Feb 032012
 

You should see:

Part 1 – why i quit smoking (yea, I can say that now)

Part 2 – my first e-cig kit order and its problems

Part 3 – the upgrade kit that has been a dream

Part 4 – the flavor quest

So today I placed an order for some needed parts from my favorite e-cig supplier modern vapor for the lux kit.  If you want to order that kit, see the part 3 link above.  It has a link to it much like the parts I ordered below (and by the way, I do not work for and am not affiliated with modern vapor in any way.  I am just a happy customer showing huge progress in health since switching to e-cigs).

My most recent order consisted of:

Items Ordered: Price: Status:
$19.90 Processing
$3.75 Processing
$10.95 Processing
$12.49 Processing
$6.95 Processing
$6.95 Processing

The total cost of the order with shipping was $69.  It made me wonder, how much money have I spent on e-cigs and how much money would I have spent on regular cigarettes.  Knowing I spent $55 a week on cigarettes, it was just a matter of figuring out how many weeks had passed since I started using e-cigs (15 weeks) then tallying up the cost of the e-cig kits and supplies (which I have included in each post where I made an order)….but first, let me talk about the current order.

You will notice I have a replenish stock of cherry and a new apple flavor in the order above.  I have to admit, cherry and apple mixed together is my favorite ejuice mix.  They are both good by themselves, but something about mixing them just makes the flavor rock!  I am completely out of apple but I still have about two weeks of cherry left (based on daily usage).  I also still have a lot of the other e-juices left, nearly 4 full 10ml bottles and 1-1/2 full 20ml bottles but the aren’t my favorites.   I also still have approx two weeks left of caramel and cappaccino e-juice.  And, still on my quest for the ultimate e-juice, I added a new blueberry flavor 🙂

So the real reason I was placing this order is that now my original 2 oem atomizers for the lux kit have gone bad (remember I ordered the lux kit the first week of november and they are only supposed to last about 3 weeks), and I only have one still new in the package dual coil cartimizer left (but I did ruin one by accident and the one I am using now has only been in for about a week).  The dual coil cartimizers also last about 3 weeks each.  I still haven’t decided if I prefer the dual-coil cartimizers or atomizers the best.  One thing I can tell you is this:  the dual coil atomizers will leak if you over fill them, the atomizers will not.  With that in mind, since I wanted to try drip tips, it would seem like atomizers are best suited for use with them….but just in case I am wrong, I have both.

The other thing is, I wanted to do the comparison of e-cig cost vs regular cig cost since I have now been using e-cigs about 15 weeks.

This is my breakdown of my e-cig costs to present:

10-24-2011 – $149.85
11-03-2011 – $106.70
12-05-2011 – $75.90
02-03-2012 – $68.94

For a grand total of 401.39.

Since I smoked a carton of marlboro reds each week at a cost of $55 per carton, and I have used e-cigs for 15 weeks now, we can say I would have spent 15 * 55 = $825.

Obviously, the cost of smoking real cigarettes is higher than the e-cigs, so we subtract the e-cig price from real cig price and get a savings of $423.61

The above savings should continue to go up because all of my upfront expensive kit costs are out of the way.  Technically, I should probably throw away the first order cost and assume a 14 week savings because the first kit was just a mistake since I didnt know what I was ordering and that I didnt really need all that stuff.  If I did that, then the savings goes up slightly.  But what you can notice from above is that each order gets smaller and smaller.

I am also going to guess that the last order above will probably be the average cost over a 3 month period.  I mean, the original two atomizers and 5 dual coil cartimizers lasted about three months so these replacements should too.  I definitely have enough ejuice to last three months.

Healthier??  Absolutely!

One thing that I forgot is that every year in January I take a stress test.  If you don’t know what a stress test is, basically you are given a series of strenuous workouts to be completed within a specific time period and then a cool down period all the while measuring your heart rate.  Apparently doctors can determine how “in-shape” or “out-of-shape” you are by these values.  They are also key indicators to how at risk you may be to a heart attack and the test is known to have caused people to have heart attacks (like my father who also passed away shortly after having a heart attack brought on by a stress test).  Why does this matter in an e-cig blog?  Because my heart rate this time last year was 167 beats per minute and this year was only 126 beats per minute.

If you recall, I started using e-cigs the last part of october 2011.  The reason was my fear of having a heart attack simply because I was out of breath before I reached the top step of my apartment floor (I only live on the second floor and its maybe 10 or so steps).  Lately I half-jog up the steps.  I can assure you this would have been nearly impossible just a few months ago.

I think these two things are very important in showing that yes, e-cigs are obviously better for you.

Sometimes I Do Slip

As with any good thing, sometimes I slip up.  I don’t really know why or what causes it, but here is an example:  for the entire month of January 2012 I did not have a single real cigarette.  However, three days in February 2012 I had a single cigarette each day.  I wasn’t really craving a cigarette.  I think it was just a matter of opportunity…..they were available, I was there, the person who had them would give me one.  Back in November and December, I really had a hard time not smoking if I was in a club or bar.  But I didnt have any problems in a bar or club in January 2012.

Either way, I am totally happy that I am saving money by using e-cigs, my health is obviously improving, and I am not grouchy or going through nicotine withdrawals like times in the past.  Are e-cigs healthier than NOT SMOKING at all?  I am going to guess probably not.  There could theoretically be bad things in nicotine yet to be discovered.  I am going to be really pissed though if I die from some unknown reason due to using e-cigs (that I would not have died from smoking real cigarettes).  What could that be?  I don’t really know….maybe the battery will explode and it will be ingested in some way.  Maybe the base Propylene Glycol which is also used in cake mix, medical solutions, and other things is more harmful than the 4,000 other ingredients found in real cigarettes.  Who knows, maybe Vegetable Glycerin used in VG based e-juice is bad for you?

  2 Responses to “E-cigs: Part 5 : Traceable Costs”

  1. […] Part 5: Traceable Costs By the time I placed my next order, December 5th, I had only smoked about 10 real cigarettes since October 2011.  Previously, some days I would smoke that many before noon and definitely that many before 3PM each day.  But, as any new e-cigarette user, you start to wonder about the flavors….and there are many to chose from.  So my next order wasn’t that I was out of e-juice or unsatisfied with what I had so much as I just wanted to try some new flavors.  So I placed my first big e-juice order and this is what it consisted of: […]

  2. […] with what is happening with my e-cigarette quest.  You can also see part 4: the flavor quest and part 5: traceable […]

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