Trustnet Magazine Issue 23 November 2016 | Page 10

YOUR PORTFOLIO

/ VICES /

CIGARETTES
& ALCOHOL
A spectacular financial incentive to quit drinking and smoking awaits
anyone willing to invest the money they would have spent on these
vices into the companies that profit from them, writes Anthony Luzio

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W

hen a 22-year-old Liam
Gallagher sang “all I
need is cigarettes and
alcohol” in Oasis’s
1994 single of the
same name, he was articulating an
outlook on life common among
people of this age – living for the
day. After all, talking to someone
who is barely out of their teens
about the importance of making
regular contributions to fund their
retirement is likely to elicit a look
of contempt before they return to a
more pressing concern – making
the most of their youth.
However, time has a habit of
catching up with you much
faster than you expect and the
feeling of immortality you may
have had in your early 20s can
give way to a feeling of despair
when you wake up one day
and realise you are now closer to
retirement age than to your
teenage years, with the gap
widening all the time.
You can at least cross off one
item from your list of worries if
you have been sensible with your
finances and put a small amount
away each month for a rainy day.
Unfortunately, this is not a
situation Liam Gallagher finds
himself in. While Oasis have
been one of the most successful
UK rock bands of the past 20
years, selling more than 70
million records, it is Gallagher’s
brother Noel as the songwriter
who receives the lion’s share of
the royalties. And while in 2011,
website Celebrity Net Worth
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Assuming he
smoked 20
a day, Liam
Gallagher would
have spent
£43,422.15
on cigarettes
since 1994
estimated the younger of the two
brothers had made £50m over
the course of his career, when
he divorced Nicole Appleton
last year, the judge in the case
estimated he had just £11m to be
split with his ex-wife.
Of course, rock stars have
a hedonistic reputation to
maintain and Gallagher admits
his cost of living has taken its
toll, particularly when touring.
As he put it in a 2013 interview
with NME: “I don’t go on the road
to come back with a big pot of
money. I go on the road to have
a good time, do great gigs and
enjoy being in a band. And that
means staying in good hotels and
flying business class.”
“I don’t want a f*****g Mini
picking me up at the airport, I
want a nice f*****g car picking
me up, and if I come back and
I’ve made no money on that tour
because it’s all been spent, then
I’m happy with that.”

CUTTING BACK

If Gallagher did want to cut back
on his cost of living, a good place
to start would be two of the vices
that made him successful in the
first place: cigarettes and alcohol.
Take cigarettes to start with. Data
from the Tobacco Manufacturers’
Association shows that the average
price of a pack of cigarettes has
almost quadrupled in the 22 years
since Oasis released the single
Cigarettes and Alcohol, from £2.52
in 1994 to £9.60 today. Assuming
Gallagher smoked 20 a day, he
would have spent £43,422.15 on
cigarettes from the start of 1994 up
until the present day.
In terms of alcohol, data from
the Office for National Statistics
shows the average price of a
pint of lager has increased from
£1.58 in 1994 to £3.47 in 2016,
an increase of 120 per cent.
Assuming Gallagher drank an
average of five pints every day
from 1994 – admittedly this
is more than three times the
recommended amount for adult
males, but rock stars aren’t exactly
famed for moderation – he would
have spent £103,312.5 on beer.

WHERE BETTER TO INVEST?
Added together, the amount
Gallagher would have saved from
abstaining from these two vices
over the past 22 years stands at
£146,734.65. However, sitting on a
large amount of money over such
a lengthy period of time is never
a good idea when you can put
it to work in markets, and what

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