I’ve mainly set a global threshold to myself for my savings account; a certain amount I don’t want to go below (20k euros right now, to put it into context). This only applies to the expensive purchases, though (250+ USD). Everything below it, like new Pikachu set releases, are just being bought when I find them. This does mean that if I’m below it due to those smaller purchases (which includes Hyper Rares…), I try to get it back up again before making any big purchases.
Just to give a quick overview of my life situation: I have a good-paying full-time job (for my age) as software developer; still live with my parents; and don’t have any major expenses besides my collectibles.
A few years back (< 2018) I used to put ~40% of my wages on my savings account every month, and had everything else to spend on collectibles. At that time, when I was only collecting Pikachu cards and twisty puzzles and had never bought any card/puzzle above 500 USD, I could easily get by with this strategy. And I actually could put more money on my savings account manually every few months, despite everything I bought for my collections.
Now I collect a lot more at once, and have bought five cards for over 2k USD thus far (I’m hunting more higher end stuff for these collections, since the lower-end is mostly covered by now). From January 1st to December 31st in 2019, my savings account dropped by about 10k euros despite having worked that full year. Not really an issue, and it can easily be explained: I started my National Index collection including shining Pokémon (i.e. Gold Stars and Neo Destiny triple stars); I bought The Masked Royal and Extra Battle Day promos for my FA Supporter collection; I bought some Art Academy cards for my Pikachu collection, and little over 200 Pikachu cards have been released in 2019 alone (which quickly adds up despite the low individual cost - don’t forget shipping costs for example); I started my Yu-Gi-Oh rarity collection, which also included one 2k card, and about ten above 250 USD; and I bought all five Ancient Mew cards in PSA-10 (also roughly ~1.5k in total). So yeah, I basically just bought A LOT in 2019, haha.
Right now my new strategy is to not go below the 20k euros on my savings account when making big purchases. 20k of course still sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that since a few years ago it’s close to impossible to buy a house as a starter here in The Netherlands, without at least some money in addition to that. Mortgages we can receive from the banks are at an all-time low, and a lot of the more affordable houses they built to help starters are bought up as entire streets/blocks by large foreign countries to use for rental houses or simply as capital investment. Although I’m happy living with my parents right now, I of course have to think about the future as well. Also, once I have a house with mortgage and hopefully family with kids (currently still single), daily expenses will be higher as well, so I wouldn’t be able to spend as much as I do right now.
Tbh, it’s kind of a dilemma in today’s market. I want to slow down, save more money, and buy the cards I want perhaps a year from now. But at the same time I know the price might be doubled or even tripled by that time and it would be better to buy it right now… Anyway, I won’t be starting any new collections anymore (I hope, haha), and since I’ve been able to acquire a lot of nice cards in the past few months for my collection goals and am closer to finishing some of them, I can use my time and money to focus on the remaining collections (i.e. Pikachu), and mainly keep up with new releases.
A few other relevant minor notes:
- I have a company car for which I only pay around 120 euros each month (including gas). I used to have my own car, but someone crashed into me and it was total loss (fun fact: I bought it for 4.2k euros, drove in it for about a year before the crash, and received 5k euros from the insurance, haha. My little brother said I should buy a new car and let someone crash into it again
). - I’ve never had any major health issues, and here in The Netherlands the health insurance covers almost anything (to some extend). When I was born it already costed roughly 100k Gulden (old Dutch currency; probably ~45k USD at the time) to save my life from what I’ve heard (helicopter; three different hospitals; surgery; being attached to a brand-new breathing machine; etc.), but unlike some countries (i.e. the USA), it’s all covered by health insurance here in my country, as long as you have health insurance and pay for it every month of course.
- I only go on vacation once or twice a year, so there also aren’t a lot of large expenses from that side.
- I don’t have any study debts.
TL;DR: As long as I don’t drop below a set amount on my savings account, I will make high-end purchases.
Greetz,
Quuador