Incense

If you spend money on the boxes I would strongly recommend focusing on incubators. Incense seems to be a waste of money unless you're living in the middle of nowhere, i.e no spawns and pokestops. I've never cought anything interesting with the incense on.

I use them when I'm in a different biome then my own. Walking along the beach for example

Buy first, ask questions later :-)

Incense is good if you are moving (e.g., walking around). You will likely not get anything that good though, just extra pokemons for Stardust and Candy.

If you are stationary, you will get 1 pokemon every 5 minutes (for a total of 6 for 1 incense). If you are moving, you will get one every 200 meters (I think).

I personally can't even with that stuff, but I hear that if you're out in the middle of nowhere, interesting things can occasionally pop up.

incense is pretty much useless - well its good at taking up space in your item storage. But basically if you live in the middle of nowhere, it will be useful. Otherwise I would just follow the nest maps on silphroad and go that route.

From Dec 30-Jan 8, the incense will last 1 hour compared to 30 min as part of the holiday promotion.

I would have waited for the second wave of gift boxes to come out though or just purchased a bunch of special boxes.

Use them immediately to free your box space. I haven't caught any special/rare pokemons with incense.