In a Puff of Smoke:
A Pack a Day: The Costs

How much does cigarette smoking cost? A lot, even if you leave out the health costs, which, of course, are most important. In 1999, in the United States, the total cost of smoking was approximately $100 billion in health care cost and lost productivity. What does it cost in dollars, real and immediate, not the dollars you lose in future income or the ones you spend on doctor visits? Do a little math and figure it out, and then ask what you could have done with the money.

Let's assume that cigarettes cost $2.50 per pack.

Now if you are a nonsmoker, here's the good news for you. If you had been a pack-a-day smoker, your habit would have cost you $75 per month and $912.50 per year. Those figures represent money spent by smokers.

1. How many CDs could you buy every month with the money you save by not smoking?

2. How many times could you go to the movies each month with the money you save?

3. About how long would it take to save up (without interest) a $3000 down payment on a car?

4. What is the cost per cigarette?

5. How many cigarettes would you smoke each month?

   Here are some expanded data:

   Packs Per Day	Monthly Cost	Annual Cost	20 Years*	30 Years*	50 Years*
   0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0	$ 37.50 75.00 112.50 150.00	$ 450.00 900.00 1350.00 1800.00	$ 28,476 56,952 85,429 113,905	$ 84,768 169,536 254,304 339,073	$ 649,664 1,299,329 1,948,993 2,598,658

   * Cost with 10% annual interest.

   These numbers show what would happen if:

   1. You did not smoke
      
   2. You invested the money you would have spent on cigarettes at 10% compound interest for 20, 30, or 50 years.

6. For that pack-a-day smoker who began smoking at age 15, how much money could he or she have saved for retirement at age 65 by not smoking?

7. How many cigarettes would the pack-a-day smoker have smoked in 20 years?

8. What will happen to all the numbers on the above chart if the cost of a pack of cigarettes increases over the years?

   And so you don't forget the health costs, here are some facts:

   • Each day, more than 3000 teenagers start smoking regularly
   • At least 4.5 million teenagers are smokers
   • Approximately one-third of those who begin smoking as teenagers will die of a smoking-related illness.
   • In 1998, one in five 12th graders in the U.S. smoked daily

9. How many teenagers begin smoking each year?