A friend of mine, a physician, had been smoking about two packs of cigarettes a day for the last 10 years. It was winter, and he had caught a very bad cold. He was recovering too slowly and thought he should have a chest x-ray, to make sure there is nothing beyond that cold — you know how physicians are.

But there they were, a couple of black lungs.

He realized his lungs did not look well at all, so he opened the drawer, put his lighter in it and decided not to smoke until he recovers. A week later, he was getting better but had decided to quit smoking and help those poor lungs to recover.

To make it difficult for himself he headed to the bank, opened a saving account and put in an amount of money. He told himself that he would not buy any cigarettes except from the money in that account, so if he wants to buy that pack of cigarettes he will have to think more than once.

By the end of the month, the money was still laying in the bank and he was feeling much better.

So he wanted to reward his discipline. He decided to calculate how much he would have spent on cigarettes per month and deposit that amount in the bank. Month after month he kept on calculating the cost of those two packs a day and deposited that amount in the bank at the end of the month no matter what happened.

He started calling it “my smoking fund” and every time he needed money for paying for his gym or for a spa treatment or what not, he would dip into that account, which he continues feeding over 20 years later.

Nobody is allowed to touch that money, he had really earned it, and is using it to treat himself into whatever he needed, any caprice he would fancy, but now he spends it in good health.