Smoking - the financial cost

Smoking costs money as well as affecting your health. Cigarettes are expensive and quitting can save you money now as well as saving on future health costs. If you need an added incentive to quit, think about how much of your weekly income is going up in smoke.

One packet of 25 cigarettes costs around $11.50 and the price keeps rising. What could you do for yourself and your family with that extra money? More than you think.

At today’s prices, if you smoke one pack of cigarettes each day for 10 years, you’ll spend over $42,000 – easily enough to buy a new car or put a deposit on a house.

After one day
After one day of not smoking, you’ve got an extra $11.50 in your pocket. You could treat yourself to a café lunch or buy a couple of your favourite magazines.

The health benefits of not smoking for one day include:

• Most of the nicotine is cleared from your body.
• Your blood pressure and heart rate are dropping towards normal levels.

• Your senses of smell and taste may begin to improve.
• You notice that your skin, hair and breath smell fresher.
• Less carbon monoxide in your system means your lungs are more efficient.

• The small hair-like structures that clean your lungs, called cilia, are starting to work again. Accumulated phlegm from smoking will loosen and you will start to cough it up.
• Your body is purged of most nicotine by-products.

• Your lungs are working more efficiently.
• Exercising is easier.
• Your blood pressure has returned to normal.
• Your immune system is starting to recover.

• You don’t cough and wheeze as much anymore. Your lung function has continued to improve.
• Blood flow to your extremities, like fingers and toes, improves.
• You may feel less stressed or in a better mood than when you were smoking.

• Your increased risk of premature death from heart attack is halved.

• You’re less likely to suffer from colds, the flu or other respiratory infections, which means fewer trips to the doctor, less money spent on medications and fewer sick days.
• You won’t need so many visits to the dentist to have your teeth professionally cleaned.
• You don’t have to spend as much time and money on maintaining the house. For example, smoking inside your home discolours paint and wallpaper.
• You cut down on your cleaning bills because clothes, furniture upholstery and the interior of your car no longer stink of cigarette smoke.
• The risk of fire in your home is lower.

• Your chances of conceiving a baby improve. Smoking can cause fertility problems, such as impotence in men and a lower chance of conceiving in women. Women who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have a miscarriage.
• Within two to five years, your risk of stroke is substantially reduced. You’ve also saved between $8,400 and $21,000.
• After 10 years, your risk of lung cancer is less than half that of a continuing smoker and continues to decline (provided the disease is not already present). You’ve also saved over $42,000.
• After 15 years, your risk of coronary heart disease is nearly the same as a lifetime non-smoker. You’ve also saved over $63,000.
• Quitting smoking benefits men and women of all ages and improves health in general.

• Your doctor
• Your pharmacist
• Quitline Tel. 137 848

• If you need added incentive to quit, think about how much of your weekly income is going up in smoke every week.
• At today’s prices, if you smoke one pack of cigarettes per day for 10 years, you’ll spend over $42,000 – easily enough to buy a new car.

This page has been produced in consultation with and approved by:


(Logo links to further information)