Save Money on Cigarettes: Grow Your Own Tobacco

Cigarettes are expensive. With all the new taxes being hoisted on cigarette smokers, buying them is becoming more expensive every year. The average pack-a-day smoker can expect to pay $5 to or more for a single pack. And gone are the days when you could buy lower quality, generic cigarettes for a third of the price of name brands. With the enormous tobacco taxes, even the cheap cigarettes are too much.

You can save a little money by buying your cigarettes by the carton, and even more by rolling your own. You can also use coupons to save a little, or sneak your cigarettes in from Canada. But the best way to save money on cigarettes is to grow you’re own tobacco.

If you’re industrious, and are really intent on growing your own tobacco, you can start a small plot in your yard or garden. You can even make some excess cash by selling off any excess you might have. Growing tobacco is said to be easy, or at least as easy as growing most anything else.

Like any plant, of course, there are specific growing needs for tobacco such as soil preparation and content, fertilization needs, controlling pests and diseases, growing climate and season, watering, sunlight and temperature requirements. Growing’s the easy part.

Curing and harvesting, however, are not so easy. More people would probably grow their own tobacco, especially these days to save money, if harvesting and curing tobacco were not so difficult and problematic.

Your tobacco must be cured with constant temperature and humidity. Temperatures must be at 60 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and humidity must be at 65 to 70%. If there is too much humidity, you risk rotting and molding tobacco plants. If your harvested plants are too green, the tobacco will be useless as well. Curing can be done with heat or air.

To cure with heat, which the tobacco companies do, you will need the proper facilities, which can be impossible for the average person. Air drying is the other option, which can take weeks and must be done under perfect conditions. Harvesting creates it’s own slew of problems as well.

Aging the tobacco is where most potential growers give up. The process takes at least 1 year, and up to 6 years to age a crop of cigarette tobacco. And the curing conditions must remain constant the whole time.

So. You CAN save money by growing your own tobacco. But you must be entirely dedicated to the process for years before you can reap your rewards. This is the largest barrier to those who look into the option of growing their own. That’s why most people will stick to complaining about the ever-increasing price of cigarettes, instead of growing their own tobacco to save money.

The biggest way to save money on cigarettes, is of course, to quit smoking.

Reference:

• www.edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AA260