Hey Big Spender- January Wrap Up

In an effort to better understand and control my spending on cards this year, I decided to keep detailed records on where my money goes.  Not only is it helpful to me from a budget standpoint, it gives me some blog material as well!

Each month I am going to track where I spend my money (Cleve’s, Wal-Mart, eBay, etc.) as well as on what I spend my money (vintage, wax, etc.).  I wish I had done this last year when eTopps was still making new cards.

First, let’s look at January overall and see how many days of the month I spent money on cards.

Yep, that’s the purchase cadence of a guy with a problem.  Sure, it’s not much money each shot, but I bought something on average almost every other day.   That needs to improve.  I sure ended the month with a bang too (Cleve’s auction, 2012 Topps Blaster, eBay purchase all on the 31st).

So, where did I spend my money?

Value packs going on sales for $11 at Walmart was a big reason for them getting 35% of my card money in January.  I’m done with those, and I’m not all that hot on 2012 Topps, so I should be able to control myself on wax purchases in February and the lion’s share of my purchases should go to Cleve’s.  I’ve got a lot of travel planned in Feb/March so I might be forced to be good those two months anyway.

What did I spend this money on?

It's no surprise that wax was the biggest category, again due to the value packs.  I’d like to get that percent down and spread it out more to vintage and set completion (sets listed on my master checklist).    Relic cards is a category that I don’t plan out in advance, but I know what I want when I see it so it's a little unpredictable.

When all is said and done, I spent $182 on cards in January.  Considering what some folks drop on a single box, that’s not too bad.  For February, my goal is to get spending down to $120, and then my average per month would be $150 year to date, which I think is reasonable for a mediocre collector like me.