Simple man's vices$$$$$

Homesteading topic??????

My husband doesn't smoke or drink, and was wise enough to marry a simple, country girl who doesn't ask for much , so he took up tractor collecting instead. Judging by the price of fuel and cigs, I think it may be the cheaper alternative.

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Melissa
Reformed hoyden. Please forgive me if I relapse.

OH, I'm sure we could figure out how to make it one...When writing about how to come up with the dough to make a grubstake for a homestead he said, "Give up smoking...Make beer instead of buying it...What you don't have any of these vices? Too bad. You are, as Mark Twain said, 'like a sinking ship with no freight to throw overboard.'"

There. Now it's more about homesteading.

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Hazell

Some pursue happiness--Others create it ~Unknown~

Actually, if cigarettes don't sell, Wisconsin and Illinois and many other states will go down the financial tube. Cigarette taxes fund the majority of many states' programs. IIRC, the amount of funding supplied by cigarette taxes for IL's day-to-day operation was well over 35%.

The law is not about the children, it's about the funding.

Incidentally, I know many young people who smoke, and who think nothing of the money it costs them beyond how they're going to get it.

And sure, it's a homesteading topic. There are other ways to keep kids off cigarettes. Start teaching them young about the dangers, set a good example for them, and teach them where the cigarette taxes really go. Teach them that self-sufficiency leads to less dependence on government programming.

Pony!

Yep, I agree with the simple man's vices and prices thing, but I gotta say that times have changed for ol Jimbo.

I quit smoking, and man do I feel better for it. Way better! Kinda makes me wonder what I'd-a felt like if I never had started at age 8 or 9. It was real, real hard to do, and I had many setbacks, and it took years to get shed of them, but I am off them good now. Don't even think about them. I go right by those signs now for $30 cartons of smokes, and all that goes through my mind is that they were $3 a carton when I was a teen. Plus, there is hardly anyplace where a man CAN smoke around here these days! And I'm not having to run out of my way in the dead of night just cuz I am out of cigs. So I am happy to be shed of it.

Beer; well Bud Light or Budweiser (which I guess fits the general definition of beer, barely, and is as low on the pecking order as I'd go) is $14.79 a case here plus tax. You get out for about $16, or 67 cents a can. I mean, that's soda pop prices! So it's still pretty cheap to get a drunk on. But as some folks here know, I quit the beer entirely 14 days ago thanks to a Countryside Families thread and don't intend to even touch one til I have a month or ideally more of sobriety under my belt. Like an older man once told me (to which I did not listen, BTW), "If you start to having a beer a day, pretty soon you'll get to liking them too much." His country doctor had prescribed a beer just before lunch every day to help his digestion, which it did -- but then the prescription was revoked when it was found he had, indeed, gotten to liking them too much. I thought of my old bud Clifford's words when I found myself positively in LOVE, and so I figured a break was in order. My bank account is a bit better for it.

I still enjoy cheap gas. Taco Bell tacos are still like 79 cents! :1pig:

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

Around here it is. This used to be tobacco country, where as recently as 15 years ago, the big payday was in fall when tobacco was brought in to the warehouse in town and sold. You know, that stuff sold for an average $15,000 gross an acre. Many a farm was bought and many a college degree was paid for by tobacco money. I had a store in town then, and fall was when folks who had been eyeballing stuff would finally come in and buy it.

That's all gone now that they've bought up the allotments; just about all the tobacco has left here. And there ain't a thing in the world that can LEGALLY gross $15,000 an acre left. Not to mention all the tobacco set greenhouses and co-op business and migrant labor that just dried up.

The town square where my store was is now all antiques.

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

With the exception of gas, a minority thinks these 'vices' are wrong hence sin tax time. Soon the blackmarket will be in full swing again. Then maybe organized crime will be run by the mafia who do a much better job taking care of people than most so-called charitable organizations.

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Beware of radical christians: http://listverse.com/2015/03/22/10-p...e-for-america/

neither of us smoke but i cook most everything with wine and liqueor and my husband likes a well stocked bar. and this thread reminds me i hope he doesn't check his christmas stash of rum before i can get out and replace it. I have been snitching it for the christmas cakes. i've already used 2 bottles. ...Georgia.

It's gonna be a merry Christmas at Georgia's house!

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

Tobacco will end up outlawed in this country eventually....sooner or later its distribution will become subject to the Food and Drug Administration, which will treat tobacco the same as any other grown or manufactured food or drug that when properly used has a very high incidence of sickness and/or death as a result, and ban it.

I used to smoke all the time (mostly thanks to the Army policy of smoke breaks during basic training, 'smoke em if you got em', haha, if you didn't smoke, the drill sergeants would harass you or find you something to do) so I understand the enjoyment smokers derive from it....but it's still killing yourself, one puff at a time.

The other side of the taxing question is all the folks that think 'It's my right to decide if I want to smoke or not...' and choose to smoke their whole life, then end up with chronic, long term illness from it....for which medicare provides care (more or less) paid for by who else but the taxpayers, so even the non smokers get to pay taxes to pay for the smokers lung cancer, heart disease, throat, mouth, etc cancers....that's fair right?

So get used to increasing tobacco taxes, eventually followed by banning of it all together.

Hammer, one big reason I am glad I quit when I did is that it is forbidden to smoke tobacco anywhere on company property where I work now. You literally can't light up in your car in the parking lot. And you know what? It isn't because of any government regs...it is because of insurance costs.

Insurance is what is going to drive tobacco into a grave, not the government. I am thinking (and heard a rumor) that next year the company will employ a differential on individual payments into the plan for smokers. They'll pay more because their health care costs are higher.

So it's not some liberal socialist plot...it is dollars and cents that will curtail smoking. And let's face it -- even hardcore smokers don't want to see their kids start the habit, if it can be avoided. If it was such a good thing, an expression of individual rights and all, why in all my years smoking did I never hear a single smoker say, "I can't wait til my son or daughter starts smoking!"

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

We don't drink or smoke but Dh averages over 100 miles a day! Gas prices are killing us!

Fortunately I don't drink much and I don't smoke, cause just putting fuel in the vehicles is about all the "vice" I can afford anymore.

It's a compounding problem in that not only have the vices themselves gone way up in cost, but the everyday, need to have things have as well. By the time the simple man or simple women pays for the roof over their families head, the insurance, the food on the table, the clothes on their backs, the heat in the house, and the ridiculuos taxes, there just is not much money left over for vices...

Well, I grew up on a tobacco farm in SE Indiana.
I was always able to Smoke, or Not Smoke, whenever I wanted to.
It Never was an Addiction to me. I'd smoke a few years, pack a day,
or a good briar pipe, once in awhile. Pipes are slower & more relaxing.
Then I'd quit for awhile, a few years.

At 55, I'd been quit for about 10 years and started smoking a pipe, again.
I smoked my pipe regularly for about 5 years.......Then I had a Stupid Asthma
Attack. I had never had one before. The Respiratory Doc said I needed to
give up smoking. Well I already had.
I still miss that Pipe full of tobacco, after a good full meal, though.
So-o-o-o relaxing. Been 7 years now.

As for alcohol, my old doc recommended a shot of whiskey, before bed at night, in lieu of sleeping pills. That was 35 years ago. I still have a shot,
One, in diet Pepsi, each night. Well, on occasion, I do have two....
maybe once a week or every other week.

I'm a Home-brewer. I love Good Beer. I have had Good ones, over the years.
I still buy some, a couple times a year. But, I can make Ale or Lager, that is
as good or Better than commercial Beer, at 1/4th the price.
I have a refridgerator full..........but I only drink a beer on occasion, with dinner, or if Friends drop in. I serve good Beer as a part of Hospitality.
And, Hospitality is a Virtue. Noone over-drinks at my House.

I guess alcohol is not a Vice, for me either. More of a Treat, sometimes a medication.
But..........we all have our Vices. Some, we just don't talk about.
Shhhhhhh.............chocolate...........

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Be Intense, always. But always take the time to
Smell the Roses, give a Hug, Really Listen, or
Jump to Defend your Friends & What you Believe in.
'Til later, Have Fun,
Old John

You bring up an interesting aspect of smoking. In many cases people became hooked on smoking thanks to the gov't. Then the gov't harasses them and taxes them over what they got them started on. Saddest thing I remember was going to the VA hospital and seeing the WWII vets sitting outside in the cold in their wheelchairs to smoke. These men saved the world and now they were treated like this.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

My vices are:
Tractor Porn (which includes - Implement porn, fencing porn, and any associated farming related stuff).

I am also addicted to my wife.
I usually only buy a 12 pack - or maybe two - of beer a year.
Never smoked - cigs need to be uninvented.
drink maybe 4 cups of coffee per year (only up to 2 now, so I have a little catch up to do).
We've got liquor in the cabinet we bought over 10 years ago - and it's not opened yet.
We have a little wine at Passover and Thanksgiving.

I'd buy my wife a diamond (even though she doesn't REALLY want one), but the price is so high, I can't (they must think those diamonds are made of gasoline....).

My company is going to ding smokers next year but frankly, smokers are a nit in the cost of insurance these days, fat people are the major problem. Smokers die young, short term costs are higher, long term they've single handedly saved medicare and social security (remember when 64% of the population smoked)? And to top it off, most people I know who quit smoking are now overweight if not obese.
And the govt is part of the problem with smoking vets (and smoking probably helps with psych issues too). I was incensed when the contract on america got it in their greedy heads that smoking vets should not be treated for smoking related health problems. And most of these weenie pols NEVER served.

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I beg to differ from the microeconomics price elasticity of demand (PED). Milk and shoes for babies are a luxury, booze and cigarettes a necessity based on PED. Bars always do ok.

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Beware of radical christians: http://listverse.com/2015/03/22/10-p...e-for-america/

Well, I can tell ya smokers are killing my company's BC/BS premiums, and the simple reason is because over a lifetime, they use more medical care than nonsmokers. It is way higher. BC/BS says a smoker will use up 40% more in health expenses over a lifetime than a nonsmoker, and a smoker's family members on the plan see doctors a lot more often too, whether they themselves smoke or not. BCBS says the total family costs of smokers way outrank those of people who are clinically obese, though that is the second high-cost group, mainly due to diabetes.

Starting next year here, every family member on our plan has to do a wellness survey annually, and if it is determined they have one of 5 key conditions, they have to undergo mandatory health and lifestyle coaching/counseling. As of now, only employees have to do that.

I'm all for it, cuz my portion of the payment has escalated (particularly in the last 5 years) and benefits are being trimmed a little every couple of years now. I know my company is running as fast as it can to contain those costs, now and in the future. Our coverage at retirement used to be 100% company paid, regardless. After 2010, it will be 75% IF you and your family have participated in the screening, survey and coaching process.

So my premise is true, based on what the insurance company is telling us. Dollars and cents will put the lid on smoking. We already have a society where most smokers are now of lower economic means, with huge gains in containing smoking in the middle and upper classes, and spiraling insurance costs and tobacco costs will eventually thin those ranks, too.

And dollars and cents will eventually put the lid on obesity, too, unless our government acts to somehow do it. (Remember the President's Plan for Physical Fitness? Ahhh, Kennedy was onto something there. Amazing how many schools have NO organized exercise activities now. But they have soda machines!) For the first time in our nation's history, our kids will not live as long as we do. That is shocking.

How's that for hijacking a thread?

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

This is all I have to say regarding the topic of vices:

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This is the government the Founding Fathers warned us about.....