4 ms·

Reminds me of this old joke... Lady: Do you smoke? Guy: Yes I do. Lady: How many packs a day? Guy: 3 packs. Lady: How much per pack? Guy: $10.00 pe

Reminds me of this old joke... Lady: Do you smoke? Guy: Yes I do. Lady: How many packs a day? Guy: 3 packs. Lady: How much per pack? Guy: $10.00 per pack. Lady: And how long have you been smoking? Guy: 15 years Lady: So 1 pack is $10.00 and you have been smoking 3 packs a day which puts your spending per month at $900. In 1 year, it would have been $10,800. Correct? Guy: Correct. Lady: If 1 year you spend $10,800, not accounting for inflation, the past 15 years puts your spending total at $162,000. Correct? Guy: Correct. Lady: Do you know if you hadn't smoke, that money could have been put in a step-up interest savings account and after accounting for compound interest for the past 15 years, you could have by now bought a Ferrari? Guy: Oh. Do you smoke? Lady: No. Guy: Then where's your fucking Ferrari?

PhantomGremlin 11y ago
Over 40 years ago I was in high school, had access to a computer, and did a simple programming exercise. I created some tables of how much money my dad was spending on cigarettes, and how much he would have if he invested it instead. IIRC the interest rates I used were from 1% to 10%. The price of a pack of cigarettes was somewhere in the neighborhood of $0.30. Maybe the tables went up to $1.00 a pack but probably no higher. Fast forward 40 years. Cigarettes are now about 30x as expensive as they were, but interest rates are somewhere near 0%. Times change!