There's no question that vaping is a healthier alternative to smoking. But what about the cost? Can vaping help your pocket as well as your overall health?
In this article, we’ll show you how much you can save by switching to vaping … right down to the penny! Based on up-to-the-minute pricing stats and e-liquid consumption rates from our own site, we’ve put together a tool that shows you exactly how much money a 20-a-day, 10-a-day and 5-a-day smoker can save.
Whether you’re an occasional smoker or a heavy smoker, we’ll show you the likely savings you can make just by switching to e-cigarettes. We’ll also show you how regular vapers can continue to save money long after they have quit the dreaded cigarettes.
Vaping is up to 90% cheaper than smoking
When we ran the numbers on this, we had to check them a few times before we could believe them. It wasn’t so much the savings that took us by surprise as the sheer cost of smoking. Based on our research, here’s what we can tell you:
A 10-a-day UK smoker can save £125 a month by switching to e-cigarettes. Heavy smokers save much more than this (£275 a month), but even occasional smokers can save money (£50 a month or more) by switching to vaping.
Vaper Savings: Heavy, Light and Medium
The great news is that — even if you’re just an occasional smoker — you can save a lot of money every month by switching to vaping.
For this comparison table, we started with three types of smoker (a heavy smoker, an occasional smoker and a ‘medium’ 10-a-day smoker). We assumed that they would vape for 6 months, mixing their own shortfill, and that they would need to buy a brand new vape device to get started.
Monthly savings: vaping instead of smoking
This seems too good to be true — especially if you’re smoking 20 cigarettes a day — but we’ve double-checked our numbers and it’s accurate. In the next section, we’ll explain the sums behind our savings calculations.
How We Calculated The Money You’ll Save
Every smoker behaves differently, which makes it hard to come up with an accurate ‘savings’ calculator like the one above. Some people smoke 30 a day, whereas some wouldn’t smoke 30 cigarettes in a week. The same goes for vaping. Some vapers will treat a single puff as a vaping session, whereas other vapers need to have their box mod with them at all times. To arrive at the stats above, we’ve made some assumptions about what the ‘typical’ smoker and ‘typical’ vaper does:
How to save even more money on vaping
If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool vaper, the novelty of saving money on cigarettes may have worn off by now. The good news is you can still save money on your vaping habit by shopping smart and changing the way you vape. Here are our top five tips for long-term vapers who want to save money!
Place bigger orders
If you know what flavour you like, consider doubling up on your order every so often.
Wean yourself off nicotine
Nicotine shots cost more, per-millilitre, than standard shortfill e-liquid. The sooner you can wean yourself off nicotine, the better. You’ll save money up-front because you won’t have to buy any nicotine, but you’ll also potentially vape less often, too.
Try building your own coils
Rebuildable coils are cheaper than replacement coils. If you’re trying to save yourself a few quid, then DIY coil building is certainly worth a try — just be aware that you might have to buy a few tools.
Experiment with different modes
More and more box mods are hitting the market with some sort of ‘eco mode’. Eco mode is a great way to save on battery life and conserve your e-liquid … but it takes a little bit of experimentation.
Try Mystery Boxes
If you want to keep trying new flavours but you don't want to spend a fortune, a mystery box is a great option.
I hope this savings guide gives you food for thought, especially if you’re a smoker. Don’t underestimate the freedom that quitting smoking gives you financially as well as physically. Quitting smoking is incredibly difficult (I know — I’ve done it myself), but it’s worth the hard work. If you can quit smoking, you will have extra money in your account at the end of each month. That money can be spent on holidays, luxuries or whatever you want.
Get the ball rolling by talking to your local NHS Stop Smoking support service. Trust me — you won’t look back!