A Year of Snus – a Personal Case Study of 2009

This time last year I lost my job; Feb 20th to be exact. Within days the boredom and my OCD kicked in and I disposed of almost all my empty snus cans. I only kept a few “special” cans. PM1847, Camel SNUS, metal Lucky Strike…stuff I thought may be collectible some day. A couple months ago I realized I had saved almost every snus can I have used since that day. Not having thought up a good use for them I figured they would make an interesting article topic.

Swedish Snus Saves Lives AND Money compared to Cigarettes

With the looming threat of PACT in our future I have read several people, myself included, state that they would just stock a year or two worth of snus and hope someone saw fit to start selling Real snus in more brick and mortar shops in the US. When I wrote that I had never really thought through what a year’s worth of snus looked like.

Today, February 10, 2010, I know exactly what that looks like, for me. In the last year I have used roughly 190 cans of snus. 173 are pictured here. The difference in totals is lös cans. I don’t keep Swedish Match cardboard cans; I have no idea why or why not.

To break it down somewhat I have:

67 Swedish Match ,
56 V2 ,
9 Gajane,
16 JTI,
6 F&L,
2 Chaini,
3 Gotlands,
5 Skruf,
9 BAT.

No one can say I’m not varied in my tastes. I could break it down farther but I’m too lazy to list each brand. If you want that list, it’s all in the picture.

The other interesting things I have learned from this experiment are how much snus I use and how much money I’ve saved. According to the math, I use right at .5 cans a day. I know some days I use more, some less, but it’s nice to know it averages out. The other thing is we (my lovely wife did the math) figured out how much money I saved over buying cigarettes.

I smoked around 2 packs a day or 40 cigarettes, depending on my stress levels and activities. At current prices that is $5.50 a pack or $3,700.00, give or take annually.

In comparison, 190 cans of snus containing 24 one gram portions at $4.00 each is $760. I use $4 as an average, to cover shipping, and make the math easy. I didn’t pay $4 a can. I’m cheap, shop for deals and got a few cans from friends last spring when things were really tough.

Even adding in $100 or so that was spent to support my nasal snuff habit and experiments with dip; I’m still well under $1,000. $2,700 saved is nothing to sneeze at. It’s easy to make up a statistic that says “Save X% by switching to Swedish/Scandinavian snus”. I can now say I have proof.

If you used to smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, and now use .5 cans of snus a day you will have slashed your tobacco budget by 66% to 75% percent. It may be an even larger number if you live in a place that taxes cigarettes more than Ohio such as New York City. Even if new taxes on smokeless tobacco raise snus prices to the level of $7-10 a can I’ll still be well ahead financially. Remember, these numbers are predicated on 24 one gram portions per can Swedish/Scandinavian Snus.

American snus portions are usually only 0.5 gram of content, come with as few as six portions per package (Marlboro snus), and are much lower in free nicotine so you will use more of them. Since the American snus products are marketed to be used when you can’t smoke cigarettes as opposed to Swedish snus which is designed to replace the need for cigarettes, you will also have to factor in cigarette costs as well. Just to be clear, the savings I describe above do not apply to American snus or SNUS.

Swedish Snus has saved me twice. It has saved my lungs from further damage caused by 2 packs of “coffin (or coughin’) nails” a day, and last year it saved my wallet when I needed it the most. It will save my wallet again this year also, but this year the savings will be a bonus. Last year, it was survival.

As I sit here today, with a nice fat pris of General Ekstra Sterk Loose snus in my lip, a snootful of F&T High Dry Toast, literally a 6 month supply of snus in my freezer and a few inches of frosty white, clean snow outside I can honestly and happily say life is good.

Mick Hellwig
WHAT I THINK at SnusCENTRAL.org