Ever since I graduated from college I have had to become more budget-conscious. For the previous five years I have been living on student loans, and skating by without a job. Now that I am a graduate I am expected to work and pay back all those student loans, so my lifestyle has changed dramatically in a very short time. I was used to getting stoned with my pals every day, now I have to work 40 to 50 hours a week, and still barely make enough money to survive. In order to keep enjoying cannabis I needed to figure out a budget, and get creative with what I smoked. My first step was to call around my old school chums and see if anyone was still selling illegal cannabis. Although it is not legal to grow, possess, and smoke marijuana, it is only legal to buy and sell in a dispensary. A few phone calls later I got a hold of Butch, a friend-of-a-friend who sold marijuana the old fashioned way. Much to my surprise his prices were much lower than at the cannabis dispensary. I could buy a pound of cannabis from Butch for the price of six ounces at the dispensary! This was the cost-cutting measure I had been looking for, so I purchased half a pound of marijuana from Butch. Later, I came to realize why his prices were so much lower. As they say, “you get what you pay for” because this home grown marijuana was weak, and tasted very foul compared to the dispensary weed.