Thank you so much Rusty for starting this for me - you were (and still are) an amazing quit buddy, as well as one of the pillars of this site :)
I have had the enormous good fortune to have quit at a time when there were some outstanding quitters at SSC - many of whom have posted on this thread - duffis, Lady, walkingeagle+attaboygrl, 3galeh, Shevie, N2k (still on the cheese closers? I am!) Luna, Lolly, ladybugg (bugg huggs) and Rachel (just down the road in Kent)
I can see a "younger" crop of fantastic quitters, CobenFan, Monica, Mr Ed, ParrottLady (how lovely to find another fan of Morro Bay - that must mean that we are both due a reward there!) fagashlynne, cheermom - you are all going great guns and I have the utmost faith that even the newer ones amongst you are going to make it :)
Shevie, thank you for your kind words, my research in turn was triggered by the words of who came before me.
Lolly, what can I say about Rome? I shall never forget that fantastic lunch with good company and the Colliseum will always have your name written on it (figuratively of course, I'm not a graffiti artist!)
Casey - of course I had a reward (quite a few actually) this is the self-styled "Rewards Queen" of the SSC here! ;)
Way back in the 80's I left a job and left a deferred pension fund behind in it. I've thought little of it over the years, and since built up another fund in a second career.
As some of you might remember, my quit date turned out to be the 3 month anniversary of my birthday (although I didn't think of that when I chose it)
Just after my birthday, I found out that this old deferred pension has actually been growing rather nicely. Not only that, there isn't much penalty for drawing it early.
Once the seeds of the idea were planted, it seemed so obvious to start drawing it on my 2 year quit anniversary, and I filled out all the necessary paperwork.
Under UK law, you can take out up to 25% of a pension fund as a tax free lump sum (as long as you are over 50) at the time you start taking that pension.
On Saturday 16th I drove into town and checked my bank account, the lump sum was there :)
I walked down the street with a huge smile on my face, knowing I could pretty much buy anything in the town that day.
In the end, I b
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Quit Meter
$34,464.00
Amount Saved
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Quit Meter
Days: 749
Hours: 23
Minutes: 16
Seconds: 29
Life Gained
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Quit Meter
5744
Smoke Free Days
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Quit Meter
68,928
Cigarettes Not Smoked
