The $13,000 Habit You Should Kick Now

The $13,000 Habit You Should Kick Now

Let's say I have a $700 check inscribed with your pretty li'l name. In order to cash it in, all you have to do is quit smoking. Might sound like a gimmick, but the offer is legit. The average U.S. smoker spends more than $700 a year on tobacco products, and that's just a slice of the price tag.

In a 2004 study, economist Jay Zagorsky, PhD, a research scientist at Ohio State University, investigated the impact of smoking on wealth in almost 9,000 people born between 1957 and 1964 -- the first generation warned by the Surgeon General about the dangers of tobacco use. Zagorsky estimated that nonsmokers' net worth is roughly 50 percent greater than that of people who smoke less than a pack a day and nearly double the wealth of those who light up a pack or more daily. Frequent blazers can expect to lose more than $8,000 during a 13-year period, and light smokers more than $2,000. Additionally, each year of smoking causes net worth to fall by an extra $410. And figuring in inflation and the rise of state cigarette taxes, smoking will only become more costly in the future. (As of January 2007, the median cigarette tax by state was $0.80, but Congress continues to consider raising the federal cigarette tax from $0.39 to $1.)