One of my coworkers decided to quit smoking almost a year ago. One day he work up and realized he’d spent around $12,000 on smoking over the past 10 years and had nothing to show for it [except filthy lungs!].

He decided to quit smoking and spend the $12,000 on something more tangible. Since he was in the market for a new car, he spent $12k more than he originally budgeted and got himself a very fancy set of wheels. Since that day he hasn’t smoked a single cigarette and has actually started going to the gym everyday.

Of course I didn’t feel like telling him that he should’ve calculated the present value of $12,000 over a 10 year period and spent only that much. But nevermind, he succeeded in quitting smoking and I guess thats priceless!