I would never go in to debt but i would certainly say I overpaid in haste. Some of the cards i’m after never pop up and then sod’s law kicks in. I buy it for say $120 to get it right away then 2 weeks later it’s on for $45 buy it now.
Multiply that by several cards and i have wasted a lot more money than I needed to.
Patience is a key component of the hobby.
100%! If you’re financially resilient then it’s daft not to take advantage of credit cards. Personally because I’m risk-averse I don’t get into any debt that I can’t afford to pay off at any given moment, and pay off my credit balances in full each month.
That said, my exception to this rule is if I find one of those rare low-risk high-reward situations. For example if someone loses their marbles and fire-sells a PSA 9 Masaki set for £1k, and I didn’t have that cash to hand to cover the cost, I wouldn’t hesitate to take on the debt as long as I knew I could comfortably repay it within a suitable timeframe.
Whether it’s suitable to get into debt for this stuff all just falls down to personal context; ability to identify opportunity, personal appetite for risk, financial resilience, and tendency towards debt reliance. I don’t think there’s necessarily a general right or wrong answer.
I wouldn’t go into debt but I tend to do all purchases with a cc to earn points/cashback and buyer protection.
Also if I saw for example an amazing deal a week before payday and it’s not in my cash to burn account, I’ll buy it and then just have less disposable that month.
My hard rule is I’ve got my designated money to burn, and I’ve got my savings which are for specific goals or rainy days and are not to be touched or impacted by use on general recreation.
My pay goes into pots of different savings, bills get paid and the rest is either spending now or towards bigger purchases.
I have a separate fund that is made up of earnings on top of my normal income that I set aside for my hobbies. This money has come from selling cards, doing low-commitment contract work on the side, and compensation from doing surveys and whatnot.
My collection goals and other hobbies are relatively low cost, so I am well in the black and would basically never go into debt/into the red when buying cards. (Unless I rapidly develop an insatiable desire for expensive graded cards/trophy cards)
Whenever your willpower is almost losing, tell yourself this:
“There will always be a better offer down the road later.”
All the best for your battles with your inner demon.
I did not participate in the poll but will offer some words fwiw. It really depends on your risk tolerance if pushing it beyond what you can lose. Personally, I would not care if I lost 10-30k on card values.
Lol @ Finland 10k re-entry. I went in 20-25k in the last two weeks, and really should step away from the ebay. I believe the goal was to re-aquint to ebay and perhaps list a couple items. My goodness, how far astray things have gone. But considering the values since purchase, it gives me a little chuckle.
I can’t afford not to buy Pokemon cards with these prices. Are you insane? For the rich but frugal, how the hell can you spend all that time just staring at pokemon card and not buy some of these amazing arts? lol my first re-entry back, I spent months watching deals pass me and its happening already.
Ie. can’t find sv49 psa 10 under 700 now, used to be low low 600s and I found card for under 500
I can’t believe I made like 60-100 in value of card already. Can you believe it guys?
For the pokecollectors and vestors i suppose, If you soldier on and are resilient and able to maintain some cards, should be good.
Otherwise, everyone is paying quite well for their hobby annually, its like an online country club spending caliber.
There are so many points of entry though, it took me years to start buying graded cards rather than grade them, that was so much work and modest reward, just paying grading companies and waiting years. What the hell. Much risk and at the eebs of cash flow to pay grading fees, buy cards, and ugh. They need to bring back the $6 grading fees if they want high volume work build up.
I think people don’t believe me when I speak?
Where the ballers and gamblers at?
You are an odd entity muh lord
I was scanning through for one of these people to comment 
I would like to hear what these individuals buy. I assume/hopeful these individuals have some high net worth and are using leverage instead of just maxing out credit card(s).
Fun topic!
Wait does this Paypal Mastercard give 3% back on Buyee purchases?
Nowadays never, but as a student I bought some stuff that I didn’t have money for at the time (which basically meant I had a couple of days to raise the funds before paypal debited my account). On one occasion I think I did go into overdraft.
I don’t regret it because it all worked out (and arguably I learned some lessons without any major consequences), but I absolutely would not recommend it. I’ll add that the stakes then were much lower: these were genuinely rare cards for less than what people buy stamp promos for today.
Since you can checkout with PayPal, yes, but the card has an international transaction fee so it’s not worth it.
how many of the sv49 did you buy?
For me it just depends on one thing. If I purchase this on a card will it be difficult for me to pay off? There is a big difference between going into debt that you know you can pay off and going into debt that you hope to figure out later.
Depending on a few things like interest it can be a better investment than what most people are paying for their car loan just due to depreciation of the asset.
I flew to Chicago to do a card drop off at national for free using my capital one rewards that I got for a card I paid off like a week after I purchased it. I’ve also been having people send me PayPal invoices for private purchases for years because it would allow my credit card rewards to trigger since it treated it like a purchase.
I once went into debt because it was such a good deal I couldn’t pass, and I had free interest. It paid off many times over, BUT I did the math, knew my budget, and stuck to it to balance everything in the end. I would never have gone into debt if I’d had to pay interest on those cards.
I would probably never do it again, CERTAINLY not in this market, and if I DID do it again, it would only be because I didn’t want to pay that much out of pocket all at once, and not because I CAN’T pay that much all at once.
edit: The critical thing is that if outright buy a several thousand dollar item, that money is tied up, when instead, I could be making payments, and using that money to do something else while having zero-interst payments on the item, OR if I were more a gambler, I would simply not have that money for something else i might need.
Replace that cat pic with this for more effectiveness:
My bank account just happens to be Bill’s PC.
PWCC.
My mortgage will be the only debt I ever have. I do recommend using a CC to make purchases just for the extra buyer protection on top of PayPal G&S/eBay buyer protection. Just one of those “nice to have” kind of things
I have a full time job that pays for my collectibles, but no I have never gone into debt over pokemon. I would have too much anxiety over making sure I pay it back that it wouldn’t be worth it.
