How Much Money Do You Save Quitting Weed?

How much money you save quitting weed depends on how much you used and what you paid, so the only accurate answer is your own. For a sense of scale, a RAND analysis of US survey data put daily and near-daily users' spending at about $8.92 per day of use, which is roughly$3,250 a year if you use every day. Heavy users paying legal-store prices can spend far more. The simple way to find your number: add up the last four weeks of real purchases, divide by 28, and multiply by 365.

Below is the method in more detail, what the research says about spending, and the costs people usually leave out.

Why estimates vary so much

There is no single figure for what quitting saves, because two things swing it hugely: how often you use and how much you use each time.

Spending is heavily concentrated among daily users. An analysis of US national survey data found that daily and near-daily users were less than a quarter to about a third of past-month users, yet accounted for the vast majority of days of use. The authors estimated it would take 10 to 12 occasional users to match one daily user in days of use. RAND's report for the White House drug policy office reached the same conclusion about money: total consumption and spending are driven by the minority of daily and near-daily users who use on 21 or more days a month.

So if you use once at the weekend, quitting saves a modest amount. If you use every day, it is often one of the larger lines in your budget.

Two published reference points

These are useful as anchors, not as your figure.

What daily users report spending. In the RAND report, daily and near-daily users' spending per day of use rose from $8.39 to$8.92 over the period studied, based on national survey data. At $8.92 a day:

What the amount would cost at legal-store prices. The same report cites an estimate that daily users in Washington State consumed between 1.3 and 1.9 grams per day of use, with a best estimate close to 1.6 grams. A study of 30 million legal sales in Washington found flower averaged [about $11 per gram including tax](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5673542/) between 2014 and 2016, and that buying an eighth rather than single grams cut the per-gram price by about 16$11 a gram, that is about $17.60 a day, or more than$6,400 a year.

The gap between those two answers is the point. Self-reported spending includes people who share, grow, get given weed or buy cheaper; the gram-based estimate assumes store prices. Prices also differ a lot between places and years. Treat both as a range and then work out your own.

How to work out your own number

A figure you calculated from your own spending is far more motivating than a national average.

1. Pull four weeks of real purchases. Bank statements, card history and payment apps are more honest than memory. Include cash withdrawals you know went on weed.
2. Add the extras. Delivery fees and tips, papers, tips and filters, lighters, carts and batteries, replacement gear.
3. Divide by 28 to get a daily figure.
4. Multiply by 30 for a month and 365 for a year.

If you cannot find the records, estimate conservatively: what you spend on a typical purchase and how many days it lasts. It is better to underestimate and be pleasantly surprised than to inflate the number and stop believing it.

The costs people leave out

The purchase is only the most visible part. Depending on your habits, some of these may belong in your figure too.

• Food. Late-night snacks and delivery orders that happen mainly when you are high.
• Convenience spending. Delivery rather than cooking, taxis rather than driving.
• Gear. Replacement pipes, grinders, vaporisers and batteries over a year.
• Time. Not money directly, but hours spent high, buying, or recovering the next morning are hours not spent on paid work, study or anything else.

Only add these if they genuinely apply. The figure is useful because it is honest.

The longer-term picture

The bigger financial effects of heavy, long-term use are harder to put a number on, and the research here shows associations rather than proof of cause.

The Dunedin study, which followed about a thousand New Zealanders from birth to 38, found that people with regular cannabis use and persistent dependence experienced downward socioeconomic mobility, more financial difficulties, workplace problems and relationship conflict in early midlife. The financial problems included trouble with debt, difficulty paying for basics such as food and rent, and lower credit ratings. People with a longer history of dependence were more likely to report them. NIDA also notes that heavy use in adolescence is associated with negative effects on educational attainment, employment and income in young adulthood.

None of this means every person who smokes daily is heading for debt. It does suggest the cost of long-term heavy use is not only what you pay at the counter. If you are wondering whether your own use has crossed that line, functional weed addiction covers the signs that hide behind a life that still mostly works.

Making the saving visible

Money saved is a strange kind of reward: it comes from something not happening. That makes it easy to forget unless you make it visible.

Track it daily. A running total that ticks up with each day off is more motivating than a yearly estimate you worked out once. At the end of the first 30 days without weed, the number is usually large enough to be surprising.

Give it a destination. Move the daily amount into a separate account, or pay down a card with it. Money that stays in your current account tends to disappear into everyday spending, and then the saving feels imaginary.

Spend some of it on the evening. The hours you used to spend high need filling. Putting part of the money into something to do in that slot, such as a class, a gym membership or equipment for a hobby, solves two problems at once. What to do instead of smoking weed and how to relax without weed have ideas for that time.

Money as a reason to quit

Money is a good reason because it is concrete and easy to measure. It is rarely enough on its own, though. A craving at 10pm does not respond to arithmetic, and the first weeks often bring irritability, poor sleep and restlessness that no savings figure makes feel better. The people who do best usually pair the money with a reason about sleep, mood, work or relationships, and use the money figure as proof that the days off are real.

Money does have a place in treatment. NIDA lists contingency management among the behavioural treatments that can be effective for cannabis use disorder. Contingency management gives tangible rewards, such as vouchers, for verified abstinence. Watching your own savings grow is not the same thing, but it borrows the same idea: a visible, immediate reward for a day off.

Long-term users often find the money adds up faster than they expected, simply because the habit was daily for so long. Quitting weed after 10 years covers what else to expect in that situation, and boredom after quitting weed covers what to do with the time.

When money is not the main problem

If you are spending money you do not have, borrowing to buy, or hiding purchases from people you live with, the spending is a symptom worth taking seriously. The same applies if you have tried to cut down several times without it holding, or if you also use alcohol or other drugs.

In the US, SAMHSA's National Helpline is free, confidential and open 24/7 at 1-800-662-4357, and FindTreatment.gov lists local services. If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number.

Sources

• What America's users spend on illegal drugs, 2006–2016 (RAND, for ONDCP, 2019) — national spending estimates
• What America's users spend on illegal drugs, full report (PDF) — spending per use day and grams per day for daily users
• Statistics on cannabis users skew perceptions of cannabis use (Burns et al., Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2013) — how consumption concentrates among daily users
• Variation in cannabis potency and prices in a newly legal market (Smart et al., Addiction, 2017) — legal-store prices per gram in Washington State
• Persistent cannabis dependence and alcohol dependence represent risks for midlife economic and social problems (Cerdá et al., Clinical Psychological Science, 2016) — Dunedin cohort financial outcomes
• Cannabis (Marijuana) research topic (NIDA) — educational and income associations, and effective treatments
• FindTreatment.gov — locating treatment in the US