| Travel & Holiday Insurance |
|
|
|
What you can save if you stop smoking
By Sarah Modlock
On 1 July 2007, the smoking ban already in force in several parts of Europe, the US and the rest of the UK, came into effect in England. After smoke-free laws in Ireland, cigarette sales fell by 15%, in Norway by 14% and in New York 100,000 people have quit since the start of the ban. If you're a smoker who is not happy about the changes then count your lucky stars you don't live in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where the sale and use of tobacco is completely outlawed. Alternatively, you can give up and count the extra cash in your bank account.
According to the Office of National Statistics, more than a quarter of adults - around 13 million people - are smokers. That number is almost certainly quite a bit higher once you include the under-16s who are puffing illegally. The price of a packet of cigarettes has more than tripled over the last 15 years. This means that the cost of smoking has increased by more than any other commodity - rising by an incredible 204% since 1989 on the Retail Price Index, according to the Halifax. Only personal services such as dentists' charges came close with an increase of 164%. In contrast, the price of electrical goods such as computers has fallen by 74% in the same period. Someone, somewhere is making a ton of money out of smokers.
Your savings
As the UK's smokers mull the ban on lighting up in public, one incentive to stub out their last fag is the potential profits to be made from investing their ciggy money in the markets instead. "With the typical packet of fags costing £5.40, a twenty-a-day smoker is blowing around £165 a month - and that's assuming the matches are gratis," says F&C's Jason Hollands. "Just storing the cash in a piggy bank would collect a tidy sum of £1,980 a year but had the money had been invested in a monthly savings scheme with Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust over the last 12 months, you'd now be sitting on a pot of £2,460. That's more than enough to buy plenty of patches and a subscription to a fancy health club."
Quit the wicked weed and you could save almost £2,000 by switching to a regular savings habit, according to research carried out by Alliance & Leicester which shows that even current social smokers, who smoke up to 20 cigarettes a week, could save approximately £280 in a year. Male smokers spend approximately £100 more on cigarettes each year than women say A&L. Many people have stated that they want to kick their smoking habit now the smoking ban has come into effect, with some 70 per cent of current smokers saying they want to give up. Ross Dalzell, manager for savings at Alliance & Leicester, said: "The English population spends billions of pounds on cigarettes each year - money which could be going towards that new kitchen you've dreamed of, a two week holiday in the sun, or simply kept as a nest-egg for the future." He added: "By investing the money saved in a high interest account each month and working towards a long term goal, smokers will hopefully find the will power to permanently kick the habit."
Make sure that you're getting the best savings rate
Your mortgage
Charcol says that Someone with a 25 year repayment mortgage could save over £29,000 in interest and shave over 8 years from the term of their loan if they used the money saved by quitting smoking to overpay on their mortgage. Drew Wotherspoon of Charcol comments: "When smokers look at what quitting can do to their finances it may provide that added incentive to finally stub out the habit. A 20-a-day smoker can save around £2,016 a year by giving up which, in itself, is incentive enough. Yet when you look at what overpaying by this amount can do to a mortgage, it is even more of an enticement. Even someone with a relatively small mortgage of £100,000 will pay £29,378 less in interest."
The figures naturally get even more convincing the more a borrower smokes each day. The following shows the potential savings:
How many?
Cost per month**
Mortgage Amount
Interest saved
Years saved
10 a day
£84
£100,000
£18,434
5 years and 5 months
20 a day
£168
£100,000
£29,378
8 years and 7 months
30 a day
£252
£100,000
£36,698
11 years and 3 months
40 a day
£336
£100,000
£41,963
12 years and 10 months
Wotherspoon continues, "There is clearly a lot to be saved if potential quitters take this approach. Coupled with savings on life assurance premiums and even some home contents insurance policies, there really is a great financial argument for not lighting-up, as well as the obvious benefit to your health. Life cover of £100,000 for a twenty five year term would cost a 35 year old male smoker £17 a month, whereas for a non-smoker it would be around £9."
For the money that you now won't be sending up in smoke, the market leading 2 year fixed rate from Halifax at 5.34% (7.3% APR) with a £1,499 fee allows 10% overpayment a year, and many of the standard mortgages in today's market allow some degree of overpayment.
Need to check out your mortgage options?
Your pension
The smoking ban is likely to encourage many people to quit smoking which Hargreaves Lansdown says will lead to increased longevity and therefore a need for more money in retirement. According to the 50-year British Medical Journal study, men who quit at the age of 30 can 'regain' ten years of life expectancy. Hargreaves Lansdown says that for someone retiring at age 65 and saving £100 per month, starting at age 30 will produce an extra pensions of £3,300 a year in today's terms. Starting at age 40 will produce an extra pension of £2,000 a year.
Hargreaves Lansdown head of pensions research Tom McPhail says: "The difference between smoker and non-smoker annuity rates is currently around 18% for a 65 year old man, so in order to buy the same level of income as a smoker, a non-smoker would have to build a pension fund 18 per cent larger. in order to qualify for smoker rates, a pension investor must be able to confirm that they have smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day for the last 10 years."
NFU Mutual explains that by investing the £175 saved from giving up smoking into a stakeholder pension plan each month, you could expect to increase your pension pot at 65 by up to £156,000. This equates to an annual income of £8,480 on top of any other pension provisions he may have. "Really, with the ban just days away, there is no better time to try and kick the habit," says NFU Mutual's Laura Wood. "The health benefits go without saying, but by putting money away rather than shelling out on cigarettes each day, you have the added incentive of saving for your retirement. The best bit is that by automatically switching the money you used to spend into a pension, you probably won't even notice."
Visit the Yahoo! Pension centre
Your insurance
According to price comparison website moneysupermarket.com, life insurance premiums for non-smokers are about half the price of those for smokers. For example, life insurance cover of £100,000 for a 35-year-old smoker over the next 25 years would cost £17.90 a month with Norwich Union. A non-smoking male would only pay £10 a month - a saving of almost 45 per cent or £2,370 over the term. As the table below shows, a non-smoker with Liverpool Victoria (now called LV=) would pay £3,150 less than a smoker.
Emma Walker, head of life insurance at moneysupermarket, said: "The premium difference between a smoker and a non-smoker is vast and there are considerable savings to be made simply by shopping around for the cheapest deal to suit your circumstances. In order to be classed as a non-smoker and qualify for life-insurance premium savings, insurers insist on smokers having packed it in for a full year. Once smokers have given up for 12 months, they should go back to their insurer and ask for non-smoker rates, subject to tests to prove they have quit."
Provider
Smoker monthly premium
Premium
over
25 years
Non-smoker
monthly
premium
Premium
over
25 years
Monthly saving by
not smoking
Total saving
by not
smoking
Friends Provident
£17.57
£5,271
£9.99
£2,997
£7.58
£2,274
Norwich Union
£17.90
£5,370
£10.00
£3,000
£7.90
£2,370
Legal & General
£17.10
£5,130
£10.30
£3,090
£6.80
£2,040
AEGON Scottish Equitable
£18.04
£5,412
£10.34
£3,102
£7.70
£2,310
LV=
£21.34
£6,402
£10.84
£3,252
£10.50
£3,150
Useful links:
|
| |
