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I?? back from my trip! I must say that I?? very tired right now but I saw Pursuit of Happiness on the plane and I thought it was a very good movie.

This is an inspiration movie based on a true story about Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith) that has struggled to have enough money to survive and how he ended up becoming very rich.

Chris’ wife in the movie could be labeled as someone who regularly smokes, and I was wondering how much the cigarettes would have cost the family (Note also that Chris did not smoke). Anyway, I ran a simple assumption of having the cigarette price at $5 a pack once a day. At the end of the month, the money of approximately $150 ($5 x 30 days) was invested and allowed to grow at 10% annually and all I can say is??WOW!

1 year = $1,885
2 years = $3,967
5 years = $11,616
10 years = $30,727
15 years = $62,171
30 years = $339.073
40 years = $947,611

Did you think smoking could cost you almost 1 million dollars? Interestingly enough, the reason why I did not start smoking (even more interestingly, I have never smoke a cigarette!) when I was young is because I thought that I didn?? want to pay the $5 a pack at the time. Little did I know that it would actually be much more than I expected!

If Chris’ wife in the movie never smoked, maybe they can afford to pay the rent were they able to save.

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