"If you'd saved all that cigarette money, you could have bought a Mercedes by now."
Everyone has heard that lecture. And everyone has heard the comeback:
"So why isn't every non-smoker driving a Mercedes?"
Fair point. Money you didn't spend is not the same as money you actually saved.
But stopping at the comeback misses something. Small daily spending gets big fast once you add it up over a year.
And if you don't care about cars, "a tenth of a Mercedes" means nothing. Swap the car for a gaming PC, though, and the number suddenly feels real.
This article uses Japanese prices checked on September 11, 2026. The scenario: two packs of cigarettes a day at ¥580 a pack, plus ¥220 a day on drinks. We turn that into a yearly total, the years it would take to reach a Mercedes, and the months it would take to reach a gaming PC.
The short answer
That habit adds up to about ¥503,700 a year.
On the same day, G TUNE (the gaming brand of Japanese PC maker Mouse Computer) had a Ryzen 7 9800X3D + GeForce RTX 5070 desktop on sale for ¥479,800.[1][2]
So instead of "a Mercedes someday, decades from now," think "a pretty serious gaming PC, almost every single year." That's much easier to picture.
1. What does the habit cost in one year?
In 2026, JT (Japan Tobacco) listed its main 20-cigarette Mevius packs at ¥580.[1]
Two packs a day works out to:
¥580 × 2 × 365 = ¥423,400
That's ¥423,400 a year on cigarettes alone.
Drinks are harder to pin down. Brand, size, store, and drinking at home versus at a bar all change the price a lot. So the ¥150 and ¥220 figures below are just example numbers for the math, not market averages.
| Daily assumption | 1 year | 10 years |
|---|---|---|
| Cigarettes: ¥580 × 2 packs | ¥423,400 | ¥4,234,000 |
| Drinks: ¥150 | ¥54,750 | ¥547,500 |
| Drinks: ¥220 | ¥80,300 | ¥803,000 |
| 2 packs + ¥150 drinks | ¥478,150 | ¥4,781,500 |
| 2 packs + ¥220 drinks | ¥503,700 | ¥5,037,000 |
¥1,380 a day sounds like "eh, that's normal." Look at it per year and it's half a million yen.
Daily spending sneaks in like a ninja. The yearly total kicks down the front door carrying a gaming tower.
2. So how many years until you could buy a Mercedes?
First problem: "a Mercedes" isn't one price.
Here's what we found in Japan on September 11, 2026: the A-Class at ¥5.25 million, the C 200 Sports at ¥7.44 million, the E 200 at ¥9.14 million, and the S 450 d 4MATIC at ¥15.98 million.[3][4][5][6]
If you really kept the full ¥503,700 every year:
| Car | Listed price | Time to get there |
|---|---|---|
| A-Class | ¥5,250,000 | about 10.4 years |
| C 200 Sports | ¥7,440,000 | about 14.8 years |
| E 200 | ¥9,140,000 | about 18.1 years |
| S 450 d 4MATIC | ¥15,980,000 | about 31.7 years |
So the math checks out. Keep it up long enough and you hit Mercedes money.
But even the cheapest one takes about 10 years. The S-Class takes about 32. As a lecture, that's way too epic.
And that's just the sticker price. No registration fees, insurance, options, or upkeep. Quitting smoking doesn't make a Mercedes spawn in your driveway the next morning.
3. In gaming PCs, it all happens within a year
Now compare the same ¥503,700 a year with G TUNE listings from the same day.[7][8][2]
| Gaming PC | Listed price | Time to get there |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 5060 outlet desktop | ¥194,800 | about 4.6 months |
| RTX 5070 desktop | ¥299,800 | about 7.1 months |
| Ryzen 7 9800X3D + RTX 5070 sale desktop | ¥479,800 | about 11.4 months |
The Mercedes took 10 to 32 years. Every PC here takes less than a year.
The ¥479,800 build is ¥23,900 cheaper than the ¥503,700 yearly total. On paper, one year of the habit buys one of those machines with a bit of change left over.
Nobody's saying "buy a new PC every year." The point is that half a million yen hits harder as "one PC you could buy this year" than as "a slice of a car you don't even want."
4. What's wrong with "if you didn't smoke, you'd have a Mercedes"?
Two different ideas are mashed together here.
Idea one: cigarettes and alcohol add up to a lot of money over time. That part you can calculate.
Idea two: without the habit, every yen would have stayed put and turned into a luxury car. That doesn't happen on its own.
¥1,000 you don't spend on smokes doesn't auto-transfer into a "future Mercedes" account. It might go to lunch, games, a trip, rent, or some other hobby.
So "not every non-smoker drives a Mercedes" is a real hit on the logic.
But that comeback doesn't make the ¥423,400 or ¥503,700 a year disappear either.
The accurate version is: if you actually moved the same amount into a separate savings account every time, after a while you'd have enough for the car or the PC.
5. What if you keep stacking it up?
Here's ¥503,700 a year added up plainly, with no interest, no price hikes, and no inflation.
| Years | Total | In ¥479,800 PCs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ¥503,700 | about 1.05 |
| 2 | ¥1,007,400 | about 2.10 |
| 3 | ¥1,511,100 | about 3.15 |
| 5 | ¥2,518,500 | about 5.25 |
| 10 | ¥5,037,000 | about 10.50 |
| 20 | ¥10,074,000 | about 21.00 |
| 30 | ¥15,111,000 | about 31.49 |
After 10 years, it's just over ¥5,030,000. That's a little short of the ¥5.25 million A-Class, but it's about 10.5 of the ¥479,800 PCs.
After 30 years, it's about ¥15.11 million. Still not quite the ¥15.98 million S-Class, but more than 31 PCs.
One giant "luxury car" goal hides the progress along the way. Count in PCs, and you can watch roughly one pile up every year.
6. Compare it with something you actually want
Whenever you spend money on one thing, you give up something else that money could have bought. Economists call that opportunity cost.
But the comparison only works if you care about the other thing.
Telling someone who doesn't want a car "you could've had a Mercedes" is like telling someone who never plays RPGs "you missed the legendary sword." Sure, it's rare and pricey. They just don't want it.
A gaming PC turns ¥500,000 from a symbol decades away into a real purchase you could make this year. Same number, but suddenly it clicks.
7. Run your own numbers
You only need three things: the price of a pack, how many packs a day, and how much you spend on drinks a day.
Yearly spending:
(price per pack × packs per day + daily drinks) × 365
Years until you can buy something:
item price ÷ yearly spending
Months instead:
item price ÷ yearly spending × 12
For our main scenario:
(580 × 2 + 220) × 365 = ¥503,700
For the ¥479,800 PC:
479,800 ÷ 503,700 × 12 ≈ 11.4 months
At this point it's not a lecture anymore. It's just a budget calculator.
8. Bottom line: "almost one PC a year" beats "a Mercedes someday"
Two packs a day at ¥580 a pack, plus ¥220 a day on drinks, comes to about ¥503,700 a year.
In Mercedes terms, that's about 10 years for an A-Class and about 32 for an S-Class. Big numbers, but very far away.
In gaming PCs, a ¥194,800 machine takes about 4.6 months, a ¥299,800 one about 7.1 months, and even the ¥479,800 one only about 11.4 months.
If you want to feel how big a repeat expense really is, don't ask "how many Mercedes?" Ask "how many times could I buy the thing I actually want?"
And here's the punchline you can't skip.
Not smoking won't buy you a PC either. Only the money you actually set aside becomes your next option.
References (8)
- JT, Mevius "SAKURA 2026" limited cherry-blossom package announcement — the source for the ¥580 price of the main 20-cigarette products jti.co.jp
- Mouse Computer / G TUNE, gaming desktop PCs — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D + RTX 5070 sale example, listed with a price of ¥479,800 and not including any later changes mouse-jp.co.jp
- Mercedes-Benz Japan, A-Class — the suggested retail price is ¥5,250,000 mercedes-benz.jp
- Stern Tennoji, authorized Mercedes-Benz dealer, C-Class Sedan — C 200 Sports MP202602 ¥7,440,000 stern-tennoji.co.jp
- Mercedes-Benz Japan, E-Class Sedan — E 200 MP202601 ¥9,140,000 mercedes-benz.jp
- Mercedes-Benz Japan, S-Class Sedan — S 450 d 4MATIC MP202701 ¥15,980,000 mercedes-benz.jp
- Mouse Computer / G TUNE, GeForce RTX 5060 gaming PC listings — an outlet example listed for ¥194,800 mouse-jp.co.jp
- Mouse Computer / G TUNE, NVIDIA GeForce RTX PC listings — an RTX 5070 example listed for ¥299,800 mouse-jp.co.jp
