A Monthly Budget, but for What?

[Tnerb]

All for CGC or all for reading?

 

Every week I buy comic books. I buy these to read with no thoughts of grading them. They are plentiful and others have already sent them in. There is no guarantee that what I send in will get a 9.8. But what if I stop buying comic books on my monthly basis for one year?

 

The question then becomes what do I send in? I have already sent in over twenty of my own to be graded, some with signatures. Do I finish those? Do I send in more of Crazy! #3? Or do I waste money for my vaunted .5's?

 

I have a little over a month to decide what to do, but I must budget for whatever I decide to do. If I decide to get more books graded, would I want to if I don't read them? What's the point in grading something I don't care about? And then there is one other budget that most overlook, the budget of space.

 

 

Thanks for reading

 

Tnerb

 

 

Next up... All for one.

 

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[mattn792]

Your last paragraph really gets to the heart of how I determine what I want to get signed and/or graded. Last year after we started looking for houses and I was preparing to move out of my condo, I was analyzing what my new "space budget" would be and it finally hit me that I had a bunch of CGC 9.8s that I had no real interest in. Beyond taking up space, they were obviously also taking up precious funds from the monetary budget because I was trying to complete runs/sets around them.

 

Onto eBay and out the door they went, and I'm a more focused collector for it.

[mzhammer]

I think budget and finance questions have to be answered by yourself, but it sounds like you've already made some decisions. Since we are talking budget and finance, look at it from a completely economic stand point.

 

Wasting money is a bad idea and there's really no way to rationalize it. More of the same? Again, impossible to rationalize, unless it has economic growth value / potential. Grading something you don't care about? Sounds like wasting money. Space value? Maybe it's time to sell off some and create space? You might ask yourself this? How much have you added to your retirement? IRA's? 401k? Stocks, bonds? The basis of any portfolio is diversification. You wouldn't want your comic collection to value more than say, 20%, of your overall savings / retirement. Other factors - You're married now, are you going to have kids? What if you lose your job and can't find work? From an economic stand point, there's a lot to consider.

 

Now, looking at it for a pure enjoyment value. How much enjoyment are you getting from it? Can you measure the level of enjoyment from reading, collecting, grading, etc..? Pro & con lists are great for this sort of thing. Can you spend one Sunday a week going through a box and evaluate the "satisfaction" you get from each book in that box? Do you find 1/2 the box not that enjoyable anymore? Ask yourself, have you gone overboard on enjoyment vs. economics?

 

Just some things to consider... Happy budgeting!