In recent years, the annual budget announcement from the government has often been a difficult time for Irish consumers. The occasion is particularly difficult on the pockets of the traditional smoker.
Every single year, consumers can depend on cigarette smoking to climb up by at least a few cents. Indeed, in last year’s budget Finance Minister Michael Noonan claimed that cigarette tax was the only added levy to the people of Ireland, and it wasn’t even primarily for financial reasons.
“Cigarettes, the tax, it was the only tax increase in the budget, and it wasn’t brought in to raise revenue. We could have done the budget without the need of the cigarettes,” he told The Irish Times.
It should be pointed out that a large amount of money raised by taxing cigarettes, goes towards treating smoke-related illnesses.
“So it’s not a revenue raising measure, it’s a measure to improve the health of the population by discouraging people from smoking,” Noonan added.
Tax is one of many reasons why vaping is much cheaper than traditional smoking, but it’s not the only one. Of course, we don’t have to grow, cultivate and farm hectares of tobacco fields, which is another saving that’s passed on to the consumer.
So how much money do you save?
We estimate that with the lower cost of refill packs compared to the extraordinary cost of cigarettes (€10 a pack now), a smoker turned-vaper could save about 80% of their hard-earned cash. So a traditional smoker that normally go through a pack a day (€10) would spend over €5,000 a year. So why not embrace an alternative to traditional smoking that also reduces your cost?
Some of the customer testimonials on our own site do indeed cite cost reduction as a benefit of switching from traditional smoking to vaping, but reports of savings generated by the switch have also been reported in the mainstream media.
One former smoker that has embraced vaping, told The Irish Independent: “I’ve gone from spending around €70 a week to €5 every three weeks. For the first three months or so I put away the money I was saving. By the end I had saved close to €900.”
Indirect savings
These reported savings are very encouraging, but there are additional, initially hidden economic benefits too. Vaping also helps maintain the quality (and cash value) of your possessions by not contaminating them with the corrosive lingering odour of cigarette smoke. The logic behind this indirect method of saving is fascinating, and is best explained by SavingAdvice.com;
“One of the things that traditional smoking does is de-value all the things that you own. Your car is worth less, your house is worth less and anything where the smoke smell permeates is worth less if the time ever comes to sell. Since e-cigs don’t come with the smell of cigarettes, all of the things you own will have a higher resale value. This can be worth thousands of dollars and even tens of thousands when it comes to your house.”
So there you have it, direct and indirect savings as a result of switching to vaping from traditional smoking.
