We buy almost nothing anymore

....at least not in Illinois.

We buy almost everything either in Indianan or Kentucky. Why ?

Well, the shortest answer is taxes/money. Right now, gas here in town is $3.38. My wife works in Indiana and got gas over there yesterday for $2.66.
A 72 cent difference per gallon.
Why such a huge difference ? Taxes. Yeah, that hard earned money of yours' that they take away and keep taking more every year, while never showing anything for it.

I smoke. Yes, I know, filthy habit and all that but let's move on.

Marlboro Black 100s are $5.38 per pack in Kentucky.
In Illinois ,even in this tiny town I live in, they are almost $9.00 per pack.
Since I am in Kentucky about twice a month, I buy a carton each trip. I mean, seriously, why in God's name would I pay Illinois prices when I can drive across to Indiana and save money on groceries or save lots buying smokes in Kentucky ? Support my local community ?
Pfft. The local IGA, where we used to do all our grocery shopping, went out of business 2 years ago. The only alternative is to drive 20 miles North to a Wal Mart Supercenter or 20 miles West to another Wal Mart Supercenter. [ I told you I live in BFE ] OR, I can flip Wal Mart the bird as I drive past, go on over to Indiana and save some real money.

Thank God and the baby Jesus I finally talked my wife into moving back home. It won't be till Spring for several reasons. She has to transfer her nursing license [ always paperwork dontcha know ] we have a few final touches we want to do to the house and most of all...I don't want to move in the middle of Winter. Moving is a pain in the ass at best, it's even worse in Winter.
My son will be living in the house so we want to make sure everything is the way we want it. Just got a new roof and gutters put on, remodeled the bathroom and just general improvements. There's nothing wrong with the house, just doing some upgrades.

Our house in Kentucky is pretty much a turn key place. 3 bedroom, 2 bath on 5 acres, an orchard and plenty of room for a big garden. Since we are there so often, we already have beds, furniture, pictures, wifi, etc, so you'd think that all I have to pack is tools, books, clothes and guns, but you'd be amazed at how much stuff you can collect in 21 years in the same house.
Tools alone will be 2 trips and then there's my fossil collection. I've been collecting for about 40 years, so, yeah I have just a few.

I'm sure we'll come back at least once a month to see our kids and after 21 years, we have many friends too and I will miss them.....but I sure won't miss Hellinois.

a reply to: DAVID64

Yep - in CO my house is located like a few hundred meters away from a county line. In my liberal more suburban county (mask mandate) prices are a good 20% higher than in the next county (rural more conservative) over so we often go shopping there (no mask mandate too). It is the same driving time for the supermarket in either county so why pick the crappy one.

I'm sorry you have to wait more than a day to move.
That state is out of control.
I hate having to drive through there running from Tn to Ia.
I stop early at a half tank so I don't pay the gas taxes. Terrible state.
Kentucky is beautiful, affordable and low anxiety/stress.
Great choice.

a reply to: Mandroid7

I was born and raised in Kentucky and apparently went insane because we moved here 21 years ago. That 20 years too long. I'm goin' home.

originally posted by: chris_stibrany
a reply to: DAVID64

Yep - in CO my house is located like a few hundred meters away from a county line. In my liberal more suburban county (mask mandate) prices are a good 20% higher than in the next county (rural more conservative) over so we often go shopping there (no mask mandate too). It is the same driving time for the supermarket in either county so why pick the crappy one.

Similar to what our situation was for 4 or 5 months. The metro had a mask mandate, but the county did not, so we drove about 15 minutes to shop and eat, etc. Why not?

And, in fact, our Northland city council guy was against the mandate because we weren't alone so a lot of Northland businesses were getting hosed. But he kept getting out-voted by the completely urban councilors who could blanket mandate.

a reply to: DAVID64

I'm excited to hear that. Sounds like a nice place.
Luckily you guys missed the tornadoes.
I drove past it there. Terrifying amount of damage.

I have a cigarette machine, it is an injector type. The tobacco I buy is moderately mild without added chemicals in it, kind of natural. A pound is fourteen bucks, the tubes are two thirty nine for enough to make a carton. so with tax, two cartons of cigarettes is less than twenty bucks. I can roll two cartons of cigarettes up in an hour, having bought cases to put them in if I do it that way, but usually I just roll about a pack at a time in about five minutes. so it costs about a buck a pack total. I smoke about half a cigarette at a time, so tossing out the second half which is harder on my lungs still doesn't break the bank. so think about a buck a pack verses five bucks a pack. A good cigarette machine costs about forty bucks. Now, I bet there is good cheap tobacco available in Kentucky, probably better than what I can get here for the same price.

The cost of living here in the UP used to be reasonable, but wages were also low so overall you could live here with less money compared to other places with a higher cost of living. But lately, people here want more bucks, comparing what they get to what is being paid in New York and California but they do not understand that in those areas, the cost of living is so high that they need extra money to pay for the expense created by raising the wages. It is crazy, they waste so much money trying to impress the people because they have to pay so much taxes. People want to see some benefit for paying high taxes, but most of the money is just used to please small numbers of people, and many social programs exist because people have different wants. It is wants that are destroying the economy, not needs, everyone wants to see benefit from high taxes

I would never have believed this would happen thirty to forty years ago, I used to live in the rat race, but now I reverted back to a white footed mouse. I am so glad that I exited the rat race that is fueled by consumerism. The rat race is addicting, it creates a rush of dopamine, it took me years to break my addiction to it. Now, I enjoy the simple things again like I was doing back in the sixties and seventies. I puts around the yard, tend the garden, and go shopping one day a week for what we need. I no longer worry about Christmas presents, everyone gets grass fed organic beef, and the kids get twenty bucks each, usually in ten dollar bills or dollar bills for the young kids because they lose it. I like Christmas, but do not like it being shoved down our throats. They say that the average person is spending over nine hundred bucks this year, that is eighteen hundred total for the parents of a family...if there are two. Almost all of that money these days is spent on supplying wants to the kids, not needs. Socks and underwear are taboo for most present givers. It has turned into a nightmare, the kids are getting more and more spoiled, money flows to the rich importers..

a reply to: DAVID64

If things were made properly like for example the lightbulb (Forget that charlatan Edison it was Joseph Swann whom invented it and showed a working example long before Edison ran to the patent office at the same time as Swann to steal the invention and that then became a matter of national pride and other interests).

There is a still working example of Swann's Lighbulb in the UK, a working lightbulb in the US that has never been turned off and though not as bright as it once was still working.

Thing's are made to break, to create a repeat market were there should be non, things like washing machines, cars, refrigerators, computers, TV's and cell phones all have a FEATURE called inbuilt obsolescence, this is not when the product is no longer cutting edge but when it breaks due to components being made with deliberate flaws and faults designed to give out after so much use instead of lasting.

This actually put's a lot of people out of there Job's, repairmen are a prime example and while yes it makes the factors able to churn out ever more of the same throwaway self breaking crap it costs the environment and the consumer (the people of the nation that a nation is REALLY supposed to be about not big business) more by order of many magnitudes in the long run.

The fact is there was a time when everything made was built to last, built by craftsmen whom were proud of there work and even more proud to see other's using what they had a hand in creating.

Back then buildings were built to last as well.

But when you mine an economy for every last penny it ends up becoming poor, think of big corporations and bad government as strip mining cartels that ruin a nation in the ill conceived notion that you can just keep on taking all the wealth and impoverishing people into oblivion with no consequence, many of these corporations moved on from other corporations and from the US mining consortiums of the 20's and 30's whom murdered and disappeared US union representatives and outspoken men and woman that tried to rally people against the way they were being exploited to the modern big pharmaceutical corporations of today they also tend to be run by the very worst kind of people, people that often should rightly be behind bars serving life sentences or worse.


When people no longer buy stuff it is because they no longer have excess money in there pocket, this is a prelude to a full blown recession and comes when jobs leave an area or wages are forced to be too low for them to be able to make end's meat.


The US is actually one of the worst places in the world to be poor, to be TRUE working class were a man or woman can work ninety hour week's and still struggle to pay there rent and put food on the table for there kid's (who never see there parents leading to runaway crime in many circumstances).


Give people real pay for the job's they do and the whole economy benefit's, they have more disposable wealth for one thing so that boosts retail and that in turn boosts delivery drivers and warehouse as well as shop staff and also production industry' and farming.

Take that pay down like it is in the US and sooner or later the supply and demand model breaks down, when it does the economy collapses like a stack of cards and a handful of the elite whom have planned for this all along actually get richer while the majority of even the elite fall.

Sustainability is not about going green, it's about fair wages, more money in people's pockets, public service that helps they NOT have to spend that anywhere OTHER than the economy itself.

Over here in my nation we used to understand this but after thirty years of right wing economic propaganda and nationalizations and globalism we have forgotten and the public like sheeple run were ever the corrupt bought and paid for corporate owned politicians and media tell them to go.

Unfortunately looking how far the US went down that road and how successful the delusion sowed into the US public has been I fear we are damned to the same terrible fate as you.

I am glad to see you are coming back home. I am sorry Illinois has turned into such a bad place to live. When I was young I spent the summers on my cousins farm in Funks Grove. work was hard (640 acres of corn. beans, and Highlander cattle), but the time I spent there was some of the best times of my life. It makes me sad to think it has changed so much. Kentucky truly is a wonderful place to live though.

a reply to: DAVID64

I’d like t know what Tobacco you get?
It sounds like a good plan for me here in Tennessee.
The smokes go up everyday.
Thanks

a reply to: LABTECH767

It's less about what you make and more about what the various governments take from what you make as their due.

Your "fair share" in some states represents more than half a week's labor. You have to be making quite a bit of money for half a week or less to support you and your family.

a reply to: DAVID64

he local IGA, where we used to do all our grocery shopping, went out of business 2 years ago. The only alternative is to drive 20 miles North to a Wal Mart Supercenter or 20 miles West to another Wal Mart Supercenter.

That was the corporate plan all along: push out the other stores so the only convenience is Walmart—which doesn't actually have what you need anyway and continues to consolidate inventory until you have to pick what they have—or else drive 100 miles to get what you really want.

And they don't even have hand held baskets because they want you to get a cart so you keep adding cheap # you don't even need into it.

Marlboro Black 100s are $5.38 per pack in Kentucky.
In Illinois ,even in this tiny town I live in, they are almost $9.00 per pack.

$9? Should be way more.

a reply to: FreeFalling

Either Marlboro Black 100s or Pall Mall 100s. The price is pretty much the same. Sometimes Pall Mall has a "50 cents off" sale, that's when I get those.