cigar monster

This post is for the cigar smoker on a budget. Chances are, if you’re an average cigar smoker, you know what being on a budget is like.  You can’t afford to regularly drop $15 on one cigar. Heck, you can’t even spend $30 on a five-pack. So you’re stuck either smoking infrequently (bad), smoking low-quality cigars regularly (more bad), or bumming cigars off of your friends (double-bad).

The good news is, there are a few places online you can go to find cheap cigars that will blow your socks off. I know many in our audience are big fans of Famous Smoke (my preferred retailer), Cigars International, Thomson Cigars, and other major online retailers, but I’m going to suggest a few, lesser known alternatives that will give you a bigger bang for your buck.

I regularly use these sites to get great deals on cigars:

Cigar Monster

Cigar Monster was the first website I bought cigars from. It is affiliated with Famous Smoke Shop, another online retailer that I particularly enjoy using because of their pricing and selection. But back to cigar monster.

If you’ve ever used other “deal a day” or “deal every hour” websites like Woot.com, they are what they sound like. Every hour, Cigar Monster offers a hot deal, typically on five packs and samplers.  Unlike other websites, however, their five-pack deals often include free shipping. From this I’ve gotten five packs of Rocky Patel 1990, Oliva G Maduro, Cain, My Father, and other brands for $15-$20 including shipping.  A price point like this allows someone on basically any budget to enjoy great cigars for $4-$5 a stick.

The real kicker is, every Friday, and often other days, the site lists all of the weeks previous deals in a “Mega Monster Mashup.” This adds a great selection to the already heavenly (hellish?) price point you’re getting.

CigarBid.com

Cigarbid.com is, for me, heaven. Think of it like ebay, but for cigars. There are plenty of online auction websites, and even other cigar auction websites, but none of them do the job like cigarbid.com. On cigarbid, I routinely find boxes of great cigars for $40-$50. That’s about $2 per stick.

Of course, cigarbid has all of the major brands like Rocky Patel, Alec Bradley, My Father, Nestor Miranda, etc, etc. But cigarbid also has a range of lesser known brands that blow my socks off. One of my regular searches is for the Nica Libre 1990, commonly viewed as a knockoff of the Padron Anniversario 1926. The amazing thing is, the Nica Libre 1994 is a kick ass representation of the taste (you can read a side-by-side review here).

Bottom line: I use cigarbid to buy boxes of quality cigars, mainly so that I always have something good on hand to give to friends when they come over, and something enjoyable for me to smoke. But I would caution you: it is very easy to get carried away on sites like cigarbid, so be sure to log on knowing how much you want to spend, and stick to that limit. 

 

Full Selection: Famous Smoke Shop

The only drawback to websites like Cigar Bid and Cigar Monster is selection–the only items you’ll find are the ones that are on sale. So it’s worth taking a look at Famous Smoke Shop because they have a tremendous selection of classic cigar brands like Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, etc, but also boutique brands as well.

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Check out our newest look at the best online cigar retailers here. Also, if you’re looking to purchase cigars for corporate events, check out our article on that here.