Monday, October 17, 2016

Word of Wisdom

Today, I was thinking about being poor. Okay, I was really thinking about our budget. Our budget and being poor. During this time, a commercial came on for coffee. That got me thinking: What are the financial blessings of following the Word of Wisdom? 

For those who might read this that have no idea what I'm talking about when I say "Word of Wisdom", it is the name of the health code members of the LDS church follow. 

Growing up in Seattle, I am assured that if I had not been taught to not drink coffee I would be a coffee snob. I love the smell of coffee. I would only drink good quality coffee and most likely Starbucks coffee. I looked up a yearly cost if I were to buy just a medium-sized single cup of coffee every day. This wouldn't include a larger sized coffee, anything additional to the coffee (white chocolate mocha, etc), more than one cup of coffee, etc. The cost came out to about $1,500 dollars a year. 

When it came to alcohol, it was a little more difficult. I tried to think of what my young married, young parent, non-LDS friends' drinking patterns are, based off of FB postings. It seems to me that a glass of wine/beer a night is pretty common. Plus, drinks at restaurants. According to the internet, a typical bottle of wine of normal-good quality is about 50$ and contains 6 glasses worth of liquid. So, if Kyle and I were to drink one glass of wine a night or one beer a night, plus order a drink when we ate out we would spend about: $3,500 on alcohol a year. 

New York has the most expensive cigarette state. Props to NY for taxing their tobacco! A typical pack of cigs in NY is $14. If Kyle and I smoked (Gag me. Seriously the thought of this disgusts me) we would spend: $4,700 a year on cigarettes. 

I'm not going to try to price out what we would spend if we used illegal drugs. Our total comes to almost $9,800 a year on coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes. If we take out the cigarettes, because intelligent people do not smoke anymore, it is: $5,000. Crunching these numbers made me grateful for the blessings that come as we follow the commandments. There are certainly blessings of health, clarity, safety, the list goes on that come from following the Word of Wisdom....but, today, I am grateful for the lesser focused on financial blessings that come! 

1 comment:

  1. Good point! I never thought of that side of it in how much we do save yearly by keeping the word of wisdom. Also, being poor is its own little refiner's fire! We are not as poor as we were as students, but we still have to watch every dollar! I can sympathize with you on the budget blues. Wouldn't it be nice if we could be paid $4500 per year for keeping the word of wisdom? Haha :)

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