As I tweeted, I’m aware of how backward quitting smoking might be, in order to move to a country stereotyped as full of smokers, wine-drinkers and cheese-and-baguette-eaters. Especially since I don’t drink alcohol (especially wine) or eat cheese (migraines, plus maximum farting output equals avoidance), either. But I figure, as long as I figure out how to make gluten-free baguettes, I can still partake in some of the everyday-France kind of stuff.

Or I can just start smoking again once I get there.

You see, for once, I’m not going to try to quit for health reasons, or because it’s a bad example for my kid to witness, or because smokers are being pushed out of the very realm of society, nowadays. I’m quitting plainly to save the bucks I would be spending every other day on a pack of those filthy (tasty) emphysema-begeters.

And this isn’t my first time, and it won’t be free to quit, if last time’s any indication. Last time, I quit for two point five weeks, using the patch and rewarding myself at the two-week mark with a nose ring.  This means that it cost me approximately $80 to quit smoking; if I hadn’t tried to quit, I would have spent about $65. Then I promptly started smoking again.

Cue head::desk.

This time, I won’t be quite so luxurious in my rewards, but I do still plan to use the patch for the intended eight weeks. Instead, I will stock up on those hideously expensive home-wax jobs known as nicotine replacement therapy and I will reward myself with girliness – as in a Lush bubble bar at the end of every successful week.

Estimated annual savings: $700