barter stuff

BARTER STUFF

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The series "oil economy lies" continues tomorrow.  I'm just taking a one day break with the following.
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I’ve been wanting to write up this subject for some months now but I just now compiled enough research.  Please don’t skip reading this.  Even though it is on stuffing cigarettes ( “roll” your own ), and most of you don’t smoke, the savings are so significant that anyone can easily afford to put away cigarettes for high profit barter.  Whereas it is tough to afford to smoke nowadays, the individual states displaying pure unbridled greed and avarice with regards to their taxes, it is far cheaper to do so if you roll your own.  It is 20% of the price of packs of cigarettes.  Almost nobody can afford to put aside cigarettes for post-collapse barter ( THE gold standard for barter.  You can easily make your own alcohol, but only a few folks will grow their own tobacco plants.  You will NOT get stuck with any cigarettes as long as you don’t wait too long to barter them ) if you buy them from the store.  But with roll your own, anyone can ( at $1 a pack rather than $5 for the cheapest-note, the cheapest brand name.  The cheapest generic are terrible, burning away too quickly.  They are false economics ).

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Roll your own is not really an applicable term anymore.  Thirty years ago, when I rolled, you had your little hand held machine that almost looked like a small newspaper printing press.  You filled up the tobacco, closed the loop of vinyl sheet over to create a tube of the stuff, stuck in a cigarette paper, rolled the paper in and over and around, left just enough paper exposed to lick the adhesive end, rolled some more and popped out a completed cigarette ( prior to that, folks rolled by hand, like most of you hippies did with a marijuana joint ).  As I was smoking Camel unfiltered, rolling my own was comparable.  Under-employed folks could still afford to smoke, doing it this way.  It was pocket change cheap.  Well, a bit later Clinton The Junk-Smoker got elected and my take home pay really took a beating.  Not only did the jag-off fund Junior Narc Programs to harass me working in a convenience store ( underage sale stings ) so I had to quit and take a 25% gross income cut, he also caused the price of cigarettes to skyrocket.  Luckily by this time, you could buy filters to add to your roll your own machines.  I was past the point I could smoke unfiltered anymore.  Again, this made roll your own darn cheap.

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Then, seven years ago, Obammy The Floppy Lipped Kenyan White House Negro ran on the pledge of No New Taxes.  Months after inauguration, he raised taxes on roll your own tobacco to match the prices of store bought cigarettes ( Bush The Elder lost reelection after breaking his No New Taxes pledge.  Obammy can do it since it is okay to hate White People now, It Was For The Children, and because everyone that voted for him hates me personally ).   I went to store bought as there was now no incentive to add labor to my addiction.  That was about a 200% increase in cost, but not too painful in relation to all the other rising prices.  Until last year, when that kid molesting goat humper the Republican governor of our state really put a serious raise on our cigarette taxes.  Suddenly, a pack of the cheapest was $5.  OUCH!  I can easily afford that smoking one cigarette a day, but as the ex-stepdaughter and the ex-wife had both stolen all my hoarded cigarettes, probably around a hundred packs ( hoarded at around three packs a month over the years ) if not more, I not only had no personal smokes for post collapse, I also could never replace them in a timely manner.  Not at the new price.  And forget about barter.

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I thought I was screwed, but a new co-worker turned me on to roll your own pipe tobacco.  It is much cheaper than cigarette tobacco and it is actually nice and mellow ( for the unflavored type ).  I’m now back down to a buck a pack.  And no, I’m not back to using it in a pipe.  I tried that long ago and for some reason I always inadvertently swallowed the spit while using a pipe and it usually unset my stomach ( to include the occasional vomiting ).  I’m stuffing it into filtered cigarette tubes.  The tubes double the cost of the tobacco but I don’t mind.  Not after such cost savings.  I tried this method with the cheapest start-up costs I could, found the results very pleasing, and invested a bit more cash into it.  Your cost can start at $50 which will get you two cartons, and from there it only costs you $1 a pack.  The only caveat is you must budget for $35 minimum up front cost each time ( no just buying a single pack ) and you must allow time for shipping.

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The best company I have found is Smokers Outlet Online

www.smokersoutletonline.com

Their one pound pack of pipe tobacco is $12 ( Golden Harvest ) and their carton of tubes are $3 each ( same brand ).  Shipping is a minimum of $12 so you must order a lot of product at a time to reduce that cost per item ( the amount was the same for one pound and one pack of tubes as one pound and seven packs of tubes.  Tubes are as bulky as a regular carton of cigs ).

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I went to Amazon for everything else.  Nowadays, you don’t roll your own.  You stuff it.  So machines are a bit more expensive.  The one I got, with the best reviews, was the Powermatic Mini.  $18 with free shipping if you order over $35 worth of stuff.  This is an all plastic starter unit.  If you want a better one, spend twice the amount for the New Top-O-Matic Cigarette Rolling Machine.  I preferred to have a back-up so stuck with the Mini. 

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You don’t need a scale to weigh your tobacco, but I decided it was worth the money.  I make a consistent product and don’t overload the machine which increases wear and tear and can rip some tubes up, also ( if you guess by feel, if the machine is too hard to close prior to stuffing, you have too much tobacco in ).  It isn’t needed, and takes a lot longer, but I can also use the scale for ammo reloading ( I have the back-up analog scale as I don’t really trust digital for the post-Apocalypse future ) as well as better standardizing my output.  I’d recommend the American Weigh Scales GEMINI-20 Portable MilliGram Scale, 20 By 0.001 G.

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I found that .95 grams of tobacco is about ideal to stuff a 100mm tube.  The cigarette lasts a good while, but is not so overstuffed it is hard to draw smoke.  .85 grams is too little of tobacco, collapsing some parts of the tube due to lack of product.  .92 to .95 is about perfect.  As there are 450 grams, give or take, in a pound, you do the math.  It is close to five hundred cigs but I call it four hundred to be safe.  Four cartons of tubes are $12, a pound of tobacco is $12 and shipping is $12.  $36 for four cartons of cigarettes.  The machine pays for itself soon thereafter.  Keep the tobacco in the fridge or freezer after opening ( and don’t expect an unopened bag to stay moist forever ).  The object is to stuff your tobacco as soon as possible.  Once you zip-lock them into packs or cartons, yes, they will dry out.  So what.  Dried up cigs will still barter just fine as soon as the store boughts are used up.  But you don’t want to try to stuff that tobacco once dried.  Make them now.  It is a lot of labor, but well worth the savings.

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