Ramblings on Spending Money

There are lots of arguments you can make about how gaming isn't actually an expensive hobby. But when you need to get something through the Significant-Other Budget Approval Process (which, let's face it, is probably the only thing stopping some of us from just buying our own game store), gaming can certainly appear to be an expensive hobby.

When you say you're going to spend $60 on a book with creepy artwork or bunch of little plastic army men, chances are your SO isn't thinking about how it's going to entertain you and your friends every Thursday night for the next six months or how you'll be down to $2/hour of fun before your army even hits the table. Chances are - even if they're the most understanding SO in the world - they're thinking "wow, $60 is a lot for a book".

And, frankly, I'm thinking that too - at least when I'm not thinking about how awesome that $60 book is.

Obviously, if the book costs $60 but you only have to pay $50, it's a good thing. The SOBAP goes a lot smoother if you can appear to be getting good value for money, and if you've already budgeted to spent $60, you've still got $10 left over for something else.

Lets take a look at my recent pile of stuff (including the super secret project). If I had paid full retail price for everything, I would have been looking at more than AU$300. The Landraider itself is almost AU$100 from the GW website! Which is too much money to spend on a plastic tank, no matter how many guns it has.

Fortunately, I didn't spend anywhere near that much money. My Landraider, for example, ended up costing me about AU$50. Which is still a fair bit to spend on a plastic tank, but it's a much easier sell ("look how many guns it has! And I saved $50!").

Maelstrom Games is my shop of choice. They offer around 10% off UK Games Workshop retail prices (which are already significantly cheaper than the Australian GW prices), and they offer free shipping world wide. Combined with the awesome exchange rate at the moment and one of their periodic sales, it meant I could get a big pile of stuff for about 50% of what it would normally cost me. And no matter how you justify your gaming purchases, that's a pretty good deal.