Analogs almost $80 per carton

[chellie]

are there many places to buy them illegally? i guess people roll their own now. wonder how much they save?

I remember when the "roll your own" stores starting popping up. It did not last very long because big tobacco had a fit and used their power with legislators to put a stop to it. Next thing you know buried in a transportation bill -- buried -- was a provision that roll your own folks, who were mostly mom and pop independent types - had to cough up about $300,000 to acquire expensive types of licenses that had to with manufacturing. A bunch of BS that effectively put them out of business.

I'm happy for vaping for a lot of reasons but one is that it really eats into their profits... Karma!

 

[redeuce]

It's been a little over 6 years since I ended my lifelong analog habit and took up vaping. I just do not pay any attention to analogs anymore. So today there was a serious accident and I was stuck in traffic on a busy avenue that has a lot of stores and I saw a sign for Marlboros that said $78.81 --- are you kidding me! I do not even know if that included tax. The signs I used to see way back when did not include tax. I'd be paying in the ballpark of at least $120 a week for that filthy habit ---

When I stopped cartons were under $50.

Even more incentive to vape!

In my area American Spirit, which was my brand, are $80.90 a carton with tax. Insane.

 

[tearose50]

I've lost track of what a carton is here now, though even though Cali was one of the higher priced places back when I bought them, they were much lower on the list recently. Strange, because they have a fair amount of extra tax.

Roll your own really got hit a few years back with regulation. I'm not even sure it it's possible to purchase loose cig tobacco any more in this state and even if you can,, it is price prohibitive.

Back in the day -- way back -- we used to get cartons on the drive south at a few places for under $2 a carton. I couldn't even afford more than 2 cartons, but stock up we did. The canteen was selling for under 30 cents a pack and I recall machines were 35. That didn't last long and 50 cents for machines became common quickly.

 

[bnrkwest]

Wow I haven't thought about the price of cigs in a long time, I would not be able to afford them! So glad for vaping I do not feel bad about anything I bought vape related, so much cheaper than smoking!

 

[denali_41]

I remember buying a pack of marlboros in Anchorage Alaska about 10 years ago,,i almost sheet when clerk said 9.80 ,at a supermarket no less

 

[JCinFLA]

I remember buying a pack of marlboros in Anchorage Alaska about 10 years ago,,i almost sheet when clerk said 9.80 ,at a supermarket no less

In 2005, while I was in Haines for 2 days, I priced a carton of my regular smokes at the grocery store, just to see what the cost was there. It was a whopping $92.00! I always took several cartons with me on my trips to AK though, so I luckily never had to pay their prices.

 

[denali_41]

In 2005, while I was in Haines for 2 days, I priced a carton of my regular smokes at the grocery store, just to see what the cost was there. It was a whopping $92.00! I always took several cartons with me on my trips to AK though, so I luckily never had to pay their prices.

considering where haines junction is that doesn't surprise me at all ,i'm 300 miles south of anchorage ,during summer holidays anchorage people come down here and stock up on smokes ,usually wiping out the stock because they are about 30% cheaper down here for some reason

 

[JCinFLA]

,i'm 300 miles south of anchorage ,during summer holidays anchorage people come down here and stock up on smokes ,usually wiping out the stock because they are about 30% cheaper down here for some reason

300 miles south of Anchorage? Then you're probably not far from where a small group of us are going to be for a short time during another trip up to AK this coming summer. AK is my favorite place on Earth...at least during the summer.

 

[denali_41]

300 miles south of Anchorage? Then you're probably not far from where a small group of us are going to be for a short time during another trip up to AK this coming summer. AK is my favorite place on Earth...at least during the summer.

chasing .... ??

 

[JCinFLA]

chasing .... ??

If you mean lower prices on ciggies...nope. Have just not been to Homer nor Seward on any trip up there so far. So those 2 are places we've included in our trip this time. Also have a couple days planned in Whittier (been there before though) to go charter fishing. Went fishing out of Valdez last time up.

 

[B2L]

chasing .... ??

If you mean lower prices on ciggies...nope. Have just not been to Homer nor Seward on any trip up there so far. So those 2 are places we've included in our trip this time. Also have a couple days planned in Whittier (been there before though) to go charter fishing. Went fishing out of Valdez last time up.

I’m assuming denali is referring to halibut. My last trip to Alaska I shipped home 40 lbs of fresh salmon and about 80, iirc, of halibut. The locals carve the meat out of the cheek which is supposedly the best meat on the fish and sell them as, you guessed it, .... cheeks. Nothing better than fish that fresh

And to stay on topic, I managed the customer service department of a car dealership and had a customer who was a trucker, he would pick up cartons for me in Georgia, $12 per carton of Marlboro reds. With the stress of trying to keep customers happy with a group of hooligans and thieves I was smoking upward of 3 packs a day at the time. I can’t begin to imagine affording that now.

 

[proax9]

When I started smoking... I got cigs from Navy PX for $5 per carton (not a typo!)
When I quit 40 yrs later, at retail $110 a carton (in NY).

 

[JCinFLA]

I’m assuming denali is referring to halibut. My last trip to Alaska I shipped home 40 lbs of fresh salmon and about 80, iirc, of halibut. The locals carve the meat out of the cheek which is supposedly the best meat on the fish and sell them as, you guessed it, .... cheeks. Nothing better than fish that fresh

Never heard halibut referred to as butts before. I do know what the cheeks are though. I don't like them myself (too chewy to me), so I gave them away to the owner of the place where we stayed. He was very happy!

In Valdez that summer in 2016...what used to be my preferred brand of smokes were $126/carton.

 

[chellie]

Well, in NYC they're now $13.00 a pack at the minimum allowed price. At a pack and a half per day I could be buying a fancy stabilized wood mod or even a VA every month and still come out ahead.

Wow $13 a pack. I had left NY some years back and my grandmother was still there. She was a heavy 2 pack a day pall mall smoker. I used to send her cartons of cigs monthly and my friends (the non-smoking ones) thought that was just awful. She was in her 90s then and was not going to stop so why not ease the financial burden. Last I remember the single packs were up to 8.99 or so. She was one of the lucky ones -- lived alone and almost to 100 with no health issues. Finally, her heart gave and she was hospitalized. I visited her and the first thing she wanted was to go out and smoke. I knew she would and had her cigs on me, bundled her up and took her outside to smoke. Nurses were not overjoyed but we all knew it would be the last time. That would have been me 40-50 years from now if I did not start vaping!

 

[redeuce]

It wasn’t that many years ago before the crackdown that we ordered American Spirit online for $35/carton. Once a year they sent a coupon for a free carton.
Now, once a year they send you two coupons for $3 off on a pack. I’m still on the mailing list.

 

[denali_41]

Never heard halibut referred to as butts before. I do know what the cheeks are though. I don't like them myself (too chewy to me), so I gave them away to the owner of the place where we stayed. He was very happy!

In Valdez that summer in 2016...what used to be my preferred brand of smokes were $126/carton.

well down on the peninsula that is a very common term for halibut,few charters have the term "...." in their name

 

[Eskie]

When I started smoking... I got cigs from Navy PX for $5 per carton (not a typo!)
When I quit 40 yrs later, at retail $110 a carton (in NY).

In the 80's they sold cigarettes in the Manhattan VA commissary for about $0.70 a pack. Was the definite go to place to stock up as even back then a pack was already about $5 in NYC.

 

[IgnorantCig]

When the price of a single pack of Marlboro in my local stores became too expensive and too outrageous in my opinion some years ago, I started looking into alternatives and I came up with plan B. After doing some internet research, I began ordering cartons of European Marlboros from a few places in Europe, I believe the place I ordered most from was a site located in Switzerland. If I recall correctly, I was getting a carton for around $20, so I'd order from there every once in a while, and that worked out real well.

I did that for more than a years time until I got a letter from customs one day letting me know that my most recent cartons that I'd ordered had been confiscated at JFK airport.

After that I had to come up with a plan C, and then I started looking into RYO. After reading a bunch on the internet, I was ready to go and I bought a nice machine that rolled the cigs for me and I would order 1 pound bags of tobacco and cartons of tubes. A 1 lb bag of tobacco was around $12-$15, depending on the type and brand I wanted. I think the tubes were around $3-4 for a carton of 200. I'd be able to make about 2 to 2.5 cartons of cigs from one of those bags, if I recall correctly.

I did that for a number of years and then one day, there was going to be all of these new taxes introduced on cigs, including RYO, very high taxes, I forget the exact percentage, but I was looking for ways around paying that of course, because I refuse to partake in idiocy and finance what I view to be a scam.

I got around that by buying 1 lb bags of tobacco which were labelled as Pipe Tobacco, because that was technically not classified as cigarettes and they were exempt from the scam tax. They were basically identical to the previous bags that I had been buying, only the name was different.

And that's what I used for a long time, up until I decided to try vaping one day.

I never started vaping because cigs were too expensive, because when I stopped smoking, it was costing me almost nothing. I was simply smoking too much, because it was dirt cheap and I could smoke as much and as many as I wanted to, and I did.

Until I got my first vape delivered to me that is. And I'm still proud to say that I have not had one single cig since the day when that first vape package arrived in my mailbox. That's almost four years ago.

 

[tgs3]

I had the same experience with Swiss cigarettes Worked out well until they were confiscated by customs

 

[Flt Simulation]

I used to smoke 2 packs of Marlboro reds per day
Todays Florida price is $7 per pack
$7 x 2 packs per day = $14 Daily = $420 Monthly = $5,040 Yearly

I now make my own e-juice
It cost me 9 cents per mil to make .. I vape 4 1/2 mils per day .. (of 15 mg Nic juice)
9 cents x 4 1/2 mils per day = .41 cents Daily = $12 Monthly = $144 Yearly

go figure ...

Even had some fancy-schmancy labels made for my home-brew juice
.