to wonder if you smoke how can you afford it?

[Member869894]

I almost fell over today to see someone spend over a tenner for a packet of fags. I gave years ago when they were about three pound a packet. How do people afford it??

gave up

I stopped when they were a fiver. I don't even know how much they are now.

Only ever used to smoke a couple a day so a pack lasted me a week or two. But I stopped when they were about £7.

I’m guessing they prioritise.

I’ve never smoked but I guess people afford it because they have a high income, or because they prioritise it over other things, or because it’s their one ‘luxury’.

They afford it because they put it above other things.

A friend of mine is never done moaning about how her and her husband can't afford to save a deposit to get them on the property ladder.

At £10 each a day for fags it's no surprise really.

I quit just over 12 months ago and they were £9+ pack then, so they'll be even more now I'd imagine. I don't understand how people can afford it, generally speaking. I know of SAHP with one income, who smoke, I can't get my head around it personally.

I quit just over 12 months ago and they were £9+ pack then, so they'll be even more now I'd imagine. I don't understand how people can afford it, generally speaking. I know of SAHP with one income, who smoke, I can't get my head around it personally.

Roll my own £14 a week. My only pleasure in life now. I will give us again. But not now.

I quit years and years ago - £3.20 a pack.

I can't even quite believe they're more than £10! But they should be double that. Less people would smoke.

Like any other addiction it is prioritised.

A few of the smokers I used to know would prioritise cigarettes over anything and everything. Friend who was supposedly desperate to learn to drive and buy a car - couldn't afford to - but smoked like a chimney. Another one would take her children to her parents every other night for their evening meal because she couldn't afford to feed them half the week, always had ciggies though.
A boy in my class at school told me him and his brother had to shoplift or scavenge in the skips behind the shops for food, both his parents heavy smokers.

I stopped when they were a fiver

Yep me as well. I totally begrudged paying it.

Doubling the cost won't make any differences. It'll still be prioritised over everything else for the die hard smokers.

Well, I know lots of people who appear to smoke the £10-£12 a pack cigarettes. But at home they smoke roll ups which are cheaper. Some of them refill the benson and hedges packets with rip off ones from abroad. You can buy "fake" ones like that for £3-£5 a Pack so actually they cost the same and they mostly aren't fake just foreign (not EU so don't have the murky green packaging). And they don't have other luxuries. A lot of people run out short of pay day and use nicotine replacement or a vape of some kind.

I know more people who vape now or who have quit. But that might be my age as I'm never really around teens of young people.

I quit when it was £2.70 for a packet. I was astonished to hear someone next to me at the Spar being asked for just under. tenner yesterday. How the hell do people still afford it?

I'm in a well paid job but smoke roll-ups. Bad enough, but a tenner sees me through the week rather than ten quid a day or every other day. If I'm going out for the night I'll buy a pack, but that's very rare.

I know I need to quit. I'm looking in to the best way to do it at the minute, but yet to take the plunge.

However, I have been on the bones of my arse before and tobacco was absolutely the last thing to go, long after heating or decent food (I've no kids, BTW). We used to save the stubs so we could unroll them and get the last few scraps of baccy out.

Because not everyone pays that,there are lots of shops that sell "knock off " tobacco and cigarettes for less than half the price .My local shop sells a packet of cigarettes for £4 still expensive but much cheaper than £10.

My SS and her partner were so short on cash her parents were buying food for them - they still both managed to buy cigarettes. It's insane.

As pp have said, it’s prioritised. Some people will put the cigarettes before everything else.

When I lived overseas the cost where was roughly £5 and my friends were astonished. You could get a pack of 20 for about 60/70 pence there.

I smoke and can afford to do do by working

I have a decent wage so my packs of fags aren’t significant, when I was at university I went without other things to buy fags.

I don’t smoke a great deal, 3/4 a day, when I was younger it was easily twenty a day.

It comes out of my disposable income, like any other leisure expenditure.

Roll my own and buy tobacco from a shop that sells it cheap. Costs less than a tenner a week.

I stopped when a carton of cigarettes was around £25 for 10 packets and even with a steady supply from nonsmoking colleagues going to our company headquarters in Switzerland (duty free around £17) we still thought that was still steep!!

My DH smokes a packet a day I should think. He earns enough money to afford it. I don't waste time wondering what else we could afford if he didn't; he's an educated adult and it's his choice (sadly).