costs (reported at $75.5 billion in 1998) exceeds $167 billion per year in the United States.

Cost to the Fetus

Mothers who smoke cause serious problems for themselves and their unborn children. Birth defects cause lifelong problems for the parents and children, not to mention the health care costs of taking care of babies born with birth defects.

Cost to Babies

Babies naturally bond to the touch and scent of their mother and father. What if the mother and father smoke? Many of my clients say they “like” the smell of cigarette smoke, that it reminds them of their mother or father.

Cost to Kids

Annual expenditures through Social Security Survivors Insurance for the more than 300,000 kids who have lost at least one parent from smoking-caused death: 2.6 billion.
(http://tobaccofreekids.org)

Costs to Teenagers

Approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21. In 2005, 23 percent of high school students were current smokers. Over 8 percent of middle school students were current smokers in 2004. Tobacco advertising also plays an important role in encouraging young people to smoke before they are old enough to fully understand its long-term health risks, according to the American Lung Association. (www.lungusa.org)

Many of my clients say they started smoking because their parents, older brother or sister, or their entire families smoked. Some say they started because a cool friend of theirs smoked and they wanted to be cool too. Others say they started because all their friends smoked and they wanted to fit in. Some say they started out of rebellion. Teenagers are strongly influenced by television, popular musicians, actors and athletes and the media. How important is it to give them a better role model?  It may save their life.

Costs to Loved Ones

Many of my clients say that they don’t want to put their loved ones through watching them suffer a long, slow, painful death. Many of these smokers have witnessed a parent, friend or neighbor die this way. Some also say that they want to be able to see their children or grandchildren grow up, graduate, get married, and have families. Some say they want to regain their energy so they can keep up with their children or grandchildren.

Final Thought

Can you STILL afford to smoke?  Our behaviors, moods and attitudes influence everyone around us. Behaviors, moods and attitudes radiate out like a pebble in a pond. What do you radiate? What do you want to radiate?