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If you want to quit smoking but can't find sufficient motivation, let's look at it from the financial point of view.

It's possible to save vast amounts of money if you give up smoking. An average 20 a day smoker will spend approximately $3000 a year on cigarettes. Just putting that in an interest bearing bank account would allow you to build up a tidy sum over 20 years. Even with a modest rate of interest it would amount to more than $100,000.

However, there a various other savings that when taken into account will add up to substantially more over the years.

1) Being a smoker means that you'll have less money each month to repay your mortgage. This means that you'll take longer to repay the debt than you might have done, which means you'll have more interest to pay over the life of the loan.

Recent studies have shown that if the average smoker (20 a day) with an average mortgage of $200,000 used the money that they spend on tobacco to repay their mortage, they would repay the loan 8 years early (17 years rather than 25) and save almost $50,000 in interest repayments.

That's quite an incentive to stop smoking.

2) Being a smoker means that the cost of your insurance rises dramatically. Smokers have to pay substantially more for health, life and house insurance.

If you smoke, you're much more likely to develop a whole catalogue of illnesses and health problems, which means your insurance company will have to pay out more money, more often. So they'll need more money to cover the risk.

If you smoke, you're more likely to die early, which means the life insurance company is more likely to have to pay out. Green">All that is bad news for the size of your premiums, which can be as much as 50% higher than a non-smoker of similar age. This is a major consideration if you need life insurance to obtain a mortgage or to protect your family.

The cost of your house insurance will also reflect the fact that you smoke, because you're house is more likely to go on fire than a non-smokers house.

3) Being a smoker will decrease the value of your house and your car.

If you regularly smoke in your house or in your car, it will quickly become full of the stale smell of smoke. And it's almost impossible to remove that smell completely.

So when it comes time to sell your house or your car, many non-smokers will not be prepared to buy these items. That means the number of potential buyers is dramatically reduced along with the eventual sale price.

It may be possible to reduce the impact that smoking has on your house if you redecorate regularly, or on your car if you have it professionally cleaned on a regular basis. But over time these expenses will add up and cancel out any corresponding increase in the price that you get for your house or your car.

And finally, smokers also suffer when selling smaller items through sites like ebay. Most bidders prefer to buy from non-smokers especially if the item is soft furnishing etc. If you disclose the fact that you smoke in the description, your item will receive fewer bids. If you don't, your buyers won't be happy and your feedback rating will suffer.

4) Being a non-smoker will help you greatly in the workplace. Few employers would openly admit to such discriminatory practices, but many employers with a straight choice between a smoker and a non-smoker of equal ability would select the non-smoker. The facts speak for themselves;

a) Smokers are more likely to catch colds and viruses, which they may pass on to their colleagues, which increases the number of days lost to sickness.

b) They have to keep going out for a cigarette which costs them five minutes every couple of hours and breaks their concentration.

c) Their health insurance premiums are higher, which is a major consideration when the employer is footing the bill

5) Being a smoker will cost you more to keep yourself looking smart. Your clothes will have to be washed more often and certain items of clothing will have to be professionally cleaned. All that means that they'll wear out faster, so you'll have to buy more clothes. This isn't too much of an ordeal for most people, but hey, it's an added expense that you wouldn't have if you didn't smoke.

Smoking also affects your teeth and your breath. So add in extra dental costs, and breath freshing products.

All these extra expenses quickly mount up and over thirty or forty years the extra cost of being an average smoker could, quite easily (if invested), add up to $500,000. That's a fairly substantially retirement lump sum. And one that you'll have more chance of enjoying if you take steps to stop smoking.