smokeing

Resticon wrote: Combine that with the fact that even with inflated tobacco costs, for some people it is still cheaper (short term) to smoke than to quit with a stop smoking aid.

I tried to think in terms of "overall" expense...basically...total the cost of the aid(s) to quit smoking, then total the cost of cigarettes you would buy over the same period (the time period being whatever the quit aid says is the time it takes to work), and compare. Typically, smokers will find that they're spending the same amount or a little less on quitting smoking aids than they would on cigarettes. Now, add to that the assumption that it works (we assume that it will work just because if you're going to assume it doesn't work, perhaps you shouldn't be trying to quit just now anyway), and the savings becomes suddenly astronomical as you calculate what you're NOT spending per week, per month, per year on smoking. The question rapidly becomes: How can I afford NOT to quit? (especially if money is important to you )

my mom smokes enough in one year to buy a good used car, my sister and brother-in-law smoke enough in one year to buy a really good new car...i don't smoke at all...and i'm still perpetually broke

Alluvius wrote: How can I afford NOT to quit? (especially if money is important to you )

There are always ways of finding cheap cigarettes. Even in a state where Marlboros cost $7 a pack I could find cigarettes for $19 a carton. I used to smoke a carton a month on average which would cost me $228 a year. For 10 weeks worth of just the patches (even Walmart brand) would cost $250 dollars ($390 if you use Nicoderm CQ or Nicorette). Now given the fact that in America 95% of smokers want to quit, 60% of those attempt to quit and 50% of those actually succeed, in reality, only 28.5% of smokers actually quit (according to the American Council on Science and Health).

It costs more money to try quitting for 3 months than to smoke for a year, for me at least, and those who do have less than a 1 in 3 chance of actually doing it. Bad odds with a high wager...you'd have better luck playing Roulette in a casino.

Pretty much all the money I have gets spent on smoking either tobacco or something else, I doubt I'll be quitting fully anytime soon but I will definitely start cutting down.

When I quit, I was rolling my own cigarettes because I could no longer buy cigarettes for less than $20 per carton (camels and marlboros had already been over $40 for more than a year at that point), because I moved from KY to IL. While living in KY I was smoking the cheapest brands I could find (american spirit, brave, etc) and paying between $7 and $12 per carton...per week. When I moved to IL, I could no longer find super cheap smokes, so I started buying papers, tobacco, filters, and (occasionally) rolling machines...MUCH cheaper than buying factory cigarettes. It still ended up that I spent less money quitting than I would have spent smoking...the "catch" is, when you spend that money to quit, it's an "up front" expense. Whereas when you spend the money on smoking, it's a little at a time (week by week).

My best advice would be, if you're serious about quitting, either cut back as much as you can without killing people and save the "extra" money to put toward your "quitting fund"; or try to find another area where you can shave off a little and just keep smoking until you can "afford to quit"...or possibly a little of both. Ultimately, you are the only person who knows your level of commitment to quitting, and you are the best judge of your finances.

As I already said, I can't tell you how to quit, I can only tell you what worked for me.

Resticon wrote: It costs more money to try quitting for 3 months than to smoke for a year, for me at least, and those who do have less than a 1 in 3 chance of actually doing it. Bad odds with a high wager...you'd have better luck playing Roulette in a casino.

All odds are "bad odds" from the right point of view. This is because all odds are calculated with the understanding that "the house always wins". If you're looking at how much it costs to smoke as opposed to how much it costs to quit, it might be helpful (especially in the situation of people who smoke cheaply...like I did, and like you do), to look back on how much smoking has already cost you. Contrast that figure to how much quitting will cost you and weigh that as a "one time expenditure" as opposed to a regular weekly or monthly expense. If you are going to accurately judge the "odds" of you quitting then you need to look only at how many times you have attempted to quit before. Your success or failure cannot be measured against other people. If you have already tried to quit 3 times and failed, but gave it an honest go, then you're getting pretty close to a 100% chance of success on your next attempt.

It occurs to me also to share something I learned while I was quitting smoking. Addiction is a sentient creature. It does not want to die. Like any good parasite it will do any and every thing within its power to stop you from killing it. The largest percentage of all failure comes from making excuses to not succeed. In the question of quitting smoking, this is the parasite, addiction, trying to survive by feeding you a bunch of negativity.

Try not, Do, or Do not; there is no try. This means that if you resolve to succeed and accept that you will not fail. Know that you have it in you to succeed before you attempt, you are infinitely more likely to succeed. Not that failure is impossible, but we're only really trying to stack the odds in your favor here.

Some time ago I wrote about overcoming addictions the shamanic way:
http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/Pagan-studies/38095-Overcoming-addictions-the-shamanic-way

You may find it useful, you may not