Give Up And Get On The Ladder!

Don't fume about next week's smoking ban -- turn it to your advantage and find out how it could help you save enough cash for a house deposit.

Unless you've been living in a bubble, you're bound to realise that England's smoking ban comes into force next week. From 1 July, smoking in the workplace, restaurants, bars, pubs, in fact practically any enclosed public space in England will be banned. This follows the introduction of bans in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I suspect most non-smokers are rejoicing -- not only is the stench of second hand smoke unpleasant, passive smoking has been linked to lung cancer, heart disease and even sudden infant death syndrome (commonly known as cot death).

However, many smokers have deemed the ruling draconian and are outraged at their lack of right to choose.

But there are other ways to look at the situation. A lot of smokers do understand the health risks involved with smoking but have unsuccessfully tried to quit in the past, often because social situations put temptation in their way. Having to socialise in a smoke-free environment may be just the boost they need to kick the habit for good -- indeed the government reckons some 600,000 smokers will give up as a result of the ban. Is that such a bad thing?

What's more, apart from the health implications, smoking is a shockingly expensive habit, too. At around £5.25 for a pack of twenty, very keen smokers (smoking 40 a day) could be forking out a whopping £73 a week. Blimey! (No wonder so many of my smoker friends claim never to have any money!).

So in a bid to persuade some wannabe non-smokers to quit, let's take a look at a few things smokers could be spending this cash on, if they were to give up the death sticks:

Example

Let's say Sarah is 25 years old, lives with her boyfriend, earns £25k per year and smokes 20 cigarettes a day. If she were to give up she would save a whopping £1,916 over a year. So what could she do with this money? Well, she could...

1. Take her boyfriend on holiday to somewhere exotic

2. Put it towards a shiny new car

3. Buy seven pairs of Jimmy Choo shoes...

Or... if she could resist the temptation to splurge, she could use this cash to boost her savings and get herself on the housing ladder.

We already know that Sarah earns £25k per year. Her boyfriend David also earns the same amount. Between them they could afford to buy a flat for £150k -- the problem is they only have £500 in savings between them.

To avoid having to take out a risky 100% mortgage (and to get a better mortgage rate) they'd need to find a deposit of £7,500, plus stamp duty of £1,500. They'll also need to pay for solicitor's fees of around £750, a homebuyer's report, land searches and other costs of around £1,000. So all in all they'd need to get their hands on a whopping £10,750.

However, although this seems like a lot of cash, if Sarah carefully stashed away the money she had saved from giving up smoking in a high interest savings account they'd be nearly a fifth of the way there, without even really trying.

What's more, if David were to give up smoking too, they could have nearly £4,000 between then, reducing the amount of cash they'd need to find to just over £6,900. After subtracting their £500 in savings, if they could each manage to save a further £268 per month each, they could buy their dream home after just a year!

So the smoking ban may not be all bad news -- indeed for Sarah and David giving up smoking it could mean the difference between being able to buy a flat of their own in one year, rather than two.

So before fuming about the smoking ban, why not take a minute to think what you could be doing with that extra cash if you gave up? You may just find it's worth the effort.

More: Quit | Superior Savings Accounts | The Motley Fool Mortgage Service