The economics of smoking is becoming a major issue in my budget. Cigarette prices went up over a dollar a pack in the last 4 months due to various taxes. Needless to say, this has had an impact on my budget especially with Randy and I both being confirmed smokers and it is forcing me to give even more serious consideration to quitting.
For those non-smokers out there, let me remind you that nicotine is one of THE MOST ADDICTIVE substances. Quitting smoking is akin to quitting cocaine or heroin. There is nothing easy about it. It is not just as simple as not doing it. Withdrawal has serious physical and emotional effects that sometimes need to be handled medically. For me, those symptoms include crushing depression.
I would love to quit for both the health benefits and the financial benefits, however, it is not something that I approach lightly. I know what quitting has done to me in the past and frankly it scares me. I am going to attempt it simply because the cost of quit smoking aids has become less than the cost of smoking.
Right now, I am smoking a pack a day. A pack of cigarettes cost me $3.14 right now and I have to say that I smoke discount cigarettes. The average cost of a pack of cigarettes here is probably closer to $4. If I figure out how much I spend per week and per month, it comes out to $21.98 per week and $87.92 per month. It’s probably closer to $25 and $100 as there are days when I smoke slightly more than a pack. I am going to average up and say $25 per week.
I can buy Habitrol 21 MG patches online for $13.50 per week. Nicorette is $19.50 and Nicoderm CQ for $25.88. There are generic store brands available at Walmart and other drug stores. If I remember correctly our local Walmart has Equate Nicotine patches for $28 for 2 weeks worth. That works out to $14 per week.
I have also looked into trying Chantix and the cost of that is approximately $140 per month. If you can take it, I have heard wonderful things about it from other people who have tried it.
I will also need to take a anti depressant while I am reducing my nicotine intake. The quit smoking aid buproprion is also an anti depressant so I will need to get a prescription for that. It runs about $40 per month.
If I buy the cheapest nicotine patches plus the generic form of buproprion, my budget will look like this for a month:
Nicotine Patches $54
Buproprion $40
Quitting Total $94
Smoking $100
Budget gains from quitting $6
Now there are other indirect savings such as needing less allergy medicine, fewer trips to the doctor with sinus and other respiratory infections, etc but I can’t really say that I can budget that savings.
There are many, many benefits of quitting both health and cosmetic. It has been proven that people are healthier if they quit smoking. It can lengthen your life by as much as 15-20 years. It can reduce wrinkles, improve your dental health, and make your fingernails stronger.
Now I know these seem like trivial things but when you add them all up, the benefits of quitting begin to look more attractive. Big sigh! Yes, I am seriously thinking about quitting.
Does anyone have any tips? Have you quit? What helped you the most?
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Tags: smoking
[...] the original post: Quit Smoking on a Budget | Oh My Aching Debts Author: luke Categories: Quit Smoking, Uncategorized Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Leave a [...]
You should really think about quitting, and save the money to buy all the drugs/counseling you need to get over the habit. I understand that it’s physical/emotional torture as it deals with chemicals in your body – my parents struggled to quit as well, but it was worth everything in the end.
They now have their lives back, and their health.
CD, Believe me, I am thinking about quitting but it is not something I take lightly. Quitting is hard… emotionally and physically. Still I know both the health and financial benefits of quitting and I am going to try.
I took Chantix to quit smoking and I had been smoking for over 30 years. If you have prescription coverage, it is $25 a month. I took it for two months and toward the end of the first month, I decided I was done and haven’t touched one (or wanted one) since. There was no withdrawal symptoms, no anxiety, no weight gain.
The only thing I did find with Chantix was that I couldn’t take it as directed. The first week I took it twice a day as recommended but the second week I had to switch to once a day (only in the morning). If I took the dose at night, I couldn’t sleep and if I did – I had horrible nightmares. When I took it once a day in the morning – it worked perfect. At the end of the second month, I took them every three days for a week before I quit. They recommend three months but I didn’t need it.
One note is that I have had other friends who took it and didn’t have the success I did so I’m not sure what the deciding factor is.
The man and I quit a few years back and it lasted three weeks shy of a year. We ran into a very stressful time and picked up the smokes. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
But we quit again yesterday. We’re in the midst of some health issues and just joined a gym and figure workouts and good nutrition will go much further if we aren’t smoking.
No, it isn’t easy! We used quitnet.com the first time to help us stay motivated and used nicotine patches from Canada as they were about 1/3 of the price to get there in our area. We also carry/chew on straws cut to the length of a cigarette. That really helps the man, especially when he’s driving. He has a very tough time with cravings though he knows that after about 72 hours the nicotine is out of his system (unless he’s using patches or something else providing nicotine) and a good deal of the craving is psychological. Regardless, he really struggles with it.
So, we’re back on patches and today at about 10:30 AM it will be 24 hours with no cigarettes. We’ve saved about $10 already!
By the way, we’re going to daily put the amount we spent on smokes in a jar on my desk so we can look at it and be reminded of just how much money we’ve saved. And we might use it for a trip or some other reward in the future.
Hi Teri, I wish I had health insurance much less prescription coverage. If I did, I would jump at trying Chantix as I know several people who have had really good luck with it. Also some that quit taking it entirely due to the nightmares. I have the same problem with Nicotine patches if I sleep with them on, very, very vivid dreams.
Ah Denise, I would be a lot more likely to quit if R would consider it. It will be tough quitting with him still smoking but I am pretty sure if I quit he will be considerate and not smoke around me for awhile. LOL. Might be a good thing as he wouldn’t smoke as much.
My sweet boyfriend quit in Feb. He went to a hypnosis center for sessions. He quit the first day – and has never picked up another one. He says it’s for him just a matter of will-power, and won’t-power. The hypnosis, and the fact that he had already determined if he was paying for hypnosis it was going to work as he hates to spend that kind of money, all made it kick into place for him. He can’t even stand the smell of cig. smoke now! Lucky me! (I’m allergic to the smoke!)
I wish you the best of luck in quitting. My mom smoked for years but quit cold turkey just a few months ago. She has a heart murmur and I blame the cigarettes.
She’s faced with expensive medical treatments but it’s our fear of losing her prematurely that can not be quantified.
Good luck quitting. I know it is a very difficult thing to do. I wonder if hypnosis may also be a low priced alternative?
I’ve got no suggestions for you, but I certainly do wish you well. The financial and health benefits make it worth the effort.
Good for you for wanting to quit! I have heard many success stories and I really do believe that if you’re serious about quitting and have the right help, you will absolutely be able to. I’ve heard excellent things about Nicoderm as well as Nicorette. Maybe give these a try and see if they help you reach your goal, good luck!
That’s good news that You want to quit, but believe me it is not as hard as quitting cocaine or heroine. My father was a smoker for 25 years. One year he got sick, pretty bad, and the doctor said that is because of the cigarettes he was smoking. What did he do? He quitted. Just like that. It’s in Your mind that this is so hard, You can do it, all You have to do is to convince Yourself that there is nothing good for You in it.
Its very hard to quite smoking. But if you have strong will than you can. Good luck.
You can do it in step wise step. Think that you take 10 cigarettes of a day. first week try to reduce it for 7 and next week 4 and third wee 2 at last quite it completely.
If you really want to quit you will succeed, everything is in your mind, not body. My father was a smoker for about 30 years, and one year he got sick pretty bad. The doctor said that this is because of the cigarettes he was smoking. And my father said that he will never smoke again. And he didn’t. That was about 15 years ago and I’ve never seen him with a cigarette. So you can change your budget counts. you will earn not 6$ but 100$, all you have to do is to quit smoking by yourself, because if your will is tough – you will succeed, even if it’s difficult.