To wonder how people afford to smoke?

[paintingbutterflies]

I know addictions are just awful. But so many people seem to be struggling with money and smoke. I wonder where the money comes from. Do people just go without basic things?

My stepdad smokes. My mum has gone without holidays or meals out for years so he can literally burn money. I feel bad as my mum works her fingers to the bone. He watched his dad die of lung cancer. Seen my mum cry about what they are missing out on and still refuses to change

Well done val! That's some reward!

But you're not prioritising fags anymore so you should be very proud of yourself Valderal.

Do people Vape instead? Is that cheaper?

I gave up smoking 25 years ago, when packets hit £3 - that was extortionate to me!

You know what - yes I judge. I spent my childhood being told we were skint and being constantly unwell with chest infections and asthma attacks because my parents - who I love dearly - chose cigarettes over me and my sisters health and wellbeing time and time again. In the 80s it was less well known how bad it was but we know now. I judge the poster whonwould rather poison herself and increase the risk of being desperately ill later in life than take her kids on a fun day out. And its not smoking or coffee, or smoking and booze or haircuts or Netflix, its smoking as well as all that. So flame me for being judgemental, I can take it because I judge the shit out of it.

Note - I have real sympathy for those that want to stop, are trying to stop and are struggling. Tobacco companies are evil and nicotine is mega mega hard to quit.

Handy little Turkish shop close by to me sells imports at £3.50 I have two packs a week. I'm happy to pay a pound a day but wish stopping smoking was easy.

If your children's needs are covered, you're not whining about your benefits being too low, and you're not resorting to food banks because you've spent your money unwisely, there's no problem. Smokers get people's backs up more than latte addicts, compulsive shoe shoppers or wine drinkers - it seems unfair.

val just notices you've said you quit, my apologies, didn't realise both posts were you

I smoked 30 a day before I swapped to vaping. My app says over £4000 a year it cost

Well someone is going without somewhere.

So either, it's factored into the affordability of where you live and the size of your home; or the food you buy; or the clothes you wear; or the holidays you go on; or the Christmas/birthday celebrations; or the after school activities.

Because c£3500 a year is a pretty decent amount of money. And would make quite a different to most people's lives, in some respect, if it weren't being burnt instead.

I worked with someone who heavily smoked and complained they had little money for holidays, new clothes etc. I regularly informed them if they stopped smoking they would be £200-250 better off each month.

Someone made a comment that even if you are poor, you will make a way to have your vice. You may cut corners with your food shop, meals out, clothes.

The average smoker spends maybe £50 a week on fags?
How they afford it is a mystery to me but unless people are well off I think something has to suffer. I earn just above the national average and no way could I afford a habit costing money like that unless I went into debt or grew my own tobacco.

Is this the sixth or seventh anti-smoking thread over the last two days?

Interesting - someone at the Daily Mail trying and failing to get the kind of posts they want to use for an article?

Gosh I always assumed people smoked a packet a week and thought that £40 a month was steep - a tenner a day is loads, can't be many parents able to afford that if they've got children in childcare and standard living costs, surely?

Do people Vape instead? Is that cheaper?

I've switched to vaping, partly because of the rising cost of smoking and it's loads cheaper. For the £10 a pack of fags cost I can get 4 bottles of nicotine liquid from the vape shop and it lasts me weeks.

Val that's amazing!

iveno I'm not trying to judge. I genuinely wonder how people afford it. I could not afford to smoke and I am fairly well paid.

One of the reasons I quit was cost. I just couldnt justify spending the same per month as we paid on our mortgage (more in fact as we have been here years and bought a bargain!) on fags.

When I started you could get 20 B&H for £1.50 now they cost ten times that, no way could I justify that amount of money.

But there is a bit of a frog in a pot situation in that the price has crept up incrementally over the years so someone spending £5 on a pack (which is worked into the weekly budget) was then spending £5.25 and so on. Its just an extra 25p a day which is nothing. Its not until you look back and realise that you are actually spending twice as much on a pack now as you did 10 years ago that the reality of the cost hits home.

Shortly after I quit I started to work out roughly what I had spent on fags over the previous 20 years. I didnt do the whole calculation because I didnt want to see just how much money I had set fire to :(

FFS of course I am not from the Daily Mail.

I don't think journalists DO post. I think they take existing threads so maybe none of us should post?

Actually, its not ten times £1.50.....but it is still a hell of a lot!

I'm sure that most smokers can afford to do so, without compromising on the basics, but I personally know many people who smoke and then send their kids to school hungry or in trousers/shoes that don't fit properly. Admittedly they roll their own cigs, and I am aware that most of them buy illegal tobacco, which means that their habit is cheaper than it could be, but nonetheless, their children go without to support their smoking.

People will deny, and deny again that people like these exist, because its not PC, but they are wrong. They may not be the majority, but they are a very significant minority.

Its disgraceful, but these people often just can't see smoking as a luxury, to them its a necessity and they will cut costs literally anywhere in their budgets to 'afford' to smoke.

It's such an expensive habit .
I'm not a smoker so I can't really judge but dh spends good money on baccy, rizlas etc and it just seems too much. If anyone's going abroad he'll ask them to buy it cheap in bulk.

I've never found out how much it costs him a week but seeing as he gets up, lights up and doesn't stop till bed, probably a lot. It's depressing really.

What a horribly judgemental thread.

If you don't like being judged, don't smoke! It's a disgusting habit that also affects others around you.

Freudian but I am not judging them for it. I am just wondering how they afford it. Personally speaking I know my pets cost far too much money and I also drink too much diet coke.

But if you are living on just over £100 a week and paying bills and food - i just wonder how people manage it!