By Asher Perlman

  • pedz@lemmy.ca
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    5 days ago

    Hey, that’s me. More or less.

    I have been living paycheck to paycheck for about two decades but things changed during the pandemic. I got a substantial raise, stopped smoking, and kept the same micro apartment in a high rise for years. I also live alone, refuse to pay for a car, and don’t have any children.

    So I was able to put some money aside in the last years and now, I take extended vacations (I took 8 weeks this year), I travel, and treat myself with what I want.

    My sister wonders how I can afford to take that much time off work to go to different countries and think that I just recently found interest in traveling but really, it’s just because I can afford it now.

        • ivanafterall ☑️@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          With enough of them, you can build your own house, though. You’d be stupid not to buy as many as possible. That’s just good, common-sense investing.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            It’s not the nicotine. I swear. I can vape 0% nicotine and it’s the same as nicotine vapes. It gives me about a quarter of the comfort and anxiety reduction of a cigarette. Addiction to cigarettes is about the ritual and the motions of smoking. Nicotine is overplayed.

            • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              I don’t think nicotine is overplayed, I think that is a sliding scale on how it affects you.

              To be fair, I feel exactly like you. I quit smoking a couple of years ago. It was never the nicotine for me. It was the breaks, the ritual, and something to do with my hands. The more anxiety I felt, the more ritual I’d use. So if I just wanted a break I’d light up and smoke. But if shit went down I’d light up with a match and be very deliberate with my inhaling and breathing.

              I still miss it. I wish I had something half as calming to replace it. But I still think a lot of folks have a serious issue with physical addiction to nicotine.

            • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              People say vaping doesn’t hit as much as cigs (even with nicotine), so they do half and half and wean down until vaping is enough. So with respect to nicotine it’s the long term biological addiction.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Thanks buddy. I have quit twice, once for over a year. Both times by using vapes. Then shit goes to hell in my life and I pick it back up.

            • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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              4 days ago

              I hear that. It’s insidious how it whispers back at you when shit hits the fan, even if you haven’t thought about it in months.

    • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      I had a classmate who stopped smoking. He said he took the first chunk of savings and spent it on a fancy stereo, so it would constantly remind him how much smoking cost.