Smoke Less, Save More

Source: WalletHub

I have a philosophical aversion to social engineers who continually meddle in other peoples’ business. That includes a resistance to measures that restrict the rights of people to smoke (except when that smoking impairs upon the rights of people not to inhale their smoke). That said, I think smoking is gross and disgusting habit, and I would urge all smokers to quit. The difference between the meddlers and me is that I rely upon moral suasion and social pressure, not the coercive power of the state.

That is preamble to the latest report from the listicle freaks at WalletHub who have compiled the lifetime costs of smoking for cigarette junkies. WalletHub added up out-of-pocket costs (average cost per pack of cigarettes, assuming consumption of one pack per day); opportunity cost (assuming that the smoker had invested the money in the stock market instead); health care costs; income loss due to absenteeism, lower productivity and lower earnings in the workplace; and miscellaneous costs. Most of those costs accrue to the individual doing the smoking.

According to WalletHub, the average life-time cost to a Virginia smoker is $1,359,000. The costs are broken down as follows:

Out-of-pocket cost: $91,418
Financial opportunity cost: $864,459
Health care cost: $128,766
Income loss: $264,351
Other costs: $9,861

Wow, I don’t smoke and never have. Although I still have a few years to go to accrue the full benefits of a life-time of non-smoking, I should be loaded. But I’m not. I haven’t accumulated anything close to $865,000 in stock-and-bond assets. Perhaps that’s because I never put my savings from not smoking a pack per day into the market. My bad.

Bacon’s bottom line: For what it’s worth, Virginia’s smoking costs are the 13th lowest in the country — a fact that can be attributed largely to having the second lowest cigarette tax rate in the country. Add up the taxes over a life-time and impute a return on investment to them, and Virginians are $1.1 million per smoker less badly off. But that doesn’t change the fact that smoking is really stupid, and people should stop.

— JAB