smoking-cost-calculator
Read-onlyIdempotent
Compute the lifetime cost of a smoking habit — cigarettes per day × pack price × years — and compare it against what the same money would have grown to if invested at a given annual return. Returns total spent, annual spend (the 'quit today' figure), invested future value, and the opportunity-cost gap. Defaults to US averages: $7/pack, 20 cigarettes per pack. The CDC estimates total US smoking-related cost (medical + lost productivity) at $1.4 trillion/year — this calculator answers the personal version of that number.
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| pack_price | Yes | Price per pack in dollars. The US average is ~$7 (mid-2024); NYC and a few high-tax states exceed $12; the cheapest states sit near $6. | |
| years_smoked | Yes | Years over which the habit continues. Use total years if you're modeling a lifetime habit (e.g. 30 for a smoker who started at 18 and is now 48). | |
| cigarettes_per_day | Yes | Cigarettes smoked per day. A pack-a-day habit is 20. Fractional values allowed (e.g. 10 for half a pack, 7 for a workweek-only habit). | |
| cigarettes_per_pack | Yes | Cigarettes per pack. Defaults to 20 (the US/EU standard). Override for 25-cigarette packs (Canada, Australia) or 10-cigarette packs. | |
| annual_return_percent | Yes | Optional expected nominal annual return on the alternative investment, as a percentage (e.g. 7 for 7%). Set to 0 to skip the invested-future-value comparison. 7% real or 10% nominal are common long-term US stock-market assumptions. |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| daily_spend | Yes | Cost of cigarettes smoked per day, in dollars. | |
| total_packs | Yes | Total packs purchased (total_cigarettes ÷ cigarettes_per_pack), rounded. | |
| total_spent | Yes | Total nominal dollars spent on cigarettes over years_smoked. | |
| annual_spend | Yes | daily_spend × 365. The 'you'd save $X/year if you quit today' figure. | |
| total_months | Yes | Number of monthly contributions (years × 12, rounded to integer). | |
| monthly_spend | Yes | daily_spend × 365 / 12. | |
| invested_value | Yes | Future value of investing the same monthly amount at annual_return_percent over years_smoked (end-of-month contributions). Equals total_spent when annual_return_percent is 0. | |
| opportunity_cost | Yes | invested_value − total_spent. Positive when the investment outgrows the cash spent (typical with positive return). Zero when return is 0%. | |
| total_cigarettes | Yes | Total cigarettes consumed over the horizon (cigarettes_per_day × 365 × years). |