Update:
In case some of my readers think my particular "vice" is pretty tame, here's a news story that just caught my eye, regarding diet soda being linked to an increased chance of stroke:
Like I say below, my definition of "vice" is any habit that you'd like to quit. Better health is a darn good reason, but as I say below, so is saving money.
In this post I'm going to talk a bit about "vices"...which I define as anything you do that you wish you didn't do.
We've all got 'em. There are the obvious "vices": smoking, drinking too much, overeating, excess shopping, buying lotto tickets....and we all know how hard it is to break these habits, even when you really want to.
Well, I'm going to suggest a motivation that I rarely see in the "Six Easy Steps to Stop _____" type of article that seem to pop up everywhere. I'm going to suggest you take a good hard look at the price of your vice...in dollars and cents.
The particular vice I'm working on now is a four-to-six-can-a-day soda habit. My particular tipple is diet soda and it has to be in a can, and I usually buy 'em the most expensive way possible, one at a time from convenience stores, at an average cost of $.75 each. I drive a lot, and my particular "trigger" for drinking diet soda seems to be driving. If I don't have one in the cup holder, I get antsy, and head for the nearest Mobil or Exxon.
Recently I saw a doctor on TV who claimed that each soda is the equivalent of a cigarette in terms of how bad they are for your health. That seemed to stick in my brain--with the info I've read about what caffeine, artificial sweeteners, carbonation and dyes do to your health--and I decided that I needed to just eliminate them totally. (Like most people with a bad habit, I can't seem to "just cut down.")
So I sat down to figure out just how I'd do that. One of the first thing I did was run the numbers. How much was my soda habit costing me?
Figuring an average of five sodas a day at $.75 each, I came up with a daily cost of $3.75.
Per week, that would be $26.25.
Per year,$1,365.
Holy cow.
I was spending over $1,300 a year on something that wasn't good for me, and that I really don’t like that much. (It’s that first slug of carbonation that does it for me. Afterwards, the joy fades fast.)
You can buy a lot of nice stuff for $1,300. You can take a one-week vacation. You can buy a huge, all-the-bells-and-whistles TV. You can pay off a lot of debt.
In the last four weeks, since I found out how much my vice was costing me, I've had six Diet Cokes. Six, instead of 140. That's saved me a lot of money.
Let's take a look at the cost of some other common "vices."
Cigarettes. The cost per pack varies so much that it's hard to come up with an average,so I'll give a spread.
At $5 a pack, a one pack a day habit will cost $1,825 a year.
Two packs a day? $3,650.
At $7 a pack, a one pack a day habit will cost $2,555.
Two packs? $5,110.
At $9 a pack (and yes, there are places where a pack will cost you $9) one pack a day will cost $3,285 per year. Two packs? $6,570.
That's a hell of a lot of money. (And smoking has a lot of hidden costs that can run the price up to astonishing levels.)
Those game tickets you can buy here in Texas (and in other states) at any convenience store? Great fun if you buy them occasionally. But I know people who buy $5-$10 worth of game tickets each day. One gentleman at my favorite store brags about the $600 he won last year doing this; if he'd run the numbers, he'd realize that his $600 in winnings cost him, at $5 per day, more than $1,800!
The 16 oz, 400 calorie, caramel-flavored whipped cream coffee concoction you get every day during your morning commute isn’t just expanding your waistline. It’s also emptying your wallet. At $4 per day (or more!) that’s $20 a week or $1,000 a year. (If you also drink ‘em on the weekends or on vacation, it’s $1,456.) Even a $2.50 version from your local fast food joint will cost $910 a year.
Alcohol? If you want to cut down or stop, figure out what you pay for your favorite tipple. Let’s say that you bring it home in six-packs and the cost per six-pack is $6 and you drink a six-pack a day.
$6 per day. $42 per week. $2,184 a year.
At $9 per six pack, your yearly cost goes to $3,275. (If you get your brew at your local tavern it could be triple that cost or more.) If drinking is something you’d like to cut back on or even eliminate, run the numbers and start thinking about what you could do with all that extra money.
Again, you define what your “vice” is. Buying an expensive pair of shoes each week, spending hours on auction sites on the internet, gambling....the list is endless.
Ask yourself if you can substitute something that’s better for you…and less expensive. (I bought a six-pack of bottled water and I’m refilling them with water right out of my tap, putting them in the fridge, then taking one with me whenever I drive somewhere. Water instead of chemicals, and less than a cent a bottle instead of $.75 each.)
Money is a powerful motivator. See if it will help you change your “This ain’t working anymore, but how do I stop?” habits. Good luck!
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