How do you control your collection (or do you?)

General
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Since I’ve been active on the forum again I have spent a fair amount of money on cards. I’m at the point where I feel like it’s excessive but too fun to slow down and financially I’m still in a solid place so it’s tough to put the breaks on.

I currently have a broad collecting goal which I think is not helping. I have a bit if a fear that if I don’t get these cards now, they will shoot up in price to the point where it will be expensive or impossible to obtain them.

I want to slow down a bit and focus my collection. I’m trying to restrict access to ebay (but the app is so convenient… lol) and to prioritize the expensive subset of my goals.

Anyway, that’s the vague background that prompted this question. How do you control your spending and/or your collection goals?

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This pretty much mirrors my experience as well, I’d also like to hear how others handle this.

It feels as a one who is purely a collector the market is going to slip out of reach if prices go up too much.

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While Pokemon is a big part of my life, I have a bunch of other hobbies I spend time on. That, and I satisfied most of my collecting goals back between 2012-2014 before the market exploded. I have a few saved ebay searches I’ll go through while I’m eating breakfast and before I go to bed, but I also spend a lot of time writing, working out, and learning new skills. I’ll admit that I camp out on ebay for a bit too long on weekends, though.

4

I used to budget a set dollar amount and I stuck to it. If I sold something that money went into the same kitty. I wouldn’t make many random buys cause I knew it would take away from the money I had for when something important came along,

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I am usually focused on one set/collection at a time at this point. That was different before I had almost all the cards I could want. Now that I’ve finished some sets the remaining cards I am still looking for are farther and fewer between. I would say just really focus on one goal at a time. That way you can finish that goal faster and have one less set or collection to worry about. It may help you feel like you are accomplishing more if you complete one goal at a time.

6

Best thing to do would be to have a budget, know how much you can or are willing to afford and stick to it. Based on your budget work out your priority targets and work down the list.

Personally I’ve made quite a bit from buying and selling MTG cards and the way I budget is basically only spend from my profits. I’m in the position where I had an initial investment years ago, paid that off and have been reinvesting the profits into more cards to sell and so on. It works for me in that I won’t make a new capital investment from my personal money that I earn from my actual job, instead I only use money that I’ve made from selling cards (I have a separate account for collecting purposes). If I can’t afford something then it just motivates me to sell through my card backlog to release capital so I can buy whatever it is that I want.

Obviously not everyone can work this way since it involves selling to support your purchases, but if you were only purchasing maybe just put $X into a separate account each week or however your pay cycle works and use only that to fund your goals. If you don’t have enough in that account to buy something then oh well, you’ll just have to wait until you save enough.

It takes discipline and self control to not go crazy and overspend and I think having a separate account helps with that. When your hobby money and actual day to day living money is all lumped in one account it can be pretty easy to overextend and not realise how much you’re actually spending. If the cash is in a separate account and that account is at $0 you can see clearly that you’ve spent your budget for that time period.

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I have a tiered want list of cards. I always have enough available cash for the #1 card on my list. I too felt the market pressure this year and pulled the trigger on many cards I felt were going to reach prices outside the limits of my affordability in the near future. I probably spent way too much than I could afford this year.

I picked up 3 1st edition shinings in PSA 10, 4 gold stars, and 3 crystals. I am pretty content with the purchases despite my wallet burning. With those cards in hand I don’t mind waiting a long time to get my hands on the rest of my needs.

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I can definitely relate on this one. Recently I’ve been travelling and I am currently on a working holiday visa in Australia. I still have the urge to purchase cards for my collection while I’m away especially with the market and cards getting to a point where they maybe out of reach soon.

I am balancing card purchases with saving money to continue on my travels, I think one key thing is to set out your targets for your other life goals and the money you need to achieve them. I have a specific target In mind for how much I want to have saved for my travels once I finish my work in Melbourne and I won’t sacrifice this target due to card purchases.

Luckily the wages are good here so this helps.

The thing I really struggle with is having multiple collection goals and wanting to complete all of them! I think the best think is to consolidate your collection and to sell what your not that bothered about keeping then use that money to invest in your collection priorities!

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I was somewhat out of control a while back. I remember opening bandit ring, Ancient Origins, primal clash booster and sending cards in for grading because at that time i thought it was fun. At the same time i was building up my 1st Ed PSA 10 collection.

I spent some money on the grading etc and then ended up selling cards, making little to no profit, on many i was loosing money by selling the cards less than what it cost me to buy and grade em.

That money could have been used for the 1st Edition set but it was a lesson that i learnt.
It was a wake up call for me to put straight what my goals are for Pokemon collecting so picked my two sets 1st Ed English and 1st Ed Korean base sets and stuck to em.

Out of the two, English had priority but i also put separate money aside for the Korean and that allowed me to build up both sets together because you will find that when a card of booster box comes up, you will be ready to snap it up.

So never do more than your budget allows, figure out what your favourite set is if your collecting multiple and make that a priority. Have budget every month and stick to it.

Saving and having the patience is key, and in no time card by card your set will grow and be close to being complete.

Two years I’ve been collecting Pokemon, this is my story :blush:

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11

In my case, I’ve done three things:

1- As many others comment, try to stick to one goal at a time (although that’s difficult af lol).

2- Keep an excel with the data of all of my purchases. I write the Paypal id. of the transaction, the seller data, the date of the purchase, the price (of course), the product… That way I can sum all the prices that I’ve paid and see exactly how much I’ve spent on my collection, on what cards exactly, when I spent the money… This is key because when I am doubtful whether to buy a card or not, I see how much I’ve spent already on Pokémon and it kindda makes my brain stop for a minute and think whether I REALLY want that new card.

3- Also very important: instead of a budget for Pokémon, I’ve set a general savings goal. I’ve set that I want to achieve X amount of money, so I’m controlling myself A LOT until I get that. Then, I can buy Pokémon with the spare money, but not until I achieve that savings goal. It’s just another approach :blush:

Oh and PS: I’ve changed my mentality a bit. I usually read or used to think in terms of “I NEED that card”. Pokémon is not a need (although Pokémon wants us to think it lol). It’s just a hobby, and cards are just things that I WANT. This distinction between the concepts of needing and wanting keeps the perspective as well.

I hope you get some ideas from my post! It’s a very interesting and useful topic, and I’m always happy to read how people manage to control themselves. There are many good ideas out there that we all can learn from! :grin:

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I don’t buy cards constantly and only ever buy cards which fit my collection goals. Sometimes I can go a couple months having bought nothing at all. The problem I have is the price rises are slowly making some of my goals unattainable so I’m having to make the decision of settling for lower grades or sinking more than I can afford into cards… and so I started buying 9s for base set 1ed :slightly_frowning_face: one bit of advice I would give anyone which I wish I had learned earlier is knock out the more expensive cards first.

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This is great advice so far, I’m really appreciating the detailed responses :blush:

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#tbt

www.elitefourum.com/t/how-to-have-a-satisfying-collection-by-cbd1235/10807/1

Here is a nice article written by one of efour’s former mods. Really nice read.

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I guess I was lucky, because when I purchased tha vast majority of my pokemon collectables they weren’t nearly as valuable (1999 to 2007). After selling some of it over the years I have no problem buying cards because the money made can be reinvested. I have a deep budget because the hobby has been more than self supporting. If something costs $2000< I usually stick to a planned budget :relaxed:

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Not sure if I’m the right person to state anything about this, because my spendings are also very high (even though I do have a focus: Pikachus, Sevipers and Mimikyus - as well as Yu-Gi-Oh rarities and twisty puzzles). The big advantage I have in my current life: I still live with my parents and have barely any expenses at all except my hobbies. I think my spendings on all default things (mobile; car; insurance; taxes; lunch; small fee to my parents; clothing and shoes; etc.) are limited to just above 300 euros a month on average. Since I earn more than 2k euros a month with my current job I can mostly just buy cards and save at a slow pace simultaneously.

Personally I usually send 800 euros from my regular bank account to my savings account every time I receive my wages. Only in very extreme cases I transfer money from my savings account back to pay for something. And if that happens I’ll never get below a specific amount on my savings account.

I recently bought my first car, then slowed down a tiny bit (don’t get me wrong, I still bought every new Pikachu I could find even if they were 5x overpriced), but I did buy barely any puzzles nor regular Pokémon cards in general in the last few months. Because of this, I’m still above the certain amount I always try to keep above on my savings account.

Depending on your age I suggest to also have a certain amount you will never go below. And if you’re nearing it you have to keep that in mind in your spendings. Also, every time you get your wages put a part aside on your savings account you won’t tough unless absolutely necessary (in my case this was for my first card; my computer I bought little over a year ago; or an expensive 1k+ USD Pokémon card).

Again, I’m quite fortunate to be at a certain age and situation I make quite a lot of money compared to what I’m spending on what is absolutely necessary, and thus I can spend A LOT on my hobbies. I’m probably gonna have a lot of trouble and dilemmas when I’m gonna buy a house, get married and get kids, because my day-to-day life-spendings would go up drastically.
But for now I can enjoy spending quite a bit (which is sometimes definitely necessary considering the amount of Pikachu releases this year alone… :unamused: :wink: )

In addition, I sometimes eye for amazing deals I could make money on regarding Pokémon lots. My best so far was around 300 cards for 80 cents (although I also had to pay ~35 USD for shipping and import). I recently also bought 7,000 Japanese cards for just 175 USD (including shipping/import). I’m currently in the process of sorting everything, and I will sell of all duplicated cards. Some individual cards in the lot are selling for 2-4 USD each and I have over 300 of them, so just those will already get my money back in this case. Of course I still have to spend a lot of time actually selling them, and I might even hold some for multiple years until the price has increased, but buying cheap and selling high is also a way to finance your expenses for your main collection. (I’m kinda to lazy to put everything for sale though… That’s one big issue with this strategy…)

Here is that 7,000 card lot sorted by set on my bed (last week) btw. Wasn’t expecting to win it with a bid of just 150 USD… Especially considering my total Pokémon collection I’ve collected since I was 7 years old ‘only’ contains about 5,000 cards.

And currently in the box:

Greetz,
Quuador

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17

My kryptonite isn’t overspending to reach my goals. It’s seeing a card listed way under market value and not allowing myself to pass it by. This is most often the case with 1st edition base. If I see a PSA 10 1st edition base card listed near $20 I snatch it without a second thought. Same with PSA 9 1st edition near $10.

There is no logical reason why a PSA 9 1st edition base card should ever be listed at $10-12. If it cost $7 to grade and they are listing at $12… That’s just crazy to me. I would buy $3-5 Mint 1st ed base all. day. long. So of course I’ll buy the gaurenteed mint graded card for $12

That’s where I run into trouble, i have little control over buying undervalued cards.

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I try to save up for what loose collection goals I have but like a lot of collectors I often get sidetracked by random auctions where my brains like “holy crap that’s about to go for a lot cheaper than it should” and I jump on it (given its a card I actually want in my collection). I can’t really complain because I have many cards in my collection that were purchased on that basis that I know now will never be sold at that low of a price again, sometimes impulsiveness is good for the collector, contrary to popular belief. You just gotta keep it in check, and I strongly advise against browsing eBay after a few beers or you might end up with some really nice, expensive cards you never knew you wanted. :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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Control, what’s that ? I see card and I want it but I can’t afford it ? No worries, sell another body part. Maybe a limb this time. The Chinese black market is a great place to make a quick buck.

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I keep a weekly budget. Its about $150USD per week. I don’t really have a problem sticking to it because if I don’t I’ll overdraw my account since I spend the rest of my money on paying off loans and fixing up things in my properties. One of them has had $3000ish dollars done to it this year. FeelsBadMan. The other was newly renovated so there have been no issues lol. If I didn’t have the other expenses id be afraid of how much I would spend on my hobbies lol.