I was thinking the other day about some of the biggest money wasters. I mean times we literally throw money away. The worst our feeding into our addictions. We pay for convenience. We give in to temptation. We get lazy as hell. I do it. I actually very addictive personality. I cannot try anything just once. Probably one of the main reasons I never tried any hard drugs; I just never wanted to go down that road.
In order to curb our addictions, we first need to identify them.
Smokers! I have been an off again/on again smoker since I was 18. Stupid...stupid...stupid! You know how much I have spent on cigarettes since I first started smoking? Over $10,000 dollars!!! Its true. Around $5 bucks a pack, going through a pack a day for 8 years on and off. I mean $10,000 could have been a down payment on a house. Or I could have bought a car out right. It shows me that in 8 years I could have saved $10,000 dollars if I just put $5 a day into savings instead of into cigarettes. So really think about that. Sit down and do the math yourself.
If you have been a smoker for 20 years, you've spent $36,400 dollars.
50 years and you have spent $91,000 dollars.
I started playing a game with myself. I quit cold turkey and started putting $5 a day into savings. If your brand was $4 or $3 bucks, you could do that too. The point is to find that money like you would if you wanted a pack of cigarettes. Put it into savings, and pretend its gone just like the pack you would have smoked. If you are 20 years old, and you did just that until retirement age (65) you would save over $80,000 dollars plus interest in you keep it in a savings account.
So you and I both know the health risks. If you smoke, odds are you won't make it to 65. But if you quit, and you save...you could be looking at a pretty sweet retirement.
Sometimes if we sit back and really look at the figures and the facts...we realize it's not worth it. It's just not.
