Doing The Math

[silkakc]

I'm starting the DIY method right from the word go My first purchase for everything was $138 and I went a lil crazy and ordered 5 flavors to try
It includes the 510 ecig, 125 ml 60 mg Nic juice, 500 ml VG to dilute, five -30ml bottles flavor, several 6 ml bottles, 60 ml bottles, pipettes.

If I vape 5 ml a day ( which would be a high estimate- the average is 2-3ml say the folks on this site), it will cost me $1.25 a day for 110 days.

The next 110 days, the cost will be 80 cents a day because the ecig cost wont be factored in I probably will order 5 flavors each time because it'll be fun to experiment

So it can be EXTREMELY cheap per day if you do it yourself!

Lori

 

[Antwoord]

I'm looking forward to doing some DIY as well. Big Thanks to MistressNomad and everyone else who's done some really great educational videos.

 

[sam12six]

The issue as I see it is that we're lucky enough to have been able to try PVs while the tax man is still undecided on how to deal with them.

I look at it like this: Imagine if you started growing food all around your home and eliminated the need to go to the grocery store (I know, that's impossible - I did say imagine). You'd be saving a ton of money just like vaping can theoretically save a ton of money over smoking right now.

Now, as word gets out that one can grow your own healthy food for pennies on the dollar, more and more people start doing this. Once enough people are doing this thing that the tax man feels the loss of sales tax from the food not being bought, you can bet the next step will be requiring expensive permits to grow your own food (with public safety cited as the cause).

As far as cigarette taxes, the justification for their being so high is that they cause health problems that create a greater burden on the health system when smokers get older. It's a fine justification (and one you logically can't disagree with). The problem (aside from the fact that most entry level PVs are designed to look and feel as much like a cigarette as possible) is that the ecigarette industry is so young, there's no data on the long-term effect of using them. Without definitive data, there's nothing to use to fight their being classified and taxed the same as cigarettes.

Anyway, this is all tangential to my original point, which is that the lower cost of vaping is almost certainly temporary so that shouldn't be a selling point long term. The difference in how so many of us feel and the disappearance of lots of our smoking-related issues should be what people focus on.

 

[Antwoord]

Right on Sam! I totally agree!

 

[RedForeman]

I'm expecting around $50 a month for juice and more if I buy hardware. I have enough gear to run for the rest of the year knock on wood. Already made that investment.

I don't have the patience for DIY so spending a little more on premix is the way I'll do it.

 

[illuxion]

Lets see. 3 weeks in using round numbers. $100 for SD Mk II kit, personally I don't like it that much. $50 for an ego kit. $100 for various batts from VV. $50 various adapters and chargers. $50 on attys and cartos. $120 on all kinds of small juices. $170 for my most recent juice adventure which consists of 36 1 dram bottles of Loranns for $40, 120ml 100mg for $40, 360ml worth of lorann's flavors from amazon $50(24 1 dram bottles each of amaretto, butter rum, creme de mente and apple), $40 for 32oz each of VG and PG. Finally another $100 for enough parts to make several different mods lol with long lasting batteries.

So I'm about $750 in it with enough hardware to last a year, and lets see I plan to mix at about 10mg to keep the math easy so lets call it 1.2l or 1200ml of juice when I make it, I have about 300ml of pre-mixed, so 1500ml total. If I vaped 5ml a day that would be about 300, considering right now I average about 2-3ml a day, it's well over 1 years worth of juice. Costs for DIY juice is about $.50 a day. I've only been in it 3 weeks, but haven't had a carto or atty fail yet. I get my attys from VV for $5 each, lets say 1 fails a week so I'm at $1.25 a day roughly. Throwing the hardware in the mix and currently $6.50-$7 a pack here in the bay area, with 1.5 pack a day when I was hooked on analogs. I can think of it as $2.00 per day including hardware for a year if I re-buy all hardware every year, or saving $8 a day. Possibly I could look at it as $1.25 a day for consumables and seeing as I spent about $400 on non consumable hardware, about a 7 week ROI on hardware. I wish I could get a 7 week ROI and all the other equipment I buy lol.

cost to purchase hardware for my vaping experience - $400
cost for approximately 1 year worth of consumables - $350
cost of getting off of analogs and giving the finger to the man - priceless

I've said it in other threads, but any time I think about how much I spent on vaping, I just think of how much I spend on my track car. While the car is a blast once or twice a month, this should better my lifestyle and hopefully increase my life.

 

[Kirssstens]

Between $50-60 a month. 4 attys, 60ml in juice. (I hate attys that aren't performing at 110 percent so I suck up the additional cost) A new eGo batt every 3-4 months or so (health cabin has the 650's for $16.00 right now) That's still only around $800 a year. Even with $200 to play with if I round it to $1000.

I know this sounds a little like a nannynannybooboo, but you can still have a happy vape life and save money. And believe me, before ecigs, if you could lite it on fire, I'd inhale it.

 

[Antwoord]

That freakin rocks illuxion. As soon as I'm not a broke college student I'm going to follow a similar stocking plan for sure.

I never did factor in my startup hardware costs.

Blu kit totaled: $70
eGO kit totaled: $54.95
1 of : Plastic Drip tip $3.95
1 of : Joye EGO MEGA Atomizer - Matte Black $9.95
1 of : Joye EGO MEGA Blank Cartridges $5.95

1 of : Joye 510 Blank Cartridges - Round $2.95

42 dollars worth of practically useless Blu pre-filled carts
15.90 for 20ml of juice with shipping added
Another 13.95 for 30ml of juice with shipping added

So far I've only spent $219.60, but I'm betting that I will be ordering some DIY stuff, maybe another battery, and a couple more atomizers very soon.

 

[sailorman]

My advice is to learn DIY mixing and stock up now, especially on the unflavored nic juice which will be the highest taxed and hardest to get component when FDA/Pharma gets through with their mischief.
As for the amount of taxation; assuming the best outcome of the current court case, that PVs will be regulated as tobacco products, the tax amount will be calculated based on lost tax revenue and lost profits.
That's exactly the way "roll your own" tobacco was slapped with a 2000% tax increase overnight. Lobbyists from BT and BP will calculate the amount of tax, just like they did with RYO tobacco. Potential health costs will have nothing to do with anything and will no be a factor in calculating any tax amount.
Assuming raw nic-juice will still be available, (highly doubtful), the amount of tax will be based on the taxes + profits that would otherwise have been generated by an equivalent number of pre-packaged cigarettes.
The aim in any tax schedule will be to make the cost of consumption the same between analogs and e-cigs. Again, this is exactly how they decided to raise the tax on a pound of loose tobacco from $1.95 to $23.75.
It would be incredibly naive to think that health consequences or "market tolerance" will play any role whatsoever in calculating the potential taxes imposed on e-cig products should Njoy be lucky enough to win their case.
Their (BT and BP) lobbyists are FAR more influential and well funded than ours.
That's the bottom line. Stock up and cultivate underground sources for future use. That's our only defense against being raped by the corporatist mafioso and their handmaidens in government.
BTW, it will make no difference which political party prevails in November or thereafter. The Dems are tobacco nazis and the Repubs are corporate whores. It has always been thus.
Either way, it is inconceivable that e-cigs will be allowed to remain cheaper than analogs or BP's NRT products. To think otherwise is pure Pollyannish wishful thinking.

 

[JonnyVapΣ]

I decided a long time ago that it's best to just enjoy my smoke free life and not count the money spent! LOL I look at it as a hobby and I'd spend money on any others hobby. I love it!

Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

I feel the same way.

 

[silkakc]

My advice is to learn DIY mixing and stock up now, especially on the unflavored nic juice which will be the highest taxed and hardest to get component when FDA/Pharma gets through with their mischief.
As for the amount of taxation; assuming the best outcome of the current court case, that PVs will be regulated as tobacco products, the tax amount will be calculated based on lost tax revenue and lost profits.
That's exactly the way "roll your own" tobacco was slapped with a 2000% tax increase overnight. Lobbyists from BT and BP will calculate the amount of tax, just like they did with RYO tobacco. Potential health costs will have nothing to do with

Oh God! I didn't know this was imminent

 

[sam12six]

Oh God! I didn't know this was imminent

There's no guarantee that it's imminent (or at least no quantifying HOW imminent), but the writing on the wall is there.

What sailorman and I both were saying is that whether tomorrow or 5 years from now, when the legal dust settles, the taxes on nicotine juice are going to skyrocket. That's why I worry for people here who post about how they'll be content vaping for the rest of their lives and save a ton of money. The money saving part is temporary.

No way the government is going to accept masses of smokers walking away from the taxes that government has come to rely on.

 

[JonnyVapΣ]

No way the government is going to accept masses of smokers walking away from the taxes that government has come to rely on.

And that's a fact. They're already coming up with ways to tax electric vehicles since they don't need to pay taxes through fuel sales.