Damn yea thats sucks I recently went on a splurge nothing crazy but then my projectors lamp goes out! Thats $200 bucks for a lamp then my car starts acting up :/ so yeah disposable income went to that instead of the hobby but such is life. Live at your means, never above them.

budgeting is the name of the game for me. Im not a completist, but like you boba, im also a college student living at home. Im 25. I havent been able to find work for the last two summers, and my figure buying has been coming out of my hurting bank account. Pretty much the reason I always complain about high prices of figures. If its not figures or gas, im spending my money on expensive design supplies for school, cause i have to. If i was living on my own, however, i wouldnt even be collecting, just drooling at how awesome everyone elses collection is.

Got news for you. Even after getting yout pit fixed he may still hump your cousins. lol Sorry to hear about your job.

I'm 32 and I feel the same. It is nice to see young collectors into the same stuff.

I've had one of those jobs before. I would have to go to several Home Depos and change out light bulbs and clean dusty lighting displays. The worked sucked but it was better than no job. If your still in school i'd try a scientific or bio tech major like Chemistry or Physics. Those fields have stable job markets. I work at a company that makes skin. When I started there was 200 of us now we have 500.

I have an addiction too. I've always been in the collecting game. Stopped buying GI Joe in the mid 90's when everything turned day glow colors. Picked it back up with the 25th anniversary figs. Now I have a MOTU Classics sub, still get the occasional Joe, have almost every MU fig out and I've started getting DC CNC figs which are crazy overpriced for what they are. My biggest wallet killer is origional comic art. I am trying to limit my self but I can get carried away. I wish we all lived closer to have a real intervantion.

My name is Michael Molinario Jr and I'm addicted to plastic crack and Art.

Yeah..I tell my cat all the time that if something goes real bad, her status drops from "beloved companion" to "emergency rations".

She remains unimpressed by my threats.

I had to pull back a little. not on Marvel U though, but on other toys. even selling off some stuff. basically I'm reducing all my toy purchases to just marvel universe and the Deluxe Thundercats(Which thankfully dont come out alot making it easier)

I cut back on alot myself. Star Wars. Transfromers. etc. My main focus is MU with the occasional Star Wars and Joe figure but rarely to I buy SW and the Joe is just bc it would fit well as an Army guy in my MU dio

I've had to cut back on my plastic acquisitions, as well. Going spend-crazy is bound to happen off and on. Just take a breather, get your funds restocked, and then go at it again later. About all I'm saving up to buy in the next little while is a MS figure.

It helps to step back sometimes. I think a lot of us went into a feeding frenzy recently because there's so much good stuff out, and coming out!

You're supposed to be broke while you're in college. The only priority in your life at the moment should be your grades.

I had to cut back as well,I started collecting mainly Vader stuff,Dr.Doom and other villians,then it snowballed into buying anything that was "new" at the time and looked cool,needless to say I ended up with a ton of clutter and figures I have never even heard of but because they looked cool I had them,I am in the process of thining out my stuff back to mainly Vader,Doom and some others but it is hard to pass up new stuff,I will admit that.

I think a big issue can be buying this stuff online. I just dropped 50 bucks on Heimdallr, 30 on Spiderman Shocker, and15 on Sif. That is a disgusting amount.

And then, I almost..almost bought FF Future Foundation set and I decided to hold off. Then the next day I found it in my comic book store. Albeit it was still a rip off but PATIENCE. I'm trying very hard to buy things at store prices not online prices.

I'm 14. I collect MU and GI JOE. And its awesome.

Boba Fettuccini.. bro all u have to do is draw up a chart wants n needs.. then u buy 1 want n 2 needs a month that's it n making a chart like that also helps ur girlfriend get a understanding on how many figures ur gonna get lol cuz that's all she really wants to know is how much ur gonna spend this month on toys lol women only if they were action figures lol jk

I'm only 26 and some of the posts make me feel old.

yeah trust me cutting down to just one line helps alot. i stopped buying transformers, star wars, and gi joe , i just stick to marvel universe and maybe some of the movie figures, ok all of them. but it help and made my wife happy. but i am saving now and gave up a heads about the avengers movie line.

and your girl sounds like a keeper.

I traded my tabaco addiction for plastic

As I put in another thread, I'm recently going through this as well. My situation deals with me and my wife having our first child on the way though, so it doesn't make me regret it or "slip". At least not yet. We budgeted out everything we could and I have room to pick up the MU's I want still, but just not order a case every wave like before.

I'm 28, married, own a house, 2 cars, 2 dogs, the whole ordeal. We spend our summer bonuses on add-ons, garage expansions, backyard decks, etc. I've been fortunate enough prior to the pregnancy to spend all the extra fun money on whatever toys I wanted. I don't feel like I'm losing anything here though. This isn't me growing up, it's me altering my priorities/focus and being ok with it. :)

@behindthemask makes alot of sense =] just start a budget slowly youll know how much you can have as play money i was like that when i was 18 working a part time job and all and would spend alot on toys my gf would be like wow we never have moeny to go out and it just got so bad but i started budgeting myself and now i have money for all kinds of things im 21 now and i do buy MU,captn,Thor,IM2, but i only buy ones i like no concept series or wierd repaints lol.
also collect TFs wich i would say is the most expensive due to third party stuff but yeah
just pace yourself and budget also i cut out fastfood,starbucks, and started making my lunch ive seen like an extra 250 bucks on me after 2 weeks lol so do things like that cut out stuff you dont need and youll have more income to spend on the hobbie
but never let it get dangerous where you can put gas or anything =]
best wishes bro

It's a miracle I never flunked my science classes in highschool. I have no mind or focus for science or anything technical. I'm all about working with people, so I'm looking at counseling and ministry (yes, I'm a church boy). It's not stable, but if you make it as a counselor, there can be lots of money. Ministry is asking to be poor, but I know I'd love it so that outweighs cost. Either way, I'm good with grocery stores for now. One of my coworkers said I've been there long enough that I could ask the store manager for a better job and probably get it.

That's what I'm doing now.
If it came between a pack of smokes and gas or Gas and X-23. Yeah... I'd quit smoking that exact second.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut. That means I'd have to actually find X-23 first. T_T

I don't think my issue is so much that I'm running out of money, more that I'm running out of room. I get what you're saying though. I get to stages where I'm not really buying and then I see one thing that I like and it just goes overboard.

Stop smoking now and then you can pick up loads of MU when you do find it?

That'd totally be my plan. :P

I think not realising it was that day contributed to my divorce.

Unfortunately action figures and comic books are a very illogical obsession. My company has been on a raise freeze for the past 3 years and with literally no better paying jobs out there, I had made the decision to cut back quite sometime ago. Gone are the days of my spending $200.00 on Ebay and then another $100.00 at the comic book store per week. It's more like $100.00 per month on my hobby, if that. However, to say that I'll drop the hobby altogether would be a great dishonesty to myself and others.

I cut down considerably when I got married and had my first child. Then some more when I had my second child.

When I was single and living with my parents, I used to collect several toy lines (SW, ML, TFs, Joes & Spawn, among others). Along with those, I also collected CDs, DVDs, pewter dragon statues, Magic:The Gathering card sets, comic books, and regular books. Worse yet, I'm a bit of a completist, though my idea of complete isn't necessarily the same as other people's.

At the time, my money only went to me and I had little to no bills to worry about beyond insurance and my car, so it was ok at the time. In retrospect, I really wished I had saved more and not bought as much crap as I did back then.

Now my main focus is on Transformers and a secondary focus on MU (I'm about 16 away from completing Series 2 and am behind by about the same on Series 3). And even then, there's limits on how much I spend each month.

Heh, don't feel too bad. I got you beat by 8 years. ;)