Category Archives: Costs

Are Cigarettes Keeping You Poor Both in Wealth and Health!

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Cigarettes really do keep you poor both in wealth and health!

If you live in New York, cigarettes can cost you over $10 a pack!  For a carton, that would come to $100 since there are 10 packs of cigarettes to a carton.  In the rest of the country, the average pack of cigarettes cost about $5.00.

On the surface, It’s easy to calculate the annual cost of cigarettes.  If you smoke a pack a day, it could cost you $5 x 365 = $1,825 a year.  And if you live in New York, it would cost you $3,650 a year.

Since my grandfather smoked about 2 packs a day, it also cost him about $3,650 a year.  Both my grandfather and grandmother smoked about the same, it would have cost them $7,300 a year if they were still alive today.  In the end, my grandmother did wise up and stopped smoking about 5 years before she died of a nonsmoking related illness.

But my grandfather (who never stopped smoking) had emphysema, and eventually died of lung cancer.  To make matters worse, their friends also smoked, so when I would visit them, the house would be filled with so much smoke that it actually would look like fog inside of the house.

With respect to wealth, my grandparents didn’t do all that badly since they had a few small businesses that they were running.  However, I have to wonder if they would have had a lot more money if they invested that money they spend on cigarettes instead.

If they had invested $5,000 a year in a decent mutual fund for 30 years, they would have had at least an additional half a million dollars of wealth.  Cutting out the cigarettes would have extended their livespan and improved the way they lived!  This would have enabled them to do more in retirement than they did.

They did do some traveling, even visiting Hawaii back when it wasn’t nearly as common.  But they never went to Europe, like my grandmother always wanted to do.  Perhaps with that additional half a million dollars, they could have squeezed in.

Other cost associated with cigarette smoking are the following:

  • Limited dating partners.  I dated one girl who smoked, but after that experience, I weeded out females that smoked out of how I would consider dating.  I’m sure there are females that would do that same as I did.
  • Decreasing physical fitness.  It’s hard to jog when you smoke.  Eventually you start to become more sedimentary and settle to mainly watching TV after your day job.
  • You health declines in almost every area.  There are too many health ailments to list, check out this smoking info site if you are interesting in learning more!
  • You constantly smell like smoke.
  • If your hair is white, it will start to yellow, as will your teeth.
  • Since you smell like smoke, people will dislike the smell of you, so you limit your pool of potential friends.
  • If you go on a job interview, the interviewer might know that you smoke base on visual cues and may be more inclined not to hire you.
  • The list goes on and on.

Since there are so many negatives, I’ve never considered smoking.  Even when many of my family members did and still do.

Is it possible to become wealthy while smoking?  Sure, but you have a better chance of being wealthy if you don’t, not to mention the healthier life you’ll live!

-MR

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Frugal Sins Of A Personal Finance Blogger

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I’m consider myself a Frugal Blogger, and I am mostly, but I have my frugal sins that I commit.  And now, I would like to confess some of them, please try not to hate me!  (lol)

Frugal Sin #1:

I’m like Neo in “The Matrix” when it comes to not following David Bach’s “the latte factor” advice, …the rules do not apply to me!  Or at least you would think that is what I believe.  I have a McDonalds latte at least 4 days out of the week.  On top of McDonald’s latte’s, at least four times a month, I sneak in a Starbucks latte in too!  I also go to the local cafe shop and drink a few of their lattes per month.

This sin cost me about $15.00 extra a week, ($60.00 monthly).

Frugal Sin #2:

I’m currently not carpooling!  I have a buddy at work  that I’m sure I could carpool with again (we have in the past, when gas prices went over $3.00 a gallon), but I enjoy my alone time driving to work too much to give it up.  When I drive with my buddy, I feel like I have to entertain him, but I like listening to audiobooks, music, NPR, and other things.  Sometimes I even think about blogging topics.

This sin also cost me an another $15 dollars to my weekly expenses ($60 monthly).

Frugal Sin #3:

And what may be the most outragious sin of all… We still have a landline phone!  We have 2 cell phones, and a gmail voice account… and yet we still have a landline with Verizon?  My wife wants it just in case we need to call 911, but it’s not really necesary!  I wonder at what point in time, I will start to get embarrassed by the phone?  Maybe when we have company over, I’ll throw a blanket over our landline phones, or will I grab them and throw them in the utility room?  Oh the shame…

This sin also cost me an another $6 dollars to my weekly expenses ($24 monthly).

So my frugal sins only cost me almost $150 dollar a month, but still that’s $150 dollars that I could be saving for investments!

Please don’t tell my mom…

Would you like to confess some of your frugal sins here?  I think you’ll feel better if you put those nasty sins out on the table and in the open!

-MR

How To Save Money By Cost Control

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How to Save Money by Cost Control is a discovery process.  One of my debt free goals was to save money with great passion since I’m part of the Million Dollar Club! 

After I became totally debt free by paying off my mortgage, this past February, I was very excited about being able to sock away an extra $1,500 a month into savings and investments.   I imagined myself every quarter of this year, plopping almost $5,000 into a balanced mutual fund or ETF. 

So how much extra money have I saved up for investing?  nada, nil… nothing at all.  Now, I knew that I would have an adjustment period at the beginning, that would stun my initial investing plan, but I didn’t see it lasting this long! 

I’ve learned that Cost Control, is the new root of my saving problems.  You see, when you have more money in your checkbook, it’s easier to justify getting the more expensive or quicker product. 

Here are examples where my cost control wasn’t in place:

  •  My old Lawnmower (Mean Green) was finally forced out of action (I’ll blog in greater detail about Mean Green some other time).  But instead of looking at Craigslist for one or buying a cheap model from Lowes, I went out and bought a new Toro self-propelled (variable speed) lawnmower! 

    My new lawnmower (called Red) is spectacular!  I love it, but I also spent about $375.00 dollars on it.  To me this seems a bit pricey! 

    In the days when I still had a mortgage, I would have went out and bought a cheaper model, or bought a used lawnmower.  In fact, my boss offered to sell me a cheap used lawnboy as a replacement…  But I declined.
    I’m sure if I put my mind and efforts to it, I could have found a lawnmower for at least half the price.  
      
      

     

  • Car problems.  My wife’s car was experiencing a car problem.  So what did I do?  I call my favorite mechanic and asked him to get it in today and fix it.  My mechanic is great, so that was exactly when he did, but it cost me $450 dollars. Now you might be thinking what is so bad about this?  Well, we have a few friends that are auto mechanics.  We could have waited and had one of our buddies look at the car and fix it for a lot cheaper!  After the fact, my one buddy told me that he could have cleaned the part and that might have made it work.  He said he would have done it for free.  So I paid a premium to get it fixed that day!  It would have taken my friend at least 5 or so days to get to it.     

  • Changing the oil on the car.  I haven’t done this in years!  It’s easy enough to do, but I always convince myself that it’s not work the time and energy (and perhaps it’s not).  Some people may say, yeah but what about the cost of oil disposal…  Well, you can drive your old used oil to any Walmart car service department and they will take it off of your hands for free!  It’s possible to created a paper funnel and pour the oil into a plastic 1 gallon  milk container,  then put the plastic cap on to keep the fumes contained.   I have used the milk jug trick for the oil changes I did performed on my old lawnmower and snow thrower.     

If you stay focused and realize that you are wasting money by doing such as I have above…  You can save money by using more focused cost control! 

Have you every mode impromptu decisions that you knew weren’t the best, but because you had the money to do them, you did them anyway? 

-MR

The Cost Of Being Rich And Famous

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Most of us wish we were a rich and famous celebrity, idolizing every step they take, constantly watching them in the news.

However, the cost of being rich and famous may be greater than we imagine. I would go as far as to say that the star celebrities are constantly on a kind of public stage, always being photographed or badgered by adoring fans (not to mention stalked).

Now granted being wealthy and a celebrity has its advantages, but my concern is about all of the great things that they’d miss out on that the average middle class family experiences!

Here’s a list of the things a celebrity would miss out on:

  • A casual walk in the mall, or really anywhere in the public eye.
  • A quiet evening out with their spouse.  Even when they are at a private room in a restaurant, there is someone trying to take pictures or get an autograph.  And there is always the nasty process of going and leaving the establishment.
  • Travelling must be done in disguise, and even then, they are often recognized.
  • Since they are busy with an acting gig, or away on a business trip, they miss large segments of their children growing up.
  • They often adopt children rather than have their own kids, possible fearing that they might lose their million dollar looks or body.
  • They’ll miss out on the sports that a child might play (if they play any at all).
  • Their kids are bound to feel like they are entitled to have the same stuff other rich kids like them have.  The celebrity may not experience the hugs from a child when they come home from work.  Or at least not as many opportunities.

So while I wouldn’t mind being rich or financial independent, I don’t think I would really want to be famous.  I think the costs would be too high, and you would give up too much in the process, especially if you have kids.

What do you think?  Would you like to be Rich And Famous or just discretely rich (my preference)?

-MR

Related Reading:

Check out Everyday’s tips and thoughts‘s article: Who Needs Yachts and Islands, it was my motivation for writing this article.