Roll Yer Own

I guess it's time that we talked abut this.  Belle and I are rolling our own cigarettes.  Yeah, yeah, I know, we really should quit.  Don't go there.

Belle went to a wedding in June, and when she came back, she was all about the money people were waving by rolling their own cigarettes.  Locally, a carton of smokes is over $50.00 thank to our Democratic governor.  We have culled that expense and spend about a half-hour a day rolling our won.    Normally, we'll sit for about a half-hour, roll 40 to 50 smokes, and talk while we enjoy an after-work cocktail.

We use pipe tobacco, sold in bulk at the local smoke shop for our pleasure.  We haven't yet firmly decided on a brand, but the one we like best right now is Ohm Blue, and a one-pound bag costs about $14.00 locally.  For cigarette tubes, we use Zenn Blue filter tubes, which Belle buys from Amazon.

The injector machine is a Laramie, also found on Amazon.  Here is a look at our set-up, and some lessons learned.

First of all, put the machine in some sort of tray with a shallow lip.  A cookie sheet works good, although any tray that will catch the overflow works fine.  Belle and I use a small metal tray she found a t the Dollar Store.  It is what it is.

Second, there is a shallow learning curve with this thing.  But, after a few minutes it is entirely possible to produce cigarettes that look just like the factory-rolled alternative.Third, the cost is much less than buying factory smokes.  Belle estimates that we're spending just a bit more than a dollar a pack.  Pipe tobacco isn't taxed as heavily as cigarette tobacco.  After amortizing the machine, I estimate that we're spending about $2.50 a pack for cigarettes, which is a hell of a lot less than the over $5.00 per pack that we were spending before.

We're smoking better tobacco.  Really, we are.  As long as we intend to smoke anyway, it makes a lot of sense to save a penny here and a penny there.

If you smoke cigarettes, I recommend that you look into rolling yer own.  It saves you money in your pocketbook immediately, and it sticks it to the sin-taxing Democrats, which is just an added bonue.