Burning your cash!
- Hale Blog
- 06 Oct, 2020
I don’t think there is a smoker alive that doesn’t know that smoking is bad for them and equally, there isn’t a smoker alive who isn’t aware that giving up is hard and most, have tried to do just that at some point. It might have been for health, looks, family pressure, smell or simply, the frankly astronomical cost! A packet a day costs €13.50 a day which is just under €5k a year!
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times“ Mark Twain
Somebody once said to me “don’t you know you are paying the tobacco companies to kill you?” I’m not sure how that was meant to make me change my mind? The reality was it just annoyed the hell out of me! Everyone wants me to stop smoking, I get that! I understand it’s better for me, I knnow I’ll smell better, be healthier and probably live longer - if I’m not hit by a bus!
Things have been tight this year, COVID has had a dramatic effect and after the initial COVID payments; money is tight…tighter than it’s been for a very long time. As a family, we have had to look at all our finances and €5k a year for smokes for me just can’t be on the agenda going forward. €5k could buy me a 2012 Passat, or it is a year’s registration fees for the eldest at college & a bit towards rent and books for her … I’m smoking the equivalent of a car or my kid’s future every year.
So I’ve decided to give up once and for all. I know I’m addicted to nicotine and I know other times I have tried I have ended up paying a forture in Nicotine Replacement products at the chemist, that they haven’t worked and that I have been a total nightmare to live and work with. I can’t go cold turkey, I’ve tried a million times and failed and a definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing but expecting different answers!.
Public Health England say that 65%–68% of people who have used e-cigarettes, as well as nicotine replacement therapies, succeed in quitting. I’m prepared to give anything a go and I like the thought of having something to do with my hands. Vaping apparently helps you manage your nicotine craving and physically it is a similar action to putting a cigarette to your mouth. So I contacted the Hale Vaping experts to make sure I got the right advice on how to start my journey. I spoke with a lad called Kevin…I now have a new guru … even if he does sound younger than my eldest!! o what did Kevin tell me?
He explained to me that since I was smoking from my early teens, sorry mam, I would be better starting with 18mg nicotine and that over time we would work down to 0mg. There were quite a few flavours to choose from, but I went with the Hale Menthol. I didn’t want to have that tobacco stink any longer than I had to. I decided that my pipe of choice would be the innokin Go s, as it is easy to get used to and easy to fill. I’m really good at breaking things, so I was a little concerned that I would mess it up, but it was easier that putting petrol in the car.
In less than two weeks I noticed my sense of smell was better and I could taste things again, which I hadn’t even realised I had lost! I’m using a bottle of liquid every three days, which is a fiver, as opposed to the €40 I would have spent on smokes over the same time and I am feeling all the better for it. My breathing has improved and after 6 months, my cough has all but disappeared and I am starting to think about moving down in strength of nicotine to 12mg.
The goal for 12 months will be to move down to 6mg and then 3Mg and finally 0mg.
But the biggest benefit, other than my health and everyone at home being happier with me, is that spending €900 on vape, is a hell of a lot better than the almost €5,000 that I would normally have spent on cigarettes! I’m actually a bit mortified whenever I think of how much money I have wasted over the years … I was literally burning money every time I went for a smoke.
References
https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/news/promote-e-cigarettes-widely-substitute-smoking-says-new-rcp-report
