If you are a smoker currently, you will know that the cost of smoking is something that has continued to rise year on year, with the current price of cigarettes and tobacco being the highest price it’s ever been. In the United Kingdom, tax duty on Cigarettes and Tobacco is something that is included in every yearly review of the Budget by Parliament, and this year was no exception, with new increases of over 10% being added to all applicable products (cigarettes, hand rolling tobacco and cigars)
These new tax rates have now meant that Smoking is becoming an ill-affordable habit for some people, and is now encouraging more people than ever to quit smoking and move on to an alternative form of Nicotine delivery that not only is a safer option, but also much more cost effective also. Nicotine Pouches have been around since 2019 on the UK market, and in the last few years they have grown considerably in popularity by people making the switch to using them and kicking the cigarettes.
In this blog, I’m going to look at just how much money you could save on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis if you choose to switch to using Nicotine Pouches as your form of Nicotine Replacement Therapy when wanting to quit smoking.
The Cost of Smoking in the UK
As mentioned, the tax rates being put on tobacco products is something that has been included within the yearly budget review that is conducted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The Government set out a pledge in 2019 for England to become a smoke free country by 2030, which means that 5% or less of the adult population in England would be classed as current smokers. They have several different routes on their road map to achieve this, and recently it’s been unveiled that raising taxes and costs of Tobacco Products would occur in a bid to deter people away from buying them and making the switch from smoking to a safer alternative, or to not smoke at all.
In March 2023, the announcements were made on just how much the cost of smoking would be going up by and it’s certainly an eye watering amount. I’ll go into it in detail below;
20 Cigarettes did cost £10.85, but would be subject to a 14.7% rise taking them to the new price of £12.64 per pack of 20 Cigarettes.
Hand Rolling Tobacco Pouches (50g) did cost £27.90 but would be subject to a 16.1% rise taking it to the new price of £32.39 per 50g pouch.
As I said, it’s eye watering and staggering really to see how much the cost of smoking has now gone up with this new announcement. And to break it down in facts and figures;
If a person smoked 20 cigarettes a day, and paid £12.64 per pack, this is equivalent to £88.48 a week, £353.92 a month and £4247.04 a year! This is just absolutely mind blowing seeing how much it would cost every year to smoke, and being in the height of a cost of living crisis, this is a cost that many people can ill afford and it comes as no surprise that this cost is the first thing that people are looking to reduce or eliminate from their monthly outgoings so that they have more money for other essentials in life.
Why Nicotine Replacement Therapy Is Important When Quitting
It’s a pretty obvious fact really, but if you become smoke free, you will instantly start saving money as you won’t be forking out obscene amounts every day/week/month on tobacco products. But giving up smoking isn’t something that’s as easy as stopping and that’s that, giving up smoking is actually one of the hardest things a person can do in life, but it is absolutely achievable with the right amount of will power, determination and the tools to help you along the way as well.
When giving up smoking, you will want to use some form of Nicotine Replacement Therapy to make the transition as easy and stress free as possible. When you smoke, you will become addicted, and possibly dependant, on Nicotine due to it being a very addictive chemical. So giving up and going the cold turkey method is not advised as this could lead to some adverse side effects which will not be pleasant to experience.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy comes in several different forms, and the “traditional” methods include Nicotine patches, gum, sprays or lozenges which people can get prescribed from their GP after visiting them and their local Stop Smoking service. But what is slowly becoming the more preferred (and effective) form of NRT is E-Cigarettes and Nicotine Pouches. These are not available on prescription but Doctor’s and Stop Smoking services have heavily backed the idea of using E-Cigarettes to help people quit and the research has also been done which shows that people stand more chance of quitting smoking when using them.
Nicotine Pouches are still relatively new to the market and people are not fully aware of the benefits, but the attention towards them is growing somewhat and people are realising that these are also a very effective method to try to help them quit and also they are very cost effective as well which is what is essential in today’s economy.
How Nicotine Pouches Can Save You Money
We’ve now established that the cost of smoking is astronomical, and it’s something that many can ill-afford, so let’s take a look at the topic in question and delve into just how much money you can save by opting to use Nicotine Pouches.
We’re going to take a look at and use as an example one of the new and exciting brands of Nicotine Pouches to enter on to the market recently and that is DIP Nicotine Pouches.
DIP Nicotine Pouches are a brand of nicotine pouches made in the UK, using innovative product design which features the full spectrum of Nicotine Alkaloids, the same which are found in Tobacco, giving you an authentic Nicotine experience that will be as close to what you would get from smoking a cigarette without actually having to smoke a cigarette!
Each tin of DIP contains 25 individual Nicotine Pouches, and retails for the low price of £5.99 per tin. This is less than half the price of what 20 cigarettes would cost in today’s market! Each Nicotine Pouch will provide a nicotine release/absorption for around 45-60 minutes, and satisfy any cravings for Nicotine. And this will continue to last after you’ve took the pouch out and disposed of it, so you won’t be constantly having one on the go.
To break it down, if you’re using a Nicotine Pouch every 90 minutes of the day for example, the average person is awake for at least 15 hours a day (some more, some less) so this means you’ll be using on average 10 Nicotine Pouches a day to satisfy your Nicotine urges. Meaning that one tin should last you for two and a half day. Seven days in a week, so you’ll be spending £18 at the most per week on Nicotine Pouches.
This is just shy of 1/5 of what you would be spending a week on cigarettes if you smoked 20 a day, and £18 a week is a much more cost affordable option than what £88 is I think you’ll agree! Total cost per week would be £72 and yearly costs would be £216, that’s not even 5% of the total yearly cost of what Smoking is, just crazy how much difference there is!
If you’re considering making the switch to using Nicotine Pouches and quitting smoking, visit Snusmail where you can buy DIP Nicotine Pouches from the comfort of your own home and get them delivered straight to your door!