You surely have a good point there, about the money spent on cigarettes. For sure I have saved at least $15k, about $2k a year, even including all the gear and supplies I've ever bought since I started vaping.
There are a couple things that I'm SO glad I bought. The last mod, the Sig Evaya, good grief, I just LOVE the thing. Reviews of it weren't so good, I learned after the fact, but for the way I vape, it's just perfectly fine. But the aesthetic of it is what gets me, makes my heart go pitty-pat. Same with this red MiniBook. So there is a happiness factor to consider, too. I guess that's where vaping crosses over into hobby-land.
Can't say that I ever had a cigarette make me smile on the inside. So there's that.
I have a Herakles RTA and some UD pre-made coils over in my vape-gear box, just waiting. Frankly, I think I'm scared of it. Don't have much patience any more for working-with-my-hands kinds of things, and I find myself nervous, just wanting to get it over with, when I've tried to build coils or wick anything in the past. Plus, I have yet to ever have a good hit off an atomizer with those kinds of coils. Might as well say at this point that it's a vapocalypse kind of thing for me, and I'll use it if it ever gets to the point that I can't buy factory coils.