| Are your vices foiling your finances? |
| By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com |
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Most of us are well aware of the costs of the seven deadly sins. We may even know the downside of ignoring the five basic food groups.
But we probably have never stopped to do the math
on our three favorite vices: alcohol, cigarettes and coffee.
Talk about a buzz kill, right? These are the personal indulgences
we hold near and dear. They provide the moments of sheer visceral
pleasure that get us through the heavy slogging of daily life.
Not only are we willing to pay the oh-so-affordable retail price
for these self-rewards, we actually bundle them into our cost of
living without a second thought, as if they were necessities like
groceries, toothpaste or gas for the road.
Granted, each is addictive and has physiological side effects we'd
rather not dwell on, ranging from hypertension to lung cancer, sleep
disorders to emphysema, halitosis to heart attacks. Hey, everything
can kill you if you look at it hard enough.
But when we consider the daily tab from starting each morning with
a Starbucks double-tall latte, inhaling a pack of cigarettes throughout
the day and capping the old 8-to-5 with a couple of drinks at the
local watering hole, it can sometimes feel like we're working to
support our crutches.
No one is suggesting that you heartlessly kick your three amigos
to the curb and get thee to the nearest yoga class (which can also
be pricey!). But if sizable expenses are beginning to appear on
your radar, perhaps a larger house or college for the twins, you
may be surprised at how much you can save by sacrificing one or
more of your favorite vices.
To aid in calculating the cost of our three most popular
vices, Bankrate obtained retail pricing in Seattle, Austin, Texas,
and Orlando, Fla., at Applebee's (domestic bottle beer and call
liquor), 7-Eleven (cigarettes) and Starbucks (double-tall latte),
then averaged each unit price. On cigarettes and coffee, we rounded
up to the nearest dollar to account for tax. On alcohol, we factored
in a 20 percent tip on the average cost, then rounded up to the
nearest dollar to account for tax.
Light up a cigarette and grab your beverage of choice
because here comes a real eye-opener.
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| The toll of vices on family finances
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Alcohol: Sobering savings
Alcohol, long reviled as "demon rum," has been enjoying
a new respectability lately thanks to medical studies that show
that a little tippling can be good for the heart.
"Ethanol in and of itself makes platelets, the
clotting factors in blood, less sticky, so you decrease the possibility
they will clog arteries," says Dr. Ruth Kava, director of nutrition
for the American Council
on Science and Health.
Dr. Kava says the operative word is moderation.
"I don't see a health reason to quit if you are
drinking one to two drinks a day for a man or one drink a day for
a woman," she says. "You're doing something there that
could actually reduce your health-care costs down the line, as long
as you don't go overboard."
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