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When people think of ways to save money, sometimes they think “hmmm smoking is so expensive, I should probably quit”. More importantly, it’s a huge burden to your health to smoke too. Not to mention those around you. (Every mother I see smoking in a car with her children, I want to punch in the face). But quitting is hard. I mean really hard. Today is my one-year Quit Anniversary and I want to share with you the secret to quitting smoking. So what’s the secret? How can you quit smoking effortlessly? Read on and I will tell you.

For those of you who don’t smoke…congratulations. I don’t mean that sarcastically either. I mean CONGRATULATIONS for avoiding the biggest mistake in my adult life. I defied the odds when I started smoking. Neither of my parents do it, and I didn’t start till I was 21 years old. Statistically, if your parent’s don’t smoke, and you don’t start before the age of 18, you’re at almost a 0% likelihood to smoke. Well I did. Look at me, I’m one in a million….

That being said, a quick side note: if you are not a smoker, try not to judge smokers too harshly. It is a real addiction and it is unfathomably difficult to quit. HOWEVER…it can be done…and it should be done. But shaming them isn’t going to help. Just sayin’. All smokers know they SHOULD quit. It’s no news flash. They know how bad it is. But it’s become their coping mechanism.

So one thing smokers always want to know when they hear you quit is how you did it. What did you do? Did you take Chantix? Did you use the patch? The e-cigarettes? The gum? The sprays? The hypnosis? Laser therapy? I tried most of those methods and none of them worked. I was begged, pleaded and bribed to quit. NOTHING worked. That is until I finally quit for good. And what magic method did I use?

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Nothing.

The big secret is there is no secret. There is no effortless way to quit smoking. The sooner you stop looking for one and start quitting on your own the better. I quit cold turkey. Yup. No supplements, no crazy methods, nothing. Just quit. And you know what? It sucked. Every waking minute I wanted a cigarette so bad I could cry. Sometimes, I did cry. Sometimes I wanted to punch things. Sometimes I wanted to lick the ashes out of the ashtray. Sometimes I had to hide my car keys so I wouldn’t go to the store to get cigarettes. I couldn’t watch movies or tv shows with someone lighting up, I had to change the channel. I had to pay at the pump for all my gas, because I knew if I went into the gas station, I couldn’t trust myself. But I pushed on, and every time I wanted one, I cried to my fiance (who was then my boyfriend…bless his heart for tolerating with me, and still proposing to me after) and every time he said “no you DON’T want one. You can do this.” he was my internal monologue when my own was trying to sabotage me.

I’m not trying to brag. My point here is, if you yourself WANT to quit, you can do it. I’m not a better person than you. I don’t have more will power. I just knew that it was time for me to be done smoking. No magic pill or chemical laden crutch is going to make it any easier. You’re just replacing one bad thing with another. It’s not going to be easy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. So suck it up, you can do this. And just think how totally bad ass you will feel after knowing that YOU DID IT. And you didn’t need any pills or anything!

I feel like printing out my quit-a-versary certificate and wearing it around like a cape. It’s pretty badass to quit cold turkey, but like any other thing, YOU CAN DO IT if you set your mind on the end goal. Just don’t allow yourself to give up. Ever.

You might ask, WHY is a frugal website talking about quitting smoking? Just take a look at the certificate up above. That dollar amount saved? Yeah, that’s a conservative estimate. I paid between $5.75-$6.00 for a pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights. More than that during the time when I lived in NY. I smoked on average between 1/2 pack to a pack a day. That’s somewhere between $1500-$2000 I have saved in the year since I have quit. Just think of all the things you can buy with all that extra cash! What are you waiting for?

Are you going to quit now that you know how to quit smoking?

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