If you smoke in Great Britain, you may be spending much more money than you think. Nicotinell, a provider of a range of products to help people when they have a goal of quitting smoking, has attempted to draw a clear picture of just how much taking up this habit costs you in the following study:

 

How the research was put together

 

The foundations of this research is based on the fact that the average daily cigarette consumption for men across Great Britain worked out at 12 cigarettes in 2016, if the Office for National Statistics’ Adult Smoking Habits in the UK: 2016 report is to be believed. This figure sat at 11 cigarettes a day for women. Over a year, these figures work out at 4,380 cigarettes for men and 4,015 cigarettes for women.

 

Next, the UK’s leading cigarette brands in 2016 were selected, based on sales value recorded by Statista. These brands are as follows:

1. Sterling — £1.51 billion
2. Mayfair — £1.05 billion
3. Lambert & Butler — £788 million
4. Marlboro — £782 million
5. Richmond — £724 million
7. John Player Special — £677 million
8. Carlton — £541 million
9. Silk Cut — £504 million
10. Windsor — £462 million*

 

*Players were the sixth leading cigarette brand in the UK but has not been included in this research, due to the data for this brand being unavailable on mysupermarket.co.uk.

 

Once the leading cigarette brands were determined, research was carried out to find the most popular 20-pack box of cigarettes from each of the brands involved in the study. Following this, the mean values of the prices charged for each box at the four biggest supermarket chains across the UK were worked out. The supermarkets selected were those with the highest market share according to Kantar Worldpanel, which are as follows:

1. Tesco — 27.8%
2. Sainsbury’s — 15.8%
3. Asda — 15.3%
4. Morrisons — 10.4%

 

The following list is each cigarette brand’s most popular 20-pack box of cigarettes, as well as its mean value. They were all priced and charted in terms of popularity by mysupermarket.co.uk as of November 1st 2017:

• Sterling Dual King Size — £8.24
• Mayfair White King Size — £8.89
• Lambert & Butler Original Silver King Size — £8.89
• Marlboro Gold King Size — £10.36
• Richmond Bright Blue Superkings — £8.89
• John Player Special Bright Blue Superkings — £7.35
• Carlton Superkings Red — £7.35
• Silk Cut King Size Silver — £10.66
• Windsor Blue JPS Superking Green — £7.89

 

With this data, the costs that the average male and female smoker in Great Britain can expect to rack up on cigarettes on an annual basis can now be calculated.

 

The results

 

Cigarette product Avg. expenditure by men per year** Avg. expenditure by women per year**
Sterling Dual King Size £1,804.56 £1,656.24
Mayfair White King Size £1,946.91 £1,786.89
Lambert & Butler Original Silver King Size £1,946.91 £1,786.89
Marlboro Gold King Size £2,268.84 £2,082.36
Richmond Bright Blue Superkings £1,946.91 £1,786.89
John Player Special Bright Blue Superkings £1,609.65 £1,477.35
Carlton Superkings Red £1,609.65 £1,477.35
Silk Cut King Size Silver £2,334.54 £2,142.66
Windsor Blue JPS Superking Green £1,727.91 £1,585.89
Avg. expenditure across all products researched £1,910.65 £1,753.61

 

**The average expenditure has been worked out per the cost of a 20-pack of each cigarette product, under the assumption that they will need to purchase a new pack even if their average yearly expenditure doesn’t calculate to a sum of 20. For example, if a smoker has 42 cigarettes per year, they would need to purchase 3 x 20 packs of cigarettes.

 

Insights of the results

 

The two figures for the average expenditure covering all products which were researched may appear high in themselves. However, the following list may shock you even more, as it showcases just how much a variety of popular purchases cost in comparison:

• A 49-inch Sony Bravia KD49XE9005 LED HDR 4K Ultra HD Smart Android TV can be purchased new from John Lewis for £1,199.
• A PS4 Pro 1TB, an Xbox One X and a Nintendo Switch can be purchased new from GAME for a total of £1,069.97 for all three consoles.
• A summer holiday for a family of four costs an average of £1,212, according to research from Asda Money, with this figure including flights, accommodation, food, clothes, phone data, and activities.
• The average Brit spends £1,042 a year on clothes, according to the Great British Wardrobe Report commissioned by Ariel.
• The average British household spends £753 on Christmas festivities, according to research carried out by Gocompare.com Money, with this figure including the costs to buy presents for friends and family, food and drink for the big day, partying, and all of the festive decorations — including the Christmas tree.