...smoking that is.

This is really a no-brainer but the article entitled "Smokers encouraged to give up for financial health" really struck a chord with me. It's all about how much money you can save by quitting smoking. It shows how much money you save if you smoke twenty cigarettes a day and quit smoking. Well, I smoke two (or did) two to three packs a day minimum. If you figure it that way, based on forty cigarettes a day at $3.50 a pack that's seven dollars a day, $49 a week, or $2,548 a year. That's a chunk of change. If I were to turn around and put that into, say my mortgage that's like making two extra house payments a year.

I did some reading a few years ago on paying off mortgages early. The example given was to pay half your mortgage every two weeks and by doing so you would end up making ONE extra payment a year and pay it off seven years early. How much earlier would I pay it off by making TWO extra payments a year. Not a bad deal at all, particularly considering that the cost of smokes is just going to keep going up and up until they are taxed out of existence by the Federal government.