Everyone has a bad habit. Perhaps yours is oversleeping or watching a lot of television. Maybe, you’re an ice cream fanatic or someone who habitually buys expensive wine or beer. While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying certain guilty pleasures, others can wreak havoc on your budget, sending you thousands of dollars in the red, if you let them. Here are just 3 habits that pack a major punch, financially speaking, should you fail to keep them under control.
Smoking Cigarettes
Smoking is often considered the mother of all bad habits, as it raises your risk for a plethora of health problems and long-term conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and emphysema. Smoking is also incredibly expensive and will drain your checking account if you let it. These days, the average pack of cigarettes runs for about 7 dollars. Smoke one pack a day, and you’ll easily spend over 2,000 dollars in a year. Smokers also pay more in health and dental care and may be subject to expensive medical procedures, in the likely event that their addiction causes health problems.
Eating Fast Food
Fast food restaurants are popular for offering cheap, on-the-go meals. We often rely upon these establishments when we’re too tired to prepare dinner at home, too rushed to sit down for a formal meal, or looking for an inexpensive way to satisfy our appetites. However, despite their low cost, the money you'll spend on fast food meals adds up over time. If you hit the drive-through once a week, spending 8 dollars each time, you’ll spend about 400 dollars for these meals over the course of a year. Frequent fast-food restaurants even more, and you can easily double or quadruple this expenditure.
Buying Coffee
Coffee is a necessity in many Americans’ day-to-day lives. Though most of us have basic coffee makers at home, specialty coffee is more popular than ever, encouraging many people to forego at-home coffee for more expensive versions. While you might think little of your daily coffee run, you might want to consider how all those iced coffees are impacting your long-term financial health. Even if you spend just 2 dollars for basic, hot coffee each morning, you’ll end up paying 730 dollars in coffee expenses over just one year. Spend more on your daily brew, and you can easily surpass 1,000 dollars in coffee costs.
Staying on top of your personal and professional life can be a challenge. At Avenue 80 Apartments in Overland Park, Kansas, we hope to make your daily routine a bit easier with tips and tricks that can be applied to every aspect of life.