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I suspect my "big spending" for the year upcoming - for 40k related things - will be FW kits and hunting down a few squads worth of those old-school Stormtroopers...

M.

 Jathom wrote:

Spectral Ceramite wrote:

$10200 AU this year (approx.)

By the by, what the "average earner" in Australia making that 10 grand in a year is no big deal? I was making 40 grand as a teacher and there is no way I could have ever justified spending like that on anything less than a car.

According to the tax office, the average income nationally is 60-70k. The cost of living is far higher here though, so in the grand scheme of things it balances out.

Back in my single days, I'd spend anywhere between 5k-10k a year quite easily. A well paying job, young and no real responsibilities meant a very generous gaming budget.

Me and my wife have very similar salaries and have separate economies. We share all the fixed living costs but keep the bulk of our respective money to spend as we see fit. So no worries for hobby spending!

My partner has never been happier with my hobby spending that this year. I stopped playing GW's 28mm stuff and started plating epic. Alternative manufacturers and 2nd hand minis plus a will to paint stuff before buying more has been an epiphany (it helps that epic stuff is so easy to paint mind...).

Maybe 300 quid spent on models and another 200 for attending tournaments around the UK.

For scratch in a year I have 3k points of marines, about 8k of Imperial Guard, 4k of Orks, 3k of Necrons and about 2k of Eldar. That's all painted. There's stuff still to paint for some of them after my latest eBay purchase.

Well let's work this out:
Necromunda: $125 (split with a mate)
Imperial Knight: $185
Land Raider: $110
15 Custodes: $180 (from ebay)
10 Sisters of silence: $65 (from ebay)
Rhino: $20 (from a mate)
Death get started: $140
10 skelletons: $40
10 graveguard: $60
5 black knights: $50
Triumvent of the Emperor: $150? (I cant remember there cost)
Triumvent of the Primarch:$150? (I cant remember there cost)
Loken and Abaddon: $105
Zombie Dragon: $96
Paints: more then $100, less then $200
Brushes: $60 or so
12 warriors of chaos: $40 (from ebay)
Exhaulted hero of chaos: $25
imperium 1: $40
path to glory: $55
death battle tome: $28
Blood angles get started: $140
blood angels death company force: $220
blood angels infantry box: $60
sainginary guard: $55
LOTR Galdrihm: $200

Total: around $2550

Though I have probably forgotten som stuff

This post has me feeling really insecure, and uncomfortable about the $$ I drop on toys.

I plead the 5th, and I don't want to know. I'm not in debt though...anymore.

I think I'm in for about £1800 for the year. That's kind of scary when I only got back into it 6 months ago, but I'm hoping it's like other hobbies where the initial outlay is greater than the continued spend. Saying that, even if it's not, I'm not spending money I can't afford on it.

It would be really hard for me to calculate as most of my purchases are through ebay or adverts.ie(online buy and sell site). I know it can't be over €1200 as I have a limit of 100 a month for fun hobby things(which I mostly stick to) which include guitar, video games and little plastic men. The Warden doesn't mind at all, and encourages me when making new stuff as well. I'm paying all rent and utilities atm and also putting 500 lids into savings every month, so I deserve some fun things

Calculating stuff can be upsetting though. Me and the lads in work recently calculated how much we spend on coffee, which is around the 800-900 euro mark each a year. I wouldn't even dare calculate how much I've spent on pints and wine. As someone else put it above, once you're not sacrificing something more important to fuel your plastic crack addiction do what makes you happy.

The next army i buy i might just go all in and buy it professionally painted.

I'm a decent painter. People often compliment my miniatures, but when i look on the internet and reddit it's not even close. My painting is garbage compared to that.

I would love to field a jaw droppingly good army and challenge Matt at miniwargaming.

Okay, let's see if I can remember all of this.

Dark Imperium - 150
Imperium Indexes 1 and 2 - 200
Space Marine Codex - 250
Imperial Guard Codex - 290
2 Boxes of Scions (sale) - 350
IG start collecting (on sale) - 415
Box of Genestealer Cult Neophytes (on Sale) - 445
Box of SM Scouts - 470
100 Dollars for a small Nids force - 570
20 for Celestine and the twins - 590

I also get a small store discount, but that basically equates out to tax. Not too bad, although I'm starting to hit the point where it feels I've gotten most of what I want already.

Thinking about it.... i spend about 150 a month more or less at times. so id say about 2k a year.

not bad.

I'm surprised how much I've spent. I genuinely thought I'd spent more! This year I've had:

2 x superglue = £5
3 x plastic glue = £9

(really unlucky with glue - due to my lack of care two plastic glues and a superglue went solid...)

Brushes - £15
Paint - £45

(had to buy everything as I had none, and paint includes spray primers, washes, varnish etc.)

Dice - £5
Tape measures - £3
Model tools - £20
Actual models - £360

Total cost = £440

What can I say? I'm frugal and only buy after I finish painting. And as a result I have a lovely 1000pts steel legion army ready to play.

I came to an agreement with the wife years ago, one kit per month, might be a box set, might be a unit, possibly 2 blisters. over the past ~10 years that has certainly added up. when I first got into the hobby assault on black reach has just been released so I picked up 3 sets for a nice start to 2 armies then went slow collecting from there. a battle wagon each month for 3 months, a couple loota and burner boxes, with relatively low impact on my budget I amassed a decent army pretty quickly. one Thing I also tried to do starting was not buy anything until the current project was painted... though to be fair that has long gone out the window *looks at 3 unopened gathering storm boxes beside 3 trukk boy boxes still in shrink wrap*

I am somewhat fortunate(?) in that my significant other also plays 40K and thus we are both horrible enablers for each others' 40K spending. And not even our own spending on ourselves but gifts for each other as well...such as the Grot Mega Tank I am currently putting together that I received as an early Christmas gift. So yeah, neither of us can really get mad at the other for buying a ton of 40K stuff because it would be a pot and kettle situation.

I spent nothing on 40k
About 300 on fantasy stuff.
about 20k on gaming in general D:

But that includes a new table and TV for the gaming room, So its not as entirely crazy i think .

 Vankraken wrote:
the slow trickle of new plastic sprues doesn't raise any alarm bells.

I think it's important to remember this. Add up what you spent on anything that you buy regularly and it will seem like a lot, whether that's across a year or a lifetime or whatever.
I've probably spent £35000 on music, £8000 on wargaming, £9000 on bicycles, and God knows how much on fancy clothes and other things I don't really need. I've probably spent £1000 on electrical cables in my life!
It all seems mad when laid out like that, but I pay my rent, maintain a car and pay my bills, so clearly I haven't overspent. It just seems like a lot when you add it up, like when you find out that the average person spends a year of their life looking in the fridge*!

*I made that up, but it's probably something like that

 boundless08 wrote:
Calculating stuff can be upsetting though. Me and the lads in work recently calculated how much we spend on coffee, which is around the 800-900 euro mark each a year.

Perfect example!

 corpuschain wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
the slow trickle of new plastic sprues doesn't raise any alarm bells.

I think it's important to remember this. Add up what you spent on anything that you buy regularly and it will seem like a lot, whether that's across a year or a lifetime or whatever.
I've probably spent £35000 on music, £8000 on wargaming, £9000 on bicycles, and God knows how much on fancy clothes and other things I don't really need. I've probably spent £1000 on electrical cables in my life!
It all seems mad when laid out like that, but I pay my rent, maintain a car and pay my bills, so clearly I haven't overspent. It just seems like a lot when you add it up, like when you find out that the average person spends a year of their life looking in the fridge*!

*I made that up, but it's probably something like that

 boundless08 wrote:
Calculating stuff can be upsetting though. Me and the lads in work recently calculated how much we spend on coffee, which is around the 800-900 euro mark each a year.

Perfect example!

There is a lot of truth here. An useful budgeting exercise is to write down every penny you spend in a month. You would be surprised how much you drop into random things, like the vending machine at work, etc. It’s how microtransactions in games work. A buck here, 50 cents there, below the threshold of caring about it, but it adds up, and faster then you think.

But from another POV, how many hours of enjoyment have you gotten out of the hobby over the years? Time building/painting/playing? If you look into a dollar spent to time spent, and compare that to other activities (like going to see a movie) it actually works out pretty well. And as minis generally don’t go bad, they will still be paying dividends of fun for many years into the future.

I've spent around $1000 this year finishing up my Dark Eldar army and starting my Inquisition force (up to 1500pts) and I'm still working on getting most of it painted. I'm not sure how people spend more than that without having an overwhelming backlog

I save a bit of cash on brushes (hobby lobby has them for cheap)
paints (.98 black primer from home depot works like a charm)

and this inquisition army is mostly a bits mash so I've been able to use some leftover pieces for it saving me additional cash.

My goal for 2018 is to upgrade the airbrush but slow on purchases until the Inquisition and Genestealer cult have been painted.

 Marmatag wrote:
The next army i buy i might just go all in and buy it professionally painted.

I'm a decent painter. People often compliment my miniatures, but when i look on the internet and reddit it's not even close. My painting is garbage compared to that.

I would love to field a jaw droppingly good army and challenge Matt at miniwargaming.

I started paying people to paint my miniatures about a year ago and found an awesome painting services about 6 months ago.
It costs me a lot but it's definitely worth it.

This year, I have spent about 300 bucks on resin and maybe only 200 on plastic, but easily 2.500 on painting, for a total of about 3.000€

That said, I didn't have that much money to spare though so I'm expecting to spend quite a bit more in the next year


To the OP, 10.5k AUD / 6.7k EUR is a nice budget, I don't think I'd be able to buy that much in miniatures, it would cost upwards of 20k once painted decently :x

I do however hope to achieve the same budget next year without any financial pressure or remorse - or marital trouble

Let's see:

Tomb King Horsemen: 35
Dark Riders: 35
Ogre Ironblaster 33
Forest Goblin Spider Riders: 23

I've been pretty good this year.

Spectral Ceramite wrote:
Hi all,

The wife and I calculated how much I spent on GW or related products from Jan 1st 2017 to today (I am in soooo much trouble).

$10200 AU this year (approx.)... As average earners this is not an extreme amount but it is for a causal hobby (I don't play much and as I was told could be spent on going towards a holiday in say Hawaii etc)....

Though I did sell an army for a lot so mitigated my chastising...


How do you justify your war gaming passion to your better half? My main excuse is stress relief after work (I paint 2 days a week, Guitar 2 days a week and Weights 3 days a weeks, so is in my stress relief regime).

SC

I think that AUD and CAD (Canadian) are roughly equivalent, so I think that I can understand your spending on GW roughly equating to $192 a week every week. That's...very impressive. Most impressive. You must have bought a completely kitted out Army each month. Hats off to you if you painted it all as well! I hope that your supplier sends you a Christmas Card.

My wife would certainly have words with me at that level of expenditure, but then we have three kids with their own sports/hobbies/school that rightfully have priority for resources. My wife tolerates 40K because I play with my eldest son quite a bit. As long as your wife is OK with it then I guess you don't need to justify it and folks spend money on all sorts of things worse than 40K. Perhaps take note, though, that she has taken note?

 Nevelon wrote:

But from another POV, how many hours of enjoyment have you gotten out of the hobby over the years? Time building/painting/playing? If you look into a dollar spent to time spent, and compare that to other activities (like going to see a movie) it actually works out pretty well. And as minis generally don’t go bad, they will still be paying dividends of fun for many years into the future.

I quite agree. It's the best arm and a leg I've ever spent!

Are your bills paid?
Food in the fridge?
Roof over the head?
Fun money equally distributed?

If the answer is yes then honestly she does not have a leg to stand on. Your money, your hobby.

I'm single so no trouble. But internally I definitely have recognized i have way overspent. If I was playing every day and had a youtube channel, then I'd be good. But looking at it realistically, it's simply too much. Variety is the spice of life, but I have too many pieces of a whole without a whole. I've been scaling way back. Selling off bits of armies. Trying to get down to 2 or 3 forces. Or 2 partial armies that can be 1. I sold off like 3 or 4 armies and came up with about $800 that could have been used elsewhere or even small investments.

I have a girlfriend but we've only been dating for like 4 months so we're hardly at a point where we worry about each others' finances. That being said, even though I live on my own, I try to keep how much I spend on this away from my parents. In fact, I try to keep it away from myself. I'm honestly kind of afraid to figure out how much I've spent on this hobby total.

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
I have a girlfriend but we've only been dating for like 4 months so we're hardly at a point where we worry about each others' finances. That being said, even though I live on my own, I try to keep how much I spend on this away from my parents. In fact, I try to keep it away from myself. I'm honestly kind of afraid to figure out how much I've spent on this hobby total.

You might want to check "the bill of assertive rights".

You deserve this and you should feel no shame in enjoying yourself.

 Vitali Advenil wrote:
I have a girlfriend but we've only been dating for like 4 months so we're hardly at a point where we worry about each others' finances. That being said, even though I live on my own, I try to keep how much I spend on this away from my parents. In fact, I try to keep it away from myself. I'm honestly kind of afraid to figure out how much I've spent on this hobby total.

Have an ask around about how much your co-workers spend on stuff.

I had one ask how I had money for all my hobbies. I started quizzing him and it turns out he's a 24yo guy renting a big apartment to himself in a large city, driving a brand new BMW and he spends over $1000 on alcohol, restaurants and clothes each month (so after that he had essentially zero money and would be penniless any month he had an unexpected bill or didn't get a decent commission payout).

Then you get the ones that get a bigger mortgage and a bigger car payment every time they get a raise so that 20 years and multiple promotions later they don't actually have any additional disposable income.

You'll quickly feel better about spending a bit of money on your hobbies.

Our wine/bourbon budget is 10x or even 15x our overall gaming budget, including GenCon and other conventions. We're good.

I hardly drink.
I do not smoke.
I only buy vehicles for function not flash.
I fix most things in the house and can do electrical, plumbing, tile, drywall and paint.
I can and do grocery shop and cook.
The kids have better electronics than I do (darn kid is getting a VR rig this X-mas)
I regularly contribute to our retirement savings about 10% of my income before taxes.
I make a better wage than most people I know.

Not a single piece of plastic is wasted.
I even put sprue through an old meat grinder to make rubble for terrain (even sold the stuff).
I sometimes teach hobby stuff at my local FLGS and get "free" kits in payment.
I maintain my paints semi-annually.

I am still way ahead financially despite my "plastic crack" issues but I am working on that.
It does worry me a fair bit when I add things up and see the cost getting close to $10,000.

I lay a similar claim that the hobby is my "happy place" and performs a bit of mental maintenance.
Almost all my friends are gamers so she knows it also is a "cost" in these relationships.
She is happy I have not become a complete hermit.

Bribery works as well.
I make the occasional diorama of any favorite character my wife likes and she proudly displays them at work and gets many appreciative comments from co-workers (making a classy display mount is key).
I have been commissioned by a few people at her work to make similar things which was a surprise.
For her birthday this month she is getting from me a new top end iPad.

I am unsure how to help others to navigate around "trouble" with their other half other than to not cause undue strain on finances if more critical things need to be addressed like a high credit card bill, painful mortgage, or trying to meet expensive grocery bills.
Show that you waste as little as possible and address the things that appear important to her (to show you care at least a little ) and it "should" work out.

I think my wife has spent more buying stuff for me than I have spent buying stuff for myself so its all good