My Dumbest Investment

Learning how to smoke was my dumbest investment ever. My smartest one was learning how to quit and never starting up again.

- D.M., California

The Fool Responds: Right you are - health issues aside, quitting smoking is a great financial move. If you spend $5 per day on a pack of cigarettes, that amounts to $1,825 per year. If you took that $1,825 and invested it in the stock market, earning the historical average return of about 10 percent per year, in 30 years, you'd have nearly $32,000 - just from one year of not smoking. Imagine what you could do with more years of saving and investing. If you invested $1,825 in the market each year for 30 years, earning 10 percent, you'd end up with more than $275,000. Many of us are not saving and investing enough for retirement, and it can be hard to find ways to scrape together more moolah. Quitting smoking is a far from easy thing to do, but your lungs and your golden years will thank you for it. For more information on quitting, visit www. surgeongeneral.gov/tobacco.

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