I've been DIYing for a two months now, but it took me a while to jump into DIY due to the cost. You always hear how cheap it is compared to retail, but rarely any firm figures. It took me about 4 months to justify the cost, and since I started I've been regretting taking so long to get started.
I thought I'ed start a thread to compare how much we use to spend just on our ADV vs how much it cost us now so that it would be easier for people thinking about getting into DIY to justify the cost. I am using HotRod's Recipe Calculator to determine the cost(in the sidebar, Link for the lazy).
I go through ~120ml of juice a month of Tiger's Blood 50/50 @ 6mg. I use to pay $59.98 a month for juice. Now I can make the same amount of juice for $8.35 + $1.50 for the bottle.
$59.98 vs $9.85, saving $50.13 a month.
So funny to me that everyone doesn't DIY! If only they knew how fun and easy it is. I do it for my wife and a few friends that vape(I am starting to vape myself, slowly) saving what seems like a car payment a month. Certainly worth the 5 min. it takes to whip up 30ml couple times a week.
I would love to diy for me and sell to my friends for cheap, I just can't scrounge up the money all at once for the supplies, lol.
Even $9.85 seems a little high. Could be in the $4-$5 range if you buy in bulk.
It's not bad for a $55 investment, getting everything from WL. I didn't know if I would stick with it. I had to get 65mg nic at the time because that was all they had in stock. When I reorder, I'll be getting a larger quantity of 100mg nic from nudenicotine, larger quantities of vg/pg from essential depot, and flavoring directly from TFA which will bring the price down.
Okay, now I have to cost out my own - 120ml of juice, huh? Let's see -
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30ml 100mg nic base (I vape 25mg): Let's say $5. I paid $30 plus shipping for 250ml of 100mg from Wizard Labs so it's somewhere between $4 and $5
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16.5ml flavoring - $3
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12ml distilled water: about two cents.
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~60ml VG: about a buck.
So about nine bucks for 120ml but I think the difference between 6mg and 25mg explains most or all of the extra cost.
I go through about 350-400ml total for me and the wife in a given month and I've calculated my per ml cost at less than 2 cents. Buying gallons of PG and VG put the cost of each at an insignificant level and can nearly be removed from the equation. My only real cost then is Nic and flavor, both of which I buy in bulk. I have usually 1-2 liters of Nic on hand and at least enough flavor to make 2-3000 ml of finished product.
My biggest mistake was thinking I would take to DIY any differently than I did smoking. I didn't randomly change brands of smokes every week and I don't change the flavor I use either. I have probably 300.00 in random flavors I will never use because I've settled on the flavor, or "Brand" I wanted. Now they sit idle and I just buy the flavors I need to make the only juice I use.
i'm interested in knowing what your one juice is
Can confirm big savings: Even getting from MBV it would cost me around $40 per month, but doing DIY I've been spending about $40 every 3-4 months and I'm slowly building a flavor surplus... The only downside is vaping "experimental" mixes and being a tight-fisted bitch who hates to throw out odd tasting juice...
I'm the same way, I have half of my 10ml bottle supply filled with juices that didn't quite work out and enough that did work out to not even want to vape them. All of my coffee experiments came out way to overpowered. I did have 3 in my last sample batch come out way better than expected though, so those will be going into 50ml bottles next. I'm going to either have to dump out the crap or buy new bottles soon.
Any chance you'd share the tigers blood clone you're using?
I use mighty_mighty's recipe from the clone thread, Here, But I've been using TFA ripe strawberry rather than regular. Trying to tweak it now, I have some on the shelf that's got another week to steep before I see how it came out.
My problem is that I keep ordering new flavors from the various vendors. I literally just finished placing an $80 order from Capella's. Granted, I've got 16oz of flavors coming but still...
Luckily I've been vaping long enough to know what I like and there's not to many flavors I need. I need 3 flavors from capella, but it's not worth the shipping cost for me to order at this time.