As 2022 wears on, it’s becoming more and more obvious that a recession appears to be on the horizon. When difficult economic times are ahead, it’s wise to take a close look at your personal finances and determine where you can potentially make cuts. Consumer prices are way, way up this year, so you may find it difficult to cut your spending on things like food, gas, and utilities.
One thing that you can do, though, reduces your discretionary spending. In particular, your favorite stimulant – nicotine – is one thing that siphons off a much greater portion of your income than you might realize.
No; we’re not going to tell you to quit nicotine – although you can certainly save a lot of money that way. Instead, we’re going to explain why you’re spending much more money on it than you really need to. More importantly, we’ll describe a few alternatives that can potentially reduce your spending by thousands of dollars per year.
Wouldn’t it be nice if this current period of inflation never happened? If you reduce your spending on nicotine, that’s exactly how you’ll feel. Here’s how to do it.
How To Save Money On Nicotine
We’re going to be blunt here: If you’re a smoker, you’re wasting a ton of money every year. Converted to US dollars, here’s what you spend per year on cigarettes if you’re a pack-a-day smoker.
- United States: $2,920
- Canada: $3,453
- United Kingdom: $4,322
- France: $3,741
- Germany: $2,106
- Italy: $2,168
- Australia: $9,917
- New Zealand: $8,070
Even if you’re fortunate enough to live in a nation where tobacco prices are relatively affordable, being a pack-a-day smoker sucks away a significant portion of your income unless you’re affluent. In the United States, being a cigarette smoker costs upwards of $250 per month. That’s a monthly payment on a small car. Wouldn’t you rather start making some headway on your debts instead of spending all of that money on boxes of leaves wrapped in paper?
We already promised above that we’re not just going to tell you to quit nicotine. That’s certainly the best way to save money, but quitting nicotine is also a goal that some people just can’t realistically accomplish. Instead, you need to switch to a different form of nicotine that’s just as satisfying but costs significantly less.
Without a doubt, the two best and most satisfying alternative nicotine products are disposable vapes and nicotine pouches. If you’ve already tried to quit smoking with traditional nicotine replacement products, you may have heard about the new generation of alternative nicotine products – and you may have written them off because you’ve already tried to quit smoking and weren’t successful.
If that’s the case, you need to give the latest products a second look. Here are the qualities that make these products infinitely better than the nicotine replacement products you may have used in the past.
What’s Special About Disposable Vapes?
Before we discuss disposable vapes, let’s talk a bit about what makes vaping in general such a perfect alternative to smoking. The thing that makes vaping special is that it’s the only form of over-the-counter nicotine supplementation you can inhale.
Inhalation is a major part of what makes cigarettes so addictive because the nicotine enters your bloodstream almost instantly. E-cigarettes are the only alternative nicotine products that work the same way as cigarettes and are just as satisfying.
The thing that makes disposable vapes special among vaping products is that they don’t require the maintenance that’s necessary with other types of vaping products. With a typical vaping device, you’ll need to recharge the battery and refill the pod or tank at least once a day. You’ll also need to replace the device’s pod or atomizer coil periodically. Disposable vapes don’t require any of those things.
They’re ready to use right out of the package, and you can simply discard them when they run out of e-liquid. In that sense, disposable vapes are actually simpler and easier to use than tobacco cigarettes.
What’s Special About Nicotine Pouches?
If you’ve ever used over-the-counter nicotine replacement products like gum and lozenges, you know that they’re often terrible. They taste awful, and they don’t feel truly satisfying because they don’t have enough nicotine. Nicotine gums and lozenges usually come in just two strengths – 2 mg and 4 mg – and both of those strengths are actually quite low. To make matters worse, some people find that they can’t use the 4 mg strength at all because it gives them hiccups.
Nicotine pouches are easily the best oral nicotine replacement products on the market because they solve all of the problems listed above. Traditional nicotine replacement products are made with freebase nicotine, which is alkaline and can cause throat irritation. That’s why many people experience hiccups when using those products.
Nicotine pouches, on the other hand, are made with nicotine salt. They don’t cause irritation, and the fact that they’re so much smoother than traditional nicotine replacement products enables them to come in higher nicotine strengths. While 2 mg and 4 mg are the most common strengths for traditional nicotine replacement products, you can often find nicotine pouches in strengths of 3 mg and 8 mg.
Although nicotine doesn’t absorb as quickly through the mouth as it does when you inhale it, you’ll find that these higher strengths make it possible for nicotine pouches to offer a very satisfying experience.
The other thing that makes nicotine pouches different from traditional nicotine replacement products is that they taste infinitely better. Because nicotine gums and lozenges are marketed as smoking cessation products, they’re not really supposed to be pleasurable to use. They’re available in flavors – mint, and orange, for instance – that are just barely tolerable because the idea is that you’ll use those products only as long as is necessary to quit smoking, and then you’ll stop using the gum or lozenges.
Nicotine pouches, on the other hand, are marketed as alternatives to smoking for those who want to stop smoking but aren’t planning to stop using nicotine. Because the marketing strategy is completely different, nicotine pouches come in much tastier flavors like mango, strawberry, fruit punch, and more. If you’ve tried and hated traditional nicotine replacement products in the past, you’ll find that nicotine pouches have almost nothing in common with those products.