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?

[BrownJenkins]

FWIW
I smoke, real cigarettes. £8 a packet.
My children, all in their 30's now, have never gone without.
I've paid off my mortgage, run a successful business and own 2 vehicles (paid cash for both)
I don't drink.
Not into socialising.
Don't spend a fortune on perfumes or make up.
Haven't had a foreign holiday since the kids were young.
Don't have credit cards.

[StickThatInYourPipe]

Chocolate, wine etc doesn't affect anyone else's health. Second hand smoke does

Not really what the thread is about though is it? And I would argue the second point there as I find alchohol can impact the health of both the drinker and those around them. I for one would much rather live with a smoker than a drunk

[JustAnotherPoster00]

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. - James A Baldwin

[Puzzledandpissedoff]

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

Better still, mix your own; it's cheaper still and you know exactly what's in it

TBH I didn't start vaping because of the cost; I was going on a ship where smoking was widely prohibited and got my vape just for that, fully intending to return to cigs afterwards - except I never touched another one

And I still believe that a lot of the judgement which smokers get is because there isn't anything else folk are allowed to judge these days ...

[StickThatInYourPipe]

And I still believe that a lot of the judgement which smokers get is because there isn't anything else folk are allowed to judge these days

Never looked at it like that and actually I think there is probably some truth there.

[lunaysol3828]

I am a smoker (not a heavy one though), but my financial situation makes me afford it without missing out on anything else.

If I were to choose between holidays or smoking, or even worse, basic necessities/my children I would quit in a heartbeat. I do think smoking is a luxury and you should not by any means give up to other things for this. Smoking is bad enough as it is.

[x2boys]

I don't know anyone who smokes that pays full price for them I know of shops that sell them knock off my local shops sells a packet of cigarettes for £3 which is a damn sight cheaper than £10 a packet.

[user1840873076]

Yeah it might be £10 for a pack of 20 but 50 grams of tobacco is £20 in the UK and that lasts me a whole month. £20 a month isn't really a lot so how about people actually stop being judgmental about other people's lives and realise that it's different prices for everyone??? Not £300 a month, it's £240 a YEAR! If you don't smoke then you don't understand and cannot justify what other people spend their money on

[Rapunzel15]

I smoke and my daughter has never gone without a thing in fact many would say she is spoilt. I know that if it ever came down to it id go without fags if my daughter needed anything but i work evenings so i dont have to. You always make it work

[Rapunzel15]

I should add i have not touched a drop of alcohol since i found out i was pregnant. Everybody needs a crutch

[SenatorBunghole]

I don't know how people afford to have children. Or houses. Or two cars. Or foreign travel. Or weddings. Or shop in Waitrose.

Could it be that people just live differently to me? Is that even allowed?

Well the government gives money to the majority of carers for children. I'm fairly comfortably off but we still get nearly 2k per annum child benefit. I don't believe a similar allowance exists to help smokers.

People who have houses sometimes bought a long time ago when they were very cheap, or inherited them, whereas inheriting a life's supply of cigarettes from a relative is perhaps less common. You can lease cars for a surprisingly small amount a month, but that wouldn't really work for cigarettes. Waitrose do offers all the time, whereas that's not permissible for legally sold cigarettes. I guess lots of people pay for holidays and weddings on credit, and in theory you could do that for cigarettes, so there's that.

But it's not just about living differently, it's the fact that most adults don't have £70 a week disposable income and we know that the people on the lowest incomes are disproportionately likely to smoke. Most of the population are also not in the position where rearranging one's life a bit will yield a spare £70 a week. So I can quite see why OP would wonder how so many people are able to afford it.

TBH, as someone who lives in a community with high smoking rates, the answer to OPs question is that people aren't paying a tenner a pack. There's always someone who does fag runs. So you get it from them. This is what my low income, tobacco loving family members do.

[leighdinglady]

My parents are divorced and my dad lived 200 miles away. My mum would drive us up every month. Dad didn't come down for 5 years because he "couldn't afford it" - still managed to afford 20 cigs a day

[IamScarfaceClaw]

Horrid poor bashing thread- the children of the rich won't be 'going without' if daddy smokes Cuban cigars will they?

[user1490465531]

life is hard for a lot of ppl sometimes it's there only stress release and everyone needs something and if that stress release is found in a cigarette why not?
I'm a smoker but I don't have nights out or a bottle of wine a night so should I not enjoy a couple of cigarettes a day?
And no my dd doesn't go without but I'm sure lots of kids with non smoking parents go without it really depends how the parents are not exclusive to smokers only.

[ThymeLordIsSpartacus]

We smoke roll ups and buy the tobacco from a shop that sells it under the counter very cheaply. We aren't well off at all but nobody goes without, certainly not my kid.

[SenatorBunghole]

Horrid poor bashing thread- the children of the rich won't be 'going without' if daddy smokes Cuban cigars will they?

And yet several of the 'bashiest' posts have come from people who were children in poor families who know they had to do without so their parents could smoke. I was one, actually, though I was more bothered about the smell and the way it hurt my throat than what we could've bought with the money. Should those of us who had those experiences not speak our truths, then?

[Ktown]

A medic told me that the middle class don't smoke nowadays. Now it is the wealthy or the very poor. Rates of smoking have dropped hugely and this is reflected by the lower incidence of lung cancer.

[SenatorBunghole]

It's interesting that tobacco has got more expensive at the same time as alcohol for home consumption has become much cheaper. There's a person in my faily who's addicted to both alcohol and tobacco, and even buying tobacco from people who've smuggled it in, the alcohol is a bit cheaper to service. You can get a lot of rough cider for a couple of quid a day.

[MumIsRunningAMarathon]

i think alcohol might go the same way

be regulated for sale in shops.....but too much money would be lost in restaurant/bar businesses, so will still be sold freely there

[LuLuuuuuuu]

paintingbutterflies Thu 17-Aug-17 16:25:54
Isn't it the case that poorer people are more likely to smoke, though?

Still at it I see ?
GF

[LuLuuuuuuu]

But that's the whole point really isn't it OP ? You GF you .

Poor people who smoke . Next you will tangent onto benefits and how the hell can they afford them I suspect .

As I said earlier Poor bashing by fucking stealth

[OuchBollocks]

That's not a goady comment, people in 'manual' type roles are twice as likely to smoke as those in well paid managerial/professional roles <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=digital.nhs.uk/media/26784/Statistics-on-Smoking-England-2015-Report/Any/stat-smok-eng-2015-rep&ved=0ahUKEwiR2q7j-97VAhUiI8AKHbMZDAYQFghFMAM&usg=AFQjCNFE93GkvK5pxyMSAdNngiQIb2U-9g" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">stats link pdf

[sororitynoise]

Ok you can see it as a poor bashing thread if you want.

There are children of smokers here saying they went without, that it affected their health and that they WENT WITHOUT.

And you want to turn it into a class thread? Ok but that's just denial.

[MumIsRunningAMarathon]

if its a fact how is it 'goody'?

[Babyroobs]

They probably don't worry much about paying into a pension as they know they are not going to have a long life. I've nursed hundreds of patients that have died ( sadly way too young) of dreadful lung cancers and head and neck cancers and Oesophageal cancers . 95% of them are or have been smokers.