Tauranga Budget Advisory Service co-ordinator Diane Bruin said smoking was a very costly exercise.
"Many people can't afford it but they make choices, and if they choose to smoke then it affects the money they have left for groceries."
Ms Bruin said the service's budget advisers recommended that people cut back, because reducing consumption and saving a bit of money was better than not doing anything.
Despite the daily smoking rate falling from 17 per cent to 14 per cent in the past five years, the Government's tobacco tax revenue increased almost half-a-billion dollars in that time. It expected this to grow to $2b by 2020/21.
The tobacco excise tax rises 10 per cent on January 1 each year.
In 2015/16, tobacco tax revenue of $1.7b made up 2.4 per cent of the total Crown taxation revenue of $69.7b.
While the Ministry of Health said price increases were the most effective discouragement for smokers to continue, a leading economist said annually raising tobacco taxes was not justifiable.
Dr Eric Crampton, head of research at think tank the New Zealand Initiative, said there were a number of issues with the taxes.
These included the Government's disputed estimate of the public health costs of smoking, the effectiveness of price increases as discouragement, and the effect of rising costs on poorer households.
The Ministry of Health said smoking-related illnesses cost the Government $1.9b each year, "far outstripping the Government's tobacco tax revenue" of $1.3b when the report was produced.
However, a Treasury document from 2012 - when tobacco tax revenue was also $1.3b - admitted the $1.9b cost figure was "contested", and revenue "may already exceed the direct health system costs of smoking".
"On the narrow fiscal grounds of covering the costs smokers impose on government, further increases in tobacco excise may not be justified," a Treasury report said.
Dr Crampton said the cost would be more in the ballpark of $350m - a figure the University of Otago's Des O'Dea estimated in 2007 as the actual healthcare system cost of smoking-related treatment.
He said it was "almost inconceivable" the actual health care costs were more than the revenue of $1.7b, and were outweighed further considering smokers died earlier and did not receive as much superannuation.
"Once you put in the [Government] savings to the superannuation scheme, it's almost a universal truth that any country to have a combination of high excise taxes, public superannuation and public healthcare . . . smokers are net contributors to the public purse.
"[The tax increases] are not justifiable. The harmful effects on poor households who continue to smoke are so large relative to the number of people who might stop smoking based on it."
The Government spent around $61.7m nationwide on programmes helping people stop smoking or not to start in the first place, less than 4 per cent of total tobacco tax revenue.
This money went to stop smoking medicines and aids, including nicotine replacement patches, district health boards, organisations including Quitline, other community-based services, and campaigns, among other initiatives.
Ministry of Health spokesman Sam Kunowski said the tobacco control interventions had had a "significant impact on smoking rates and tobacco consumption over the last decade".
He said daily smoking rates fell from 18.3 per cent to 14.2 per cent in the last decade, and total consumption of tobacco fell 25 per cent between 2010 and 2015.
"Importantly the rate of daily smoking by Year 10 students (14 and 15) has decreased from over 15 per cent in 2000 to under 2.4 per cent in 2015."
The amount spent on programmes rose from $57m in financial year 2010 to $61.7m in financial year 2015, an increase of $4.7m.
Mr Kunowski did not directly respond when asked if the Ministry of Health had any plans to increase the amount spent on its tobacco control programmes.
The Government recently announced e-cigarettes containing nicotine would be made legal to sell in New Zealand, but not until late 2018.