Quit smoking and you'll get to slash at least six years of mortgage repayment, that according to online research group RateCity, whose study showed that a cigarette smoker consuming a pack of 30 sticks a day usually spends $300 a month or $4,000 a year that could eventually amassed to a total of $300,000 for 25 years of burning that stick.

RateCity said that utilising that money instead for mortgage repayment should easily elicit considerable benefit of shortened loan servicing and even an estimated $100,000 off from loan interest.

RateCity chief executive Damian Smith said that considering that the federal government had recently imposed 25 percent or additional $2.16 of excise duty on a pack of cigarette, "many will be feeling the pinch of rising interest rates as we've seen mortgage repayments increase by about $340 per month for the typical $300,000 loan since September 2009."

He added that for cigarette-loving Australians who were hard hit by the new tax, "it is the most convenient time to re-assess their habits by quitting smoking and use that money to pay down your mortgage," which should relieve them of substantial financial pressure.

Mr Smith noted that RateCity doesn't necessarily give health tips but smokers burdened by mortgages would benefit well "by kicking the habit and redirecting their savings into their mortgage will likely have health and wealth benefits."

And for those who are not servicing any loans but regularly light that nicotine-laden stick anyway, he advised them to take advantage of the present high interest offerings from savings accounts on the market, adding that "depositing $308 per month into a savings account with 6.25 per cent interest could earn $108 after one year or about $3,148 in five years time."

Mr Smith conceded that the obvious reason for shunning smoking is the utmost concern for health, yet he argued that the "financial benefits of redirecting savings from an increasingly expensive habit can't be ignored and smokers need to assume that cigarette prices are only going one way up."