HELP! A swift kick up the bum needed please!

falldown7timesgetup8

Hi Everyone,

Im in the process of paying off debt, ive been working really hard to pay stuff off...... and ive just had a "moment" at work -

....I was doing a £90 "food shop" online to be delivered tomorrow - choosing all the cheap things, budgeting carefully etc - then added my usual £65 worth of ciggies to the basket.

I set myself £400 for food and personal stuff each month - at least £200 of which a month goes on ciggies. I justify this to myself every month by telling myself that its my "only treat"...

I have a packet on my desk with 13 ciggies in....

Do I order the shop as usual, or make these my final 13 cigarettes?

Someone please give me a kick up the a**e or some words of encouragement or something?!

xx

ps - my aim is to pay off my debt (DFD May 2013) and buy a house

R_P_W

Do you really need someone to tell you the answer?

£200 a month on things that give you cancer and smell awful. £2400 a year - is roughly 25% of your debt.

Your debt and your health - isnt that motivation enough?

heartbreak_star

Giving yourself lung cancer is a treat? Hate to think what you class as not a treat...

HBS x

Time_to_face_the_music

My mother and father both died of smoking related illnesses, my dad at just 55. He was a real workaholic and would never take a day off. Even when we used to go on holiday when I was a kid, we would often drop us off and then then just come back for the weekends. I would beg him to take a day off and say "Let's do something really good dad" and he would say "When I retire we will do that love". Of course he was dead 10 years before he was due to retire, then all the money he had built up in his pension brought no pleasure to my mum who joined him a few years later.

Don't be like them. Have some pleasure but not something that harms you. Throw the unlucky 13 in the bin and start a new, longer and better life today.

TTFTM

downsizer3

Best to motivate yourself - there's a huge list of reasons to stop - but you have to want to.
I found the best thing was to avoid situations where I'd normally have a fag - drinking was one - and go cold turkey. You know why you need to so just get on with it - you have to stop sometime so better to do it now.
Then you become a smug reformed smoker like me!!

Peter999_2

You spend £200 a month on cigarettes!, I thought you must be buying loads but just looked how much they cost on Tesco.

Over £7 for a packet of 20, good lord. Last packet I bought was £1.67 (about 1991), I obviously knew they'd gone up but not by that much!

Just think of what you can spend the £200 on, you could lease a car for £99 a month.

amanda0612

I agree with the previous poster about going cold turkey is best. I have tried many times in the past to stop smoking with nicotine replacement and it hasn't worked. At the moment I am on week 7 cold turkey :j:j......I am also £50 richer every week and feel sooooo much more healthy. So i think you should go for it

Heffi1

I am also a smoker and I hate it, but with me it is definitely a habit, I cannot give you one reason why I should continue, but there are literally hundreds for giving up. I am not a stupid woman, but I continue.

I was also spending about the same amount until very recently when I changed to roll ups, now my monthly spend is around the £50 mark.

Yes before you all jump in this is still too much, but with not much change I have saved £150 for the budget and one day I will stop.

I am the sort of person to continue when someone tells me to stop, I really need to find the right time for ME and then I will.

Don't be too hard on yourself Falldown it is a horrible habit to have and you do have my sympathies and encouragement if you decide to stop.

Dotty1

Very often the environment you work in doesn't help with giving up smoking. Or your own routine. Change your routine (easier than changing your job!).

You could go on a cruise by the end of the year

oldhand

You could spend that money a lot wiser.

determined_new_ms

Hey come and join us on the quitting thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3969171

Honestly that first cig not smoked is the hardest! I have been smoke free for 4 days now and can only see positives, it really isn't as hard as we are led to believe and it is only the addiction that is stopping us. We're a right upbeat bunch actually at the moment!

I think there any lots of ways to stop and you can find the best one for you, but just try it.myou have nothing to lose, give it a go and if it doesn't work out you can pick it up again in a few days time and will have gained a few extra quid, but I bet you won't!