That's too much effort for lazy ol' moi.Originally Posted by Borgeman
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
That's too much effort for lazy ol' moi.
Rank 10 - Admin
Hasbro Masterpiece Bluestreak found at a US ToysRUs, scanning for just 3 cents!
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
says the guy with a spreadsheet detailing his entire collectionThat's too much effort for lazy ol' moi.
If I want to sell a transformer it goes in a box with others that I intend to sell. Taking something off display doesn't mean I'm selling it, since 90% of my toys are off display.
After updating my spreadsheet (where I document and catalogue my collection), I came to the sobering realization that I've spent $939.95 on Transformers this year (so far)... And that's just the Transformers... I collect other stuff too...
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
I've spent more than that.
But honestly, as long as your collecting is financially sustainable then I don't think it matters much how much you're spending. As long as you're not spending so much on toys that you're having difficulty paying for other things like housing, bills, groceries, clothes, travel, entertainment - and for fellow parents, all the expenses that comes with having kids (schools fees, uniform, extra-curricular activities, books, toys etc.). My wife never complains about my TFs and I don't have to hide acquisitions from her because I only ever use my own disposable income to buy my toys and she knows that it will never financially affect her or our family.
Spending over $1000 on toys per year is fine so long as it's financially sustainable and you're being fiscally responsible. You can spend $500 a year or less on toys and it can be bad if you're living off instant noodles and struggle to pay bills.
JMHO.
Yeah, thankfully I'm not spending myself into destitution (yet!), and I'm still able to save about 15-20% of my salary after food/rent/utilities/hobbies/etc.
$1000 just felt like a lot of money when I saw it, and I found it amazing that in 2010, when I started buying Transformers again; I thought it'd just be a passing craze and that I'd only buy my favourite characters, then move on. 7 years later, I'm collecting nearly every Generations deluxe figure as soon as it hits shelves (even ones of characters I didn't even like as a child). I think I'm becoming a completist, hahaha.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
When you sit down and think about it, it's pretty scary just how much can be/is spent on toys and hobbies. I have spent several grand this year, easily. it helps to stop and think about it maybe realise I don't need to buy everything I see. Which is good because I don't' think I could afford that regardless of my income. I was certainly a lot more careful a few years ago about which toys I did and didn't buy, or where I bought them from.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
I'm sort of coming to this crisis point at the moment myself.
Renting a place with housemates, I'm quickly running out of personal storage space and noticing how much I have probably spent in the past year has been a somewhat sobering thought. And somewhat linked with a tendency I've noticed within myself to feel the need to collect "stuff" (ie - buying books/movies/CDs/Transformers more to say I have them than enjoy them)
I plan on being a lot more selective with Power of the Primes and any new movie / non-Generations line that they come out with. I said the same thing about RID2015 too...
I know your pain. I live in a one room flat, and I have piles of MIB/MOC figures (Transformers/Marvel Legends/Figma/etc) that are literally stacked to the ceiling. Do a google image search for 'messy otaku room', and you have an idea of what my place looks like
I still remove some of my figures/transformers from the packaging to play around with, but I end up putting them back in their boxes (or in resealable plastic bags) if I don't end up displaying them. I've been contemplating throwing away the boxes and keeping everything in resealable bags to free up space, but the box to me feels like part of the product.
Yeah, looking at the stuff I've got this year alone and thinking about how much it cost is pretty sobering.. Then again part of me is glad that I've collected this stuff instead of spending my money in a couple other ways. For instance, I might've gone to a fancy restaurant and bought a $25 lobster dish, or I might've chosen to spend the $25 on a deluxe transformer instead. After I eat the lobster, it's gone and has zero value. But with the transformer, it's tangible and can be resold even after I've played with it.. Well, that's how I justify my spending habits..
But you're right, it's good to be selective and buy things you'd enjoy rather than buy just for the sake of owning.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
The extreme reverse of this will happen if you ever get married.
Almost all of your pay will go to your spouse for necessities and you get to keep the scraps.But I keep saving those scraps and after some time it becomes a sizable pile of scraps that I can use to spend on toys without affecting the family budget.
Kinda like being a monetary Womble.
Indeed. I've spent over a grand this year on toys and that was almost all at below RRP. I've only spent above RRP on one purchase which was MP Dirge (cos I got sick of waiting for a certain retailer). One reason why I try to stick to my "Not Above RRP" rule is because collecting Transformers is bloody expensive enough as it is at/below RRP!
IMO this is the difference between being a toy collector and being a toy-hoarder.
e.g. Leader Class TLK Megatron looks like a really nice toy. But the truth is that I'm perfectly content with my Voyager figure that I enjoy playing with. The only reason that I'd get the Leader Class figure would be just to say that I have it, so... I just don't buy it. Same with toys like Titans Return Megatron, Optimus Prime (triple changer), Octone, Blitzwing, Astrotrain, Alpha Trion etc. - toys that don't personally interest me, so I skip them.
I did personally enter a Toy-Hoarder stage during the middle Unicron Trilogy era when I started buying almost everything including all the stupid repaints. It was at this stage that I basically slapped myself and asked, "What the hell are you doing?!?" as I realised that, yeah, I was buying toys just for the sake of having them over the sake of actually wanting or enjoying them. The act of buying those figures had overridden the act of playing with them.
And I think this is where the "Plastic Crack" term comes in. It's basically a form of specialised shopping addiction. Acquiring or purchasing the toy makes you feel good so you become addicted to that act, but after you buy the toy you experience a low and you don't even enjoy the toy that you've just bought. I realised just how ridiculously stupid this was, so yeah, now I just focus on buying what I actually want. People can tell me how awesome Leader TLK Megatron is, and I won't deny it. It's just not something I want to buy. It's okay to not want to buy something!
P.S.: I sometimes wonder when I see people who sell off loads of fairly recent toys (especially entire collections of recent lines like Combiner Wars)... was this all just one big series of impulse purchases?Cos to me, if I really like a toy, then I don't ever want to be rid of it. If I don't want to keep a toy forever then I just don't buy it. Hence why I rarely sell stuff. Most of what I sell is either because another toy has come along that's made it redundant or because I have a spare. With redundant toys it's because the toy was perfectly fine at the time of purchase, but later on something better's come along but I don't want to keep both.
e.g. I'm waiting for my Siege of Cybertron set to come in, so I'll be looking to offload my Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime toy after that. Now of course, when I purchased TR PMOP last year I had no idea that TakaraTOMY would retool it as Ginrai, or that Hasbro would then release it as Optimus Prime. I'm not clairvoyant.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote