"CDC: Smoking hurt productivity
Early deaths caused by smoking cost the nation about $92 billion in
lost productivity from 1997 to 2001... Smoking reduces life
expectancy an average of about 14 years by way of lung cancer, heart
disease, and other illness...." Found in USA Today, Friday 1st of
July 2005.
Statistics are just that... statistics. But more,
and more frequently I do see this type of article on the news.
The reality is that less than perfect health habits are costing
ourselves and our nation dearly. I will leave economists the task
of figuring out how much it costs our economy, and I will concentrate
on how it affects us.
I believe that if you do not have to worry about bad health you can
worry more about succeeding in your career or your financial
goals. Even if you do not care too much about those goals, you
may at least worry about you and your family's happiness more.
I also believe that a physically fit person is more agile and gets
tired less. This means more time to conduct revenue generating
activities, or at least family fun and experience sharing with friends.
Being healthy must have some impact in your happiness and in your
finances. I can think about a few (listed below), can you
think about more?
Keep your weight at the current level and you do not have to buy new clothes.
Stop smoking and you may be saving around $5 a day, or $1500 a year (around 4% of the pre-tax typical US family income).
Play a sport with friends (like basketball, tennis, volleyball,
soccer) -- it may be less expensive than meeting for dinner at an
expensive restaurant.
Invite friends for dinner at home - you will be able to share the
same amount of time, or even more, but you can make sure the food is
slightly healthier.
Less smoking breaks, more career advancing time. Use the 15
minutes to interact with your co-workers rather than smoking in the cold
snow or rain. (granted, you can also network with other smokers,
but you may be missing some people).
Coach your kids soccer team (or be a scout leader, or some other
active youth organization). It will be an active way of enjoying
family time, meeting your child friend's parents (networking and
knowing where your kid may be after the game).
Take a walk around the block with your family after finishing
dinner. (It may be better than the latest reality TV show and may
allow you to ask them about how they are doing at school and work).
Do your own gardening/yard work, it will provide a bit of exercise and a bit of savings.
If you live in a city, walk to work - again, a bit of exercise, and a bit of savings.
Brown bag your lunch and walk into a local park to eat it.
Healthier, and gives you an excuse to get outside and enjoy the sunny
day.
BTW, Budgetting Babe inspired me about preparing lists of ideas. She has very good saving ideas on her site.
I liked your blog. Perhaps you would like my investing one as well. www.stockdiscussion.blogspot.com Dan - 01 07 05 - 12:06
Many of my thoughts exactly. See my post called Stop Smoking, It’s Killing Your Finances to see details. It can be found at http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2005/06/stop_smoking_it.html. FMF () (URL) - 01 07 05 - 13:37
Smoking reduces the financial as well as physical health of not only self, but those around us. cvrk () (URL) - 03 07 05 - 03:48
This is fascinating, very circular. Smoking, I believe, is not only a cultural thing but a stress related addiction. While working, worrying about increasing productivity, which would in turn increase our GDP, we incur stress. We incur stress to work harder to get more THINGS. We smoke, we do other not so healthy things to relieve stress, overeat, zone out in front of the computer or TV.
I think what grabbed me the most was who cares about the lost productivity as much as the deaths(and smoking related deaths are gruesome). I think if we changed our emphasis of materialistic consuming and increasing productivity to focusing on quality of health and life of Americans, we would have less smoking.
“...you may at least worry about you and your family….” I am not trying to flame you, this should not really be worded this way I am not sure you meant it like this. Do you really think smokers don’t love their children, coach their games or become scout leaders, or garden, or walk with their family, or advance their careers? Just one woman’s opinion. Ms. Sheila Whotiger (URL) - 27 07 05 - 19:00
15 
24