Six Months of Frugal Gaming

Hello all, it’s been a good gaming week. Even though I haven’t actually been gaming I've got plenty of painting done and finally finished off some terrain I've been working on (pictures next week). This week I'm having a look over the past six months, as I'm now halfway through my Frugal Mission....

Spend less
My first aim was to spend less on gaming and I've done pretty well. I've done well on this aim as I've tried to not buy more until I’ve got all my current miniatures painted and projects finished. It’s not been perfect, but I’ve severely reduced the backlog and I feel that when I’ve spent the money, it’s been on the things that I really wanted.

Surely the best way of spending less is to get things for free, and I achieved this by trading away some of my old and unplayed games via BoardGameGeek this is a great resource, and I’d highly recommend you check out the trading functions. Trough these trades I managed to get two full Blood Bowl teams, a copy of Power Grid, some Necromunda terrain and various other bits and pieces.

Game more
My second aim was to play more games. My stats for the year so far are:


This is a total of 41, compared to a total of 52 from the first half of 2008. This is obviously a decrease on my gaming from last year, though some of the games that I’ve been playing this year are slightly longer than those from last year (more Necromunda and 40k this year, compared to Memoir '44 last year), so I’ve probably spent more time gaming. This is partly due to a change on the way that I've been playing. I've recently started attending gaming clubs and haven't had many games nights at home, due to work commitments amongst myself and my friends. I enjoy attending the clubs, but I'm also keen to get my friends round more often.

Making money
The ultimate goal that I set myself was to make some money. This is the holy grail of any hobby, getting your pastime to pay. My main effort in money making was to sell terrain which I enjoyed, but it was a lot of work, for little reward. I managed to break even on my costs, have a lot of materials left over for future projects and even acquire some new toys (my air compressor). It was quite an experience running a stall and it gave me a new respect for people that do it for a living, it was also really nice to meet people who’d read the blog.

At the start of the year I had great success with the Bring and Buy stall at the PAW annual show.

However, when I went to Legionary at Exeter, the results were not so good. Only a couple of my items sold, though I did pick up some very cheap plastic Orcs for Blood Bowl! Pretty mixed results really, though I’ll definitely keep putting item in for sale in future Bring and Buys.

The best way that I’ve raised funds for gaming this year has been through the magic of ebay. I realised early on in my mission that there were certain figures that I’d never get to paint so the best thing to do was to sell them on. A lot went on ebay last week, and I was quite surprised. I’d picked up some old Citadel Empire figures a couple of years ago for a few pounds, I was planning to use them for Mordheim, but I decided to get rid of them as I suspected I could get my money back. I was surprised when I listed them all individually and I managed to make about TEN TIMES my purchase cost back. I was very happy (and very surprised) about this but I’m still not very happy about selling individual miniatures in ebay. It can get you great results as a seller (try it!) but it’s quite frustrating as a buyer.

Summary
So far, I think I’ve done well with spending less, and that it hasn’t affected either the quality of amount of my gaming which shows that Frugal gaming is possible. However, I’m gaming less than last year, not more. I need to get this sorted out! More games nights with friends and more attendance at Games Clubs are definitely on the agenda, this does mean that I need to get my Dark Eldar force painted (or at least assembled), so that's my next objective.

The past six months have been great and I’m enjoying my gaming a lot more, without the annoying feeling that I’m throwing money away unecessarily. The next six months will see more gaming, less spending and perhaps even making a bit of money from the hobby!
All the best, happy gaming!