Today I'll be breaking my normal format to provide you with a few tips on how to save money on your vices in this clearly anti-vice economy.

    1. Soda: I don't know about you guys but I love my fucking soda, and I love paying as little as possible for it. Unfortunately Publix brand soda is the cheapest around and it tastes like it. Lucky for you you can get a Double Gulp from 7/11 with any soda you want in it for $1.72, and if you save your cup you can get a refill for $1.06 or take your cup to RaceTrac and refill it with a larger variety of soda for only $0.85. Also a Double Gulp can hold 64oz which is 2oz away from being a full 2 liters.

    2. Cigarettes: Now I'm not much of a smoker but I am surrounded by them every day, so I picked up a few tricks on how to save money on them. First off 7/11 and privately owned convince stores have the most expensive cigarette prices, try BP, Hess, Mobil, and Chevron for cheaper prices. Secondly most people don't not smoke all of their cigarettes, so if you don't have a brand preference and you want to save money then I suggest sucking up your pride and combing through public ashtrays for unfinished cigarettes, if your germ-a-phobic them cut off the filter. Thirdly I suggest you get and electronic cigarette, I saw them at my local flea market for $30.00, and that included everything you need to last you a few months. You would only have to pay for refills that won't be effected by new cigarette taxes, and it's not going to give you cancer.

    3. Music: Well aside form illegally downloading it you could buy it from places like the iTunes store for a steep $0.99 per song, or perhaps you'd like something a little more free. Last FM is my personal favorite site for listing to music for free, but there are plenty of others out there like Pandora. Last FM basically records your listing habits, and after it has enough data it builds a station based on your tastes, it also recommends new music to you and shows you people with similar tastes as yours. It's kind of hard to explain but you should defiantly check it out for yourself.

    4. Movies: Well I'm sure you all know about Hulu by now so I'm not even going to cover it. What you may not know about is that your local Library carries DVDs that you can rent for free, Redbox is a cool idea but it's not free. It differs library to library but normally library cards are free, and you can use then to rent a DVD or VHS for about a week absolutely free unless you are late returning. Most library's do have poor selections, mostly black and white movies but if your in a bigger city then you can expect a much larger selection. My library for example carries Benjamin Button, and Tropic Thunder. So it's just the luck of the draw.

    Well that's it for now, I hope I helped you save some money, keep truckin' 'till the rescission is over.

-D.J. Taylor