10 Practical Ways to Conserve Your Cannabis Stash When Cash is Short

We’ve all been there: we find our cannabis stash coming up short, and our bank accounts coming up dry… and all you want to do is get high.

Any cannabis user will be able to tell you that finding yourself without cannabis due to budgetary restraints sucks. When you get a new stash, it’s all too easy to feel like Snoop Dogg, until you find yourself a couple days later with only shake when your paycheck is yet to hit the bank.

Don’t let yourself be empty-handed when it comes to your green. Here are some surprisingly practical, easy and effective ways to conserve your cannabis stash when your bank account’s bottoming and other financial obligations take priority.

Dose Properly

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they need to take giant hits off bongs or pipes, smoke a whole joint, or eat a large edible in order to feel the effects of cannabis. Au contraire. Oftentimes our bodies need a few minutes to effectively assess the effects that cannabis is having. For edibles especially, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to start feeling the effects of the strain of choice.

Similarly, it’s easy to want to take some giant dab hits when we all know a little dab will do you. Microdosing is also making its way into the cannabis community as a popular consumption method, where less is more. Consider whether you need to use, consume, or smoke as much as you do and whether you are getting the same effects from using a little as if you were to consume double or triple the amount.

Don’t Roll Joints

Roaches, burned fingers, fast-burning papers. Enough said. Look at how much cannabis you use when you roll a big joint, rather than smoke out of a pipe or a fresh flower vaporizer.

Rolling cannabis into joints is a convenient and pretty awesome way to smoke your cannabis, but let’s face it, you’ll get more bowl sessions or vaporizer sessions than you will from rolling your stash wholly into joints, or worse off, blunts!

Budget Wisely

An effective way to conserve your cannabis is to effectively limit your own intake. Don’t just buy an eighth (or ounce) and take from it whenever you feel up to it. Break that eighth (or ounce) into smaller quantities that will represent how much you’ll consume each day.

Take into consideration days (like weekends) that you may consume a bit more than normal. Use this budgeting system with the commitment to yourself that you’ll only go to the dispensary X times per week and spend a certain amount of money.

Contextualize Your Cannabis

If you find that you’re going through your daily stash within the first few hours of the morning, you may find you need to contextualize your cannabis use a bit more. Nix the “just because” joints or pulls from your pipe to certain times of the day.

After you get home from work, after dinner, after you’ve done the dishes, after the kids are in bed… or whatever works for you. Self-control and knowing cannabis has a place and time will help you keep that stash bountiful for longer.

Don’t Always Offer Up

Placebo is known for saying, “A friend with weed is better,” and damn right, that’s true! Don’t always be the one to offer up in a smoke session with your friends.

Ask them to roll one, and you’ll roll one, or you can each put in a bud so that you’re both footing the proverbial bill for your mutually enjoyed cannabis session.

Use Concentrates

Concentrates pack a huge punch, and as we said before, a little dab will do you. While using concentrates represents a bit of a departure from how you use cannabis if you’re used to good ol’ flower, they can be a way to get the desired high, without the huge physical volume of cannabis to consume.

Wax, shatter, oil, whatever your preference, concentrates may be what you need to use cannabis a bit more conservatively.

Find Similar Outlets

Medicinal and recreational users use cannabis because they desire certain effects. “It makes me feel the way I want to feel,” Snoop Dogg is famous for saying in cannabis lore. If cannabis has a certain effect on you, but you don’t want to keep reaching for the bud, find alternatives to get similar effects.

Take a hot bath with a CBD infused oil instead of smoking a lion’s share of bud for cannabis cramps. Take a walk in the forest on a nature trail to clear your head. If you can isolate the why you use cannabis, you can help curb the compulsion to reach for the pipe by filling your needs with other activities.

Find the Right Strain

If you’re finding you need to smoke or consume more to sufficiently feel the effects of cannabis, you may not be using the right strain.

Experiment with different strains like sativas, indicas, or hybrids; or use different strain ratios that pack a huge punch with THC for a strong high, or for medicinal effects, get something that is CBD rich with lower THC.

Adjust Your Bowl Size

If you’re someone who likes a good old-fashioned bong hit, or glass pipe, consider whether you need a huge ass bowl for yourself. It can be quite tempting to fill a giant bowl with your finest grind and smoke it with others, and another to smoke that giant bowl yourself.

Consider getting a one-hitter or a personal pipe, or getting a snap bowl, which is a smaller replacement for your bong’s giant bowl, which is meant to be “cornered” or lit up slowly and shared amongst many people.

Grind It Up

Take two buds that are similar in size, and grind one up. Which one looks like it has more bounty? When you just grab a bud and smash it up in your fingers without properly grinding it up, you lose two things: volume and the trichomes because they will come off onto your finger.

Using a grinder will give you a truer sense of how much cannabis you actually have, and it will ensure more of the trichomes get into your bowl or joint. Another bonus is that the crystals collect in your grinder, making for an excellent rescue for when you’re light on flower.

Use Cannabis Wisely

Marylyn already offered some helpful suggestions on how not to break the bank among the days of expensive legal cannabis. These additional tips will help you stay on budget while not having to give up cannabis when you want to enjoy it most. Happy cannabis conserving!