This has probably been asked before, but curious to see everyone’s answers. How do you support this hobby? Both financially and time wise?
I’m currently in between jobs but a new one is looking hopeful by January 1st. With Christmas rolling around, I might have some extra money to spend on Pokémon (once I have the new job hopefully) and am thinking about using that money to start a side hustle. My wife and I budget $50 each for “fun money” each month. So Christmas and birthday are really the only times I get a larger sum of money. I’m fairly new to the hobby but I’ve started my retro gaming collection from almost scratch as well, so I know it all comes with time. Anyways, just wanted to hear what y’all do and get some ideas/inspiration!
I spend all of it on collectibles. If I am lucky, I might throw it into my bills, my family, and possibly even food. If I get hungry, I just drink more water.
On a serious note, I have pretty much completed all my collecting goals but I might find more cuz I will have an extra $1600 a month to play with collectibles lol but I “probably” won’t. I focus on a lot of Japanese exclusive promos and unique cards and always anything related to Team Rocket. When you say retro gaming, are you talking about sealed videogames or?
On a non-Pokemon note, I have been getting addicted to Hit Parade from DaCardWorld. They have some retro 90’s boxes and sometimes some cool random stuff that you can get like a few Black Friday Mystery Boxes.
I will be updating my thread/revamping my entire collection soon, hopefully that can inspire some ideas for you as well.
Just through hyper focusing on what I’m collecting. I collect Bulbasaur and I can save a lot of money just through collecting one set at a time. For example my complete base Bulbasaur collection took roughly 2 years from begining to end with breaks to complete. Now if saved that money I wasn’t spending on my other hobby I would have a lot more money lol.
Haha well at least you have your priorities straight!
When I first got into I looked into sealed, then just CIB, then I just settled for just loose cartridges and CIB for discs (mainly GameCube for discs). I sold off the part of my collection that wasn’t sentimental or nostalgic for me though.
I’ll definitely check out Hit Parade and your thread to get some ideas!
I was going to do the same thing. I am just going to crazy, someone got me into Pops as well, so I have been treading that lightly cuz I used to hate them. I also did some other side collecting with Final Fantasy TCG. Thats cool, haha Gamecube is classic. The crazy thing, videogames are taking a huge spike now. The sealed Pokemon Gameboy games are over $1k especially Pokemon Red (cuz of Charizard of course).
Haha that’s a good point! I’m guilty of being ADD with my hobbies but it would probably be a good practice in discipline to just focus on one, and specifically one thing that I’m collecting within Pokémon.
I feel like a lot of the 90’s nostalgic things had a huge spike recently with the upcoming changing of the decade. Prices for NES/SNES and even N64 games tanked when the NES & SNES classics came out. But now things are on the rise again. I’ve just decided that the games I have now are the ones I care about that I can share with my kids and one day (Lord willing) my grandkids, then one day when I die they can have them and sell them for hopefully some good money lol. But even if they can’t at least we will have had fun in the journey.
I volunteer at a children’s hospital and rack up karma points to find great deals locally and on Ebay. I also have about $500 monthly that my wife lets me spend on cards (sports/pokemon).
Currently working at a Public School so understandably I don’t get paid the big bucks. I used to have a larger collection but decided a long time ago that, financially, it made more sense to just focus on my favorite Pokemon: Gyarados.
As such, I have unfortunately missed out on some opportunities for sure. 5 or so years ago I was offered a SNAP Gyarados for 2k back when it was being sold for 4k. I was in college at the time and paying that 2k would have meant I spent some loan money which I decided went against my ethics. I fear I missed that chance but am still glad I didn’t take that offer as I needed the money for some future car problems.
As for how I support my hobby. I am selective in what my goals are. Usually I’m only after 1 or 2 cards a month depending on the price. As such, I usually reserve $50 bucks a month towards cards. If it’s more than $50, I wait another month or decide if I can spend that money now and not make any dedicated purchases the next month. It’s worked well for me thus far. I’m almost done with my English/Japanese collection!
As long as you put limits and rules on what you want to spend and how and stay dedicated to it, it becomes pretty self-sustaining. Obviously, if you’re working on a tight budget, you’ll miss out on some things, but if you accept that as it is and appreciate what you have, you learn to love your collection more. It has taken me over 10 years to get this far and I have less than 200 Gyarados TCG cards, but it’s worth it.
Basically set aside $XXX amount every month budgeted towards Pokemon. If I know I want to make a big purchase, I let my budget roll over to the next month so I can buy it.
It’s all about staying within your budgetary means.
In the past nine months credit card debt and personal loans have supported this hobby I cannot afford. What I’m interested in has finally surpassed what my budget can afford, so it super sucks.
It sucks that money and luck are what makes one excell in this hobby as opposed to other hobbies like skateboarding or wood carving where practice, hard work, and skill are what make you excell.
Having the means to spend and being lucky are to a collecting hobby like what practice and skill are to a hobby that requires motor skills.
If a certain collecting hobby requires too much financial commitment, then it is best to look for another collecting hobby that requires less of that.
To answer OP, I spent most of my collecting money in the first month of getting back into the hobby three years ago. Every month in my first year I put like $300 a month into my collecting money. After some time, I started to spend more than I put in with cards but I still wanted to buy more so I started selling.
Long story short, buy–>grade–>sell–>buy what you want to collect, rinse and repeat. It’s easier said than done but a lot of collectors do that and it’s proven to be effective. Just gotta start doing it. Give it 2 years doing it, it will prove to be a great side income after that time.
I’m still about a year out before I start making my big boy salary. So, ever since I began collecting (about a year ago), I would use $100 or so per month on cards from the money I make working part-time. Eventually, as I became more and more interested and involved within the community, I would resell some of my collection in order to buy a higher grade/rarity of a certain card I liked. A lot of the times, I would be selling cards for higher than what I paid, that’s just how it worked out, which is great. In addition to this method, I’ve had a couple lucky breaks and nailed some great deals at my local card shops. Now, in the aggregate, I have built quite the inventory and have a real vision on what I like and what I want to keep in my collection forever. Come this time next year, I’m going to have the disposable income to really step it up.
I ‘just’ work at my job and set aside €175 per month for this hobby. If I want to purchase a card that’s more expensive I’ll just save up that monthly allowance.
Knowing the cards i’m after and then just being patient to find a good deal on those cards. Having come back into collecting fairly recently means that there’s a bunch of cards to still get, so being able to spend money more affectively has helped a bunch. That said, if a card pops up that i’m not sure when i’d be able to get again (like an interesting error or low pop card) I’ll happily spend the money. Then just work to fund.
Sporadic bursts of intense purchasing. Every now and then I’ll buy an entire WOTC set in PSA 9, and do this over a week or so. I Uusually sell something before doing this, but not always. Just about finished Fossil. Next up is Team Rocket…which I’ll probs do a few months later. Unlimited only!