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A question that was going around my group and now I find that I am quite curious as to how much people spend on their hobby and for what reasons. Because we all have a budget at the end of the day, whether it's a fiver and your best smile in barter town or making it rain at a liscensed store, we all spend so much. Just my group alone had quite some diversity in it's budgeting, for some money is not an issue, they only buy stuff NIB and have tons to spend on it, while others will do anything to get a deal, so I'm extending to the forums to see if there's any more.

For example, I am a sixth form student still living under my parents' roof but with a job, and while most of my wages go towards university, I keep some for myself, around half of that becomes my hobby fund. Being an unskilled teenager I don't make a lot, but I can get myself a fair amount of plastic every so often (I get enough for a new kit or two every two months, I'd think). I manage the to stretch this to several through a combination of waiting for price reductions when my LGS wants to get sales up, buying second hand (or at least not NIB), trading minis I no longer want, keeping money aside for when something really good pops up (as it sometimes does) and just plain old begging & pleading.

tl;dr: I'm cheap but still manage to get myself plastic every once in a while when I'm lucky.

So, what's going on for you guys? Tell us what you will because we're all curious to some extent.

I’m a stay-at-home dad, so a single income family does not leave a lot of flex for my hobby budget. That said, I do allocate a small amount to keep me sane and happy. Usually a bit of the tax return, and a small monthly allotment (which also goes towards things like dining out, movies, etc). I supplement this with “found” money. Loose change, gifts, income from odd jobs, bottle deposits, etc. I’m a slow painter, so even a slow trickle of funds keeps my workbench stocked.

I generally only buy NIB from my FLGS. I know I pay a bit more, but I like to have a place to go and play. So I do my part to support them. I also like to assemble the minis myself, not something you can do with every e-bay rescue.

I worked out how much I can afford to spend on entertainment each month and then I record how much I'm spending until I reach that limit or are getting close to it if I might need painting supplies later on. Once I get to the limit I stop buying stuff until next month. I don't specifically budget for different entertainment categories although I do record them as such and instead just have one big group.

Buy 2-3 of every KS I back, and sell the extra boxes for profit. Except for mantic stuff being garbage, I can always get back at least my original pledge if the game sucks, and often 3-5 times the value if the game is good.

Often I will paint the KS box set to resell as a painted set which can really make a pile of money for some minor effort. If I am painting my models, it takes a fraction of the time to paint the same model twice.

I keep a separate account for it. So it funds my KS, supplies and other fun stuff I want to do. I have been running in the black for hobby stuff since 2010 due to this model.

30€/month. Tops. I am educating myself because of parenting and all that.

If I want something more expensive I'll just save up.

I got a load of models to rebase/paint anyway and loads of additional stuff to do.

I usually limit myself to around $50 per month.. but I sometimes will go a couple of months without buying something, and then dump $200 on a cool new Kickstarter. Or, I'll dump $200 on a cool new Kickstarter and then tell myself I'm not allowed to buy anything new for a few months, but I never listen to myself :/

$75 a month, with potential additions if I sell something/work overtime/turn in loose change I've collected. I can borrow a month ahead, but never two months in a row, and any money I don't spend gets rolled over into the next month.

Between MtG and Warhammer about $150 a month. Some months being more or less expensive. Like this months will be much more because of Adepticon.

I do need to reduce this budget though. I have so much to paint and I have most of the cards i really need to MtG.

uh. freaking magic or some

Seriously, I browse forums for stuff that I want, for deals I can't pass up. Trades or 50%+ off retail or bundles with limited edition minis. I just try to keep costs down as much as possible but I don't choke making big purchases as long as the price is good. I know most of the time if I do it right I can always just split the lot up and sell individually and recoup the cost or more if I need the cash for something.

I typically have a flexible budget that I don't really think about too deeply in terms of category so much as attempting to stick to a monthly limit of total spending; I find it works better for me than worrying about "don't spend more than X on models..." versus "uh oh, I need to limit spending since I've only got $100 left for this week". I get paid, I take the amount of money I intend to keep in savings out (the infamous "pay yourself first" amount) and then figure out how to spend the rest. My fixed bills are about half of the monthly budget, and the other half is "everything that's not owed to a service of some sort" (food, gas, entertainment). So if I see something really shiny, I snag it and maybe downshift my food budget or skip getting some other non-essential item. If there's not much in the way of shiny, then I'll pay down some of the bills that allow that (insurance, etc.) and then later that money is available for other things.

In terms of buying habits, I prefer new but I'm not opposed to seeking out deals for a large order. I also browse the Swap Shop and used to visit bartertown for people divesting themselves of collections, but anymore I like the surety of getting things new versus "well, maybe this is salvageable..."

It works for me, but I am peculiarly lucky with such things.

About $200 a month, need to really reduce it as I just don't have space for any more (and really should sell off some of the stuff I'll never use - though I dread the idea of selling it at a loss).

As of right now 100$ a month not including paints/brushes/hobby materials.

My goal to start cutting into my Pile and get a few more armies on the table in on it's way, but I have to scratch the new mini itch at least a little bit.

I budget my monthly income, and in that I have an entertainment budget, which includes warhammer, gifts, eating out, anything not groceries, bills, savings or rent basically. I don't allow myself to carry anything over, so if I spend 80% of my budget one month I don't spend 120% the next month.

I enjoy the process of figuring out where my entertainment money will go and don't feel guilty about it, whereas in the past when I didn't budget, any stuff I bought seemed to go into a mental black hole of guilt.

I buy and sell 40k to pay for all my hobbies.

-

Local deals where I buy big lots for say $150 - $200. LOTS of people willing to vanish their collections for whatever reasons.

I turn around and flip it all on eBay or here, BTown, back onto Kijiji/CL. Basically I get all of my hobby stuff without paying, just by putting in the initial investment, and the time to piece out huge lots and whatnot. It's fun and I get to cherry pick whatever I want from the lots.

I make big profit, then dedicate a chunk of that back into the hobby (if there's anything I even need, which is less and less these days as I'm on missions to collect rare models instead of retail stuff), and the rest just goes back into my bank account. Combined with my actual work income, I've turned this hobby into a money maker, not a money sink.

When I played GW games, my 40k stuff was mostly sourced second hand if it wasn't bought 20+ years ago (bulk of my stuff was RT/2nd ed to start with). With the exception of my GK army, which was started in 3rd ed and by 5th was 2/3 second hand metals and/or vehicles.

My HE for WHFB were eventually sourced entirely this way (initially I had a mantic elf starter army to bulk out the rank&file troops - until I could find suitable old replacements.).

These days, I tend towards $50 (aud) a month. If this means I can't get something this month, It pools with next month. This budget pretty much guarantees I can't afford a single unit for a GW game in any one month.

My fiancee and I budget $50au a week each for frivolous spending. It was good when getting into games, but after a while $50 a week really piles up the work bench, so I've changed to only buying once a month or so, and generally something bigger like ordering terrain to keep the backlog down.

I must be one of the few people who doesn't really "budget" things. I just make sure I spend less than I earn minus what I put in to savings. If day to day living costs get high, it means I won't have much to spend on hobbies, if I drink less coffee at work and eat out less frequently, the amount of money I have to spend on hobbies is more, lol. I guess not being married has its perks.

Plastic crack isn't my only hobby, I also have my cars, so the money I spend gets split between them.

I guess you don't have a mortgage either? Having a significant other and having a mortgage sort of kill disposeable income. When kids roll around, it just evaporates.

 -Loki- wrote:
I guess you don't have a mortgage either? Having a significant other and having a mortgage sort of kill disposeable income. When kids roll around, it just evaporates.

This. Any one of those two is a severe blow. Having them both is almost a death sentence.

 -Loki- wrote:
I guess you don't have a mortgage either? Having a significant other and having a mortgage sort of kill disposeable income. When kids roll around, it just evaporates.

With the cost of housing in Australia I'm not really expecting to ever buy a house here In Melbourne it seems the only reasons to buy a house are either that it's a crap house and you're a builder, you're a developer who intends to knock it down and put up 10 apartments in its place or you earn well above median wage, like, several times more, so you can actually afford to pay off the mortgage in your life time.

But on the plus side, if you have kids and a big mortgage you also don't have the free time to spend the disposable income you don't have.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
I guess you don't have a mortgage either? Having a significant other and having a mortgage sort of kill disposeable income. When kids roll around, it just evaporates.

With the cost of housing in Australia I'm not really expecting to ever buy a house here In Melbourne it seems the only reasons to buy a house are either that it's a crap house and you're a builder, you're a developer who intends to knock it down and put up 10 apartments in its place or you earn well above median wage, like, several times more, so you can actually afford to pay off the mortgage in your life time.

But on the plus side, if you have kids and a big mortgage you also don't have the free time to spend the disposable income you don't have.

That is...until you convert them to the cause. Wololooooo

Right now, not a whole lot, just paint or stuff i need i buy it when I want.
When im done with a qyarter at school I buy myself something nice, maybe a chinacast.
When I did have a job. it was buy what I wanted really, but that is gonna change when i have to go to the real world after this quarter.

I generally set a side between £100 - £150 a month, although this can change depending on releases and what I need.

Did recently splash out on a warhound but it was essential :p

I have my usual monthly things I need to pay for (phone, rent, healthcare etc.), then set aside an amount for my savings account and whatever is left from that is what I spend on things like the hobby or games.

Extremely carelessly.

Budget both for time and for money, the weighting has changed over the years.

These days generally the equation is down to a consideration of will spending £x lead to me actually building and painting something? or will I be better working on something I already have.

Job change a few years back leading to a house move to a more expensive area left a significantly reduced budget for a year - that year I decided to limit spending to a fixed (low) amount, and just on consumables like glue, paint and brushes - got a lot of previously bought models painted though.

These days as an example, I was looking at the £290 (wish) collectors edition of the La Hyate Sanit (?) boxed set by Warlord, I could afford it, but I have some events coming up so even if I bought it now I'd not be able to do anything with it until July due to a lack of time.

This delay has put me off buying it, will be instead using the same money to get my Napoleonic forces actually usable, in a way that set wouldn't.

Really comes down to a bit of planning ahead, and budgeting a project over a time that means its both affordable and will provide the time to complete it.

The unpainted hordes are slowly dropping.


Actual monthly spend varies, some months maybe a tenner, if that, others a couple of hundred, depends what time I'm likely to have.


Yoof, has a smaller budget, and more time, but has learnt to buy stuff that will take longer do to, and goes into nuts details when painting, seems to be working.

How do i budget for hobby stuff?

I ask myself a few questions:
Is the mortgage paid?
Are the bills paid?
Is there food in the house?
Is there money left after all that?

If those all come back yes, then i buy stuff.

I didnt budget. I spent a few thousand dollars on 40k in a few years. Now I am banned from buying anything new. So I will spend the next few years painting hundreds of still untouched models.