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Pick your habit and the year you'd have stopped. This replays what it really cost, month by month, and the stock market growing the money instead.
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The same habit each week, at the prices of the day, put away instead.
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This weed money calculator works out what a cannabis habit cost, and what the money would be worth if it had been invested instead. Pick UK or US, the year you'd have stopped, and a light, regular or daily habit, or type what you spend a week. Each month it counts what the habit cost at the prices of the day, puts that away, and follows it to the latest month, invested in the S&P 500 with dividends or held in savings at the real rates of the day.
The typical spends come from surveys of users. In the US, a light user (about 2g a month) spends about $4 a week at today's prices, a regular user (about 10g a month, used every other day) about $17, and a daily user (about 1.6g a day) about $70. In the UK, about £5, £20 and £90. US prices have fallen by about two thirds since legal sales began, so the calculator carries the spend back with the median price per gram in Oregon's legal market, month by month: the same habit cost about three times as much in 2017. Oregon is one of the cheapest states, so the page uses its trend, not its price. In the UK there is no official price after 2018: the National Crime Agency put herbal cannabis at £10 a gram every year from 2004 to 2018, so the UK spend is held flat.
It counts 52 weeks a year. Investing is tax-free, as in an ISA or a Roth IRA, with no fees. Cannabis is illegal in the UK and in some US states; the calculator only counts the money.
These use the calculator's starting figures for one UK case and one US case, and are refreshed when the data updates.
Had you stopped spending £20 a week on weed in January 2018 and invested it, by August 2026 you'd have £17,690 from £8,927 not spent on weed.
Had you stopped spending $34.05 a week on weed in January 2018 and invested it, by August 2026 you'd have $21,696 from $9,993 not spent on weed.
At today's prices, a typical regular US user, one who uses about every other day, spends about $17 a week, or roughly $880 a year; a daily user about $70 a week, over $3,600 a year. In the UK, the Home Office estimated about £914 a year for an average user, at £10 a gram; about £20 a week for a regular user and £90 for a daily one.
That is the "Invested" setting: each month's spend goes into the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested, converted to pounds in the UK. Pick the year you'd have stopped and your habit above; switch to "In savings" to see it earn real savings rates instead.
About 1.6g a day by the surveys' measure. In the US that is about $70 a week at today's legal prices, roughly $3,600 a year, but it was around three times that in 2017. In the UK, at £10 a gram, it is about £90 a week, or £4,700 a year.
Legal markets grew fast and growers produced more than stores could sell. In Oregon, the median price of a gram of flower fell from $10.50 in October 2016 to around $3 by 2026, and other legal states followed a similar path. The calculator carries your spend along that trend, so starting earlier means spending more each week.
How often people use comes from SAMHSA's national survey in the US and the Crime Survey for England and Wales; how much they use each time from Colorado's market studies and the Home Office's estimate of 1.2g a day. They are rough averages; type your own weekly spend for a closer answer.