At 32 years old with a 2 year old daughter, I realized that I had been a heavy smoker for more than half of my life and I knew that I had to quit. I had tried the gum and patches with some success, but the process was painful and I eventually went back to smoking every time. I first tried E-Cigs in May 2012 and I immediately fell in love with the idea of being able to smoke at my desk without taking smoke breaks. However, I quickly became frustrated with my equipment and stopped vaping due to low battery life, difficulty with refilling cartridges, and cheap cartridges that were often defective right out of the box. In March of 2013, my Brother-In-Law told me that he had been using an E-Cig and I was like okay, good luck with that… but when he showed me his setup I was really impressed with how easy it was to refill his cartridges so I decided to revisit the subject. When I began researching E-Cig components on the internet I realized that the market had grown exponentially over the last year and found myself diving down the e-cig rabbit hole. With the help of my Brother-In-Law and the electronic_cigarette subreddit, I eventually bought an expensive mod and dropped cigarettes completely within 3 days. That went well for about one month until I started drinking one night in Key West and knocked my big expensive mod into the ocean then bought a pack of analog cigarettes. My Brother-In-Law was drinking with me and also bought a pack because he wanted to indulge himself with the real thing. We were both surprised to find that the so-called real thing felt weak and unpleasant. Needless to say, I got a new unit as soon as I got back to the mainland, but instead of a big and expensive mod I got a smaller eGo style battery and I haven’t looked back. So after 3 months of vaping and over $300 spent on trial and error, I have found that sweet spot between economy and performance and I’m telling all of my smoker friends about the $50 e-cig start; a 1300 MaH Ego battery and charger, an EVOD clearomizer, and a sample pack of liquid from a reputable vendor.