5 Expensive Bad Habits

Bad habits tend to seem harmless at first, but they usually end up hurting you more than you could ever imagine.  Some will cause health problems with prolonged usage, while some will just eat away at your wallet.  Here are 5 bad habits that will make you go broke unless you change your ways.

Smoking

I don’t know how many times I have heard people tell me how bad smoking is.  Most people know that it’s bad for your health, but how bad?  Smoking can lead to diseases such as lung cancer, emphysema, and cardiovascular disease, none of which are a pleasant way to leave this earth!  Those three things and more are some of the health risks of smoking, but how much does it cost your wallet?  Well, If you are buying cigarettes for about 5 bucks a pack then you will pay about 1826.25 per year, and over a course of 20 years that is 36,525 bucks!  After years of use, if you do contract a disease, you will spend thousands upon thousands in medical bills just to keep yourself alive. Imagine if you put that into an investment portfolio instead.

Lottery tickets

According to Forbes.com the average American spends about $150 a year on lotto tickets.  If you think about it, most people don’t actually play the lottery, so that means that those who are playing, are really trying to win.  If you spend more than $2 a week on tickets, then you are already way above the average amount of lotto ticket spending.

Putting the Pedal to the Metal

If you’re anything like Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights, you just want to go fast!  The problem is that the faster you go, the faster your car is going to use up gasoline.  My car only gets about 15 mpg on average, but I realized that when you use all 300 hp, then it tends to get a lot less!  If you use up gas faster, then you’ll fill up more often, and nobody has the money to fill up when gas is $4 a gallon!  To find out how to get better gas mileage out of your car, read this article here.

Eating Out

The average price of a meal when you go out to eat is about $10 per person.  On the other hand, a meal cooked at home is about $2-3 per person.  That is a no brainer decision, but many people still eat out multiple times a week.  If you spend $25-30 a week eating out, that is 1,300 per year!  Not to mention, eating out all the time is hazardous to your health, and can cause you to gain weight.

The Morning Latte

A Starbucks small coffee costs about $4, the same as a gallon of gas.  If you were to drink one cup of Starbucks coffee every morning, you would spend about $1,460 per year and over $30,000 within 20 years.  Suddenly that  cup of coffee isn’t that good anymore is it?

Final Thoughts

What if you were to save all of the money from any of these bad habits and were to put them into an investment account, you would have no problem retiring.  Drop any of these habits and you will be on your way to a frugal and happy life.