the danger of spreadsheets....

[jonboy1]

...and of having a quiet lunchtime.

I was just ordering a few little parts over my lunch and whilst dutifully updating my spreadsheet of spending on each of my buggies I got to thinking "I wonder how much my collection has cost me?" So, a quick tally of all the totals and a case of mild angina struck.

So, excluding hop ups and other parts I don't currently have on my buggies (which would probably double the total just in tyres and wheels alone!), and excluding all the ones I've sold, my average buggy stands me at a shade over £500 each. Obviously, the cost of each varies greatly, the most expensive being the Durga, the cheapest being the Lunchie, but averaged out, £500 each. 

After a few minutes to recover, I got to thinking, that isn't that bad really when you consider it. I used to be really into mountain biking, and when I bought my last bike it was about £3k. If I were to get into it again I reckon I would double that figure getting a new ride. And then there are the inevitable upgrades, extras and so on, which would rapidly boost that figure again.

Some of the big Lego kits are well over £500 each, and they are largely static and display items only (yes, I know I keep most of my buggies shelved, but at least they "could" be used!) and can't be tinkered with or upgraded particularly.

Games consoles are roughly £500 and and the games are £50 each, so depending on your gaming enthusiasm this could be a cheaper option, but far less active. 

All in all, upon reflection, I think it's quite a reasonable costing hobby, and I shall use this argument with Mrs Jon to justify more spending in the future!  

[Frog Jumper]

I paid over $1000 for a pair of microphones in my last hobby.

Having a couple hundred in spare parts and extra tires is nothing in comparison, IMO...

Terry

 

[naturbo2000]

I didn't crack open the spreadsheet,  but was thinking similar the other evening.  Plus or minus, everything is £500 each. Which is quite a lot when you stop and think about it, and might encourage me to keep the collection relatively small.

[Kowalski86]

I've compared my own hobbies in terms of cost, but at the end if the day I found the comparison fruitless since it ultimately comes down to how you go about each one.

All of my videogames are basically free, I don't throw money at microtransactions or fancy hardware. I just play classics on my PC, maybe a F2P game here or there.

I keep RC reasonable simply by not beating the snot out of them or throwing whatever GoolRC combo is currently on sale into them. I also stick with RCs that are decent value, vs "cheap" models that nickel and dime you (most Tamiya on-roaders).

If anything my most expensive hobby is feeding the birds, but it's well worth it in my book. Unlike RC it's a hobby where I cannot SELL anything, but I have been looking into growing my own food.

[Nick-W]

1 hour ago, jonboy1 said:

Obviously, the cost of each varies greatly, the most expensive being the Durga, the cheapest being the Lunchie, but averaged out, £500 each.

I’ve just placed a Durga based Plaza Japan order. This is probably a stone I don’t want to turn over!

[jonboy1]

8 minutes ago, Nick-W said:

I’ve just placed a Durga based Plaza Japan order. This is probably a stone I don’t want to turn over!

 

Nope!

And don't whatever you do look at my showroom entry here:

https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=139513&id=33463

 

[markbt73]

Rule number one of any hobby: Never, ever, ever keep track of the money. If you can afford it at the time, and you want it, then get it. If you can't afford it, save up or go without. But life is too short to be an accountant about things that are supposed to make you happy.

[Nick-W]

12 minutes ago, jonboy1 said:

Nope!

And don't whatever you do look at my showroom entry here:

https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=139513&id=33463

 

Wow! That’s really cool! 

[silvertriple]

13 minutes ago, markbt73 said:

Rule number one of any hobby: Never, ever, ever keep track of the money. If you can afford it at the time, and you want it, then get it. If you can't afford it, save up or go without. But life is too short to be an accountant about things that are supposed to make you happy.

I think this is the best approach, really...

Saying this, When I started back in this hobby back in 2021, I probably bought about 12 kits within the year... I stopped counting cars at 20. And there is quite a few which are at project state currently...

And while i'm almost not buying any kit anymore, I'm mainly buy vintage cars nowadays : there is more fun to restore a car than to build a kit, for most of the cases... But budget wise, I know where I start a project, but I never know how I'll finish it. And just for the sake of the exemple, my first Nichimo cost me almost nothing... But I invested about 300 hours CAD work in it, and if I pile up all the printing costs, a NIB car could have been more affordable, possibly... But, there is some pleasure in making those projects, and I can tell that while it's not economically realistic, it is still more rewarding than buidling any kits...

And no, I won't even start to count that in a spreadsheet, as if I do,  I should also count my printers in it, and that would be huge :-)

[Badcrumble]

My original plan was a kit / classic car which was going to be about £12k plus tools, insurance, fuel, etc

I don't *think* I've spent that in nine years so I'm OK with it.

Most of my cars are second hand too, which brings the price down.

I ought to slim down my collection though! 

I'd probably scare myself if I added it all up so I won't 

 

[Superluminal]

3 hours ago, markbt73 said:

Rule number one of any hobby: Never, ever, ever keep track of the money.

So, so true. Its amazing how easy it is to justify separate 150 - 200 quid lumps on a a single project over a wide period of time only for them to rapidly turn into a four figure total and feel like a bit waste of money.

[Kowalski86]

4 hours ago, markbt73 said:

Rule number one of any hobby: Never, ever, ever keep track of the money. If you can afford it at the time, and you want it, then get it. If you can't afford it, save up or go without. But life is too short to be an accountant about things that are supposed to make you happy.

Even if I don't keep track of the money, I did get a bit bummed when I had about 10 RCs or so, but no time to run nor tinker with them. Inventory checks are a good habit to be into.

[GToddC5]

I'm terrified to get my Notepad document into spreadsheet form, and then add it up. I gotta be right at 150 models now, 100+ motors, 70% of the vintage batteries, a bunch of vintage full radio systems, tires and wheels out the wazzoo . . . all in the last 18 months . . . TERRIFIED. But, it all brings happiness through this dark period of my life, so . . .

 

Edit to add: Oh geez . . . and all those Mini 4WD/Juniors . . . egad

Edit#2: The point of no return for me, and when I knew for sure that things where getting a bit crazy, was when I started buying bearings in bulk 

[Rinskie]

I'm too smart to make a spreadsheet on my RC stuff and I am only back into it for a little over a year now. About two years ago I stepped away from the awesome world of high power rocketry. If any of you know, rockets get lifted off the ground by dollars alone. Since a lot of the launches I went to were not supported by on site vendors, I would have to stock up on motors and bring as much as I figured I'd use plus extra just in case. I had a ton of them along with over a dozen of reloadable cases. To give you an idea, a mid sized J motor (witch is the smallest  L2 motor there is, will set you back about $75 and will burn for about less than 2-3 seconds. The case the motor is loaded into runs about a $100 not to mention the rocket or the electronics. I kept spread sheets on my motors and cases and at one time I had over $2K worth of inventory and I was but a duffer compared to others who had boxes upon boxes of motors. I know one guy who had about 500. 

[Pylon80]

I had a spreadsheet on my very fist TT-02 when I got back into RC cars a few years ago. When I saw 1500$... for a TT-02... I had to re-check again a few times to believe it. The small parts do it. Connectors, hardware, shims etc. I think the idiom is "slow bleed"? Anyways, I decided I would never make these spreadsheets ever again.

To put things in perspective, I was lamenting with my colleagues the other day about how expensive RC can be. Then one of them said he likes to gamble (you know, when you go drinking/smoking at the Casino and stare at slot machines through glassy eyes until morning light) and he keeps track of his expenses and 'wins'. He said last year was particularly bad and cost him 35,000$. That day I felt like RC cars were such a benign and negligible expense

 

[Rinskie]

Yea, it can get out of hand. The $1500 TT02 would put me off spread sheets forever! I am not sure where mine is at the moment but it's got to be well south of half that. Only a guess because I refuse to add it up, it will take away from my enjoyment of running a $150 car. 

 

[Mad Ax]

Last year I reorganised my workshop, and went through my entire inventory.  I was half-hoping I'd find some cars I'd completely forgotten about, but mostly I just found stuff that I knew full-well I already had, and was going to have to spend a heap of cash on, plus try to find some spare time, to make progress on.  In the end, I totalled up over 90 things which could fairly be considered "cars", even if not all have bodies or 100% of the chassis parts.

I have a fixed monthly budget to spend on "leisure", and although that includes books, music, (any and all) clothes and shoes, computer games, alcoholic beverages, takeaways, and anything else that isn't specifically covered in the joint budget, the overwhelming majority of it goes on RC cars, parts, and events.  (OK, I include RC-event food, fuel and hotel costs in that too, and over the last few years I've done more non-RC walking holidays or joined up my RC events with a walking holiday).  So that's a vast sum of money that I spend, mostly on RC, every month.  Most of that money comes from surplus primary income, but I also get up early, 7 days a week, to work on a side-hustle, which all goes into my RC pot.

And I don't have much to show for it.  Most of the people on my vintage racing group chat are talking about big-ticket radio systems, and big-ticket re-releases like the Optima Mid and Yokomo, and huge vintage motor collections, and hop-ups from companies I've never even heard of...  And I guess, well, OK, but their collections may not be as big as mine, so they can afford to put more into each car.  Fine, that makes sense.

But then...  I go to an RC event, and the majority of the 1:1 cars are less than 5 years old.  There's a large number of vans, and camper vans.  The camper van market has gone insane over here - 30K, 40K, even 50K for a VW with a pop-up roof on it.  So the guys at the races are not just spending big money on RC every month, like me, but they're spending huge sums on vehicle finance every month too.  And then they're talking about 2K repair bills on nearly-new vehicles.  By contrast, my camper cost me 4K about 8 years ago, I did the conversion myself, and all it's needed since then is tyres, brakes and some bodywork.  My motorcycle cost me 2K 10 years ago and has never had a spanner turned on it.  My wife's car cost us 2K.

But, OK, maybe these guys cleared their mortgages earlier in life, so they have more disposable...  But, my wife inherited some money before we bought our home, so our mortgage is lower than a lot of people our age, and our house isn't exactly big and only cost us a little more than the tiny 2-bed flat I was mortgaged to the eyeballs on before we moved.

But, OK, maybe they don't spend money on other stuff...  oh, wait, they also fly planes, or have expensive MTBs, and they all turn up at the track with fancy gazebos and the latest pit haulers and top-line RC-branded tools and fold-away tables, which put my battered Stanley toolbox and my wheelie trolley and my pound store collapsible boxes and wallpaper table and my Aldi gazebo to shame, and they're carrying £500 cameras with £2000 lenses and wearing branded clothes, and...

Well, OK, but maybe they aren't paying into their pension as much as...  Oh, no, wait, I meet my employer's contribution and put a token gesture on top, and that's about it.

I'm in a well-paid industry, I've been in it for 25 years, I'm earning the going rate for my position and experience.  I know I spend a lot, and I'm not complaining - there are people in this country who have to choose between food and heating, I sit back every day and remind myself how lucky I am.  But I simply can't understand where all the money is coming from to pay for the stuff that a lot of people seem to have.  Yes, there will always be people who earn real big bucks, maybe enough to have investments that are doing well and giving a good return on top, but given my wage is significantly higher than that of most of my non-RC friends, I find it hard to believe that I'm one of the lower earners in the RC racing world.  I just can't make the numbers add up...

[BlackBeard]

The way I look at it is, yes, a car might have a few hundred quids worth of parts in it, but I've rarely spent that in one hit.  As long as my monthly spending doesn't get too wild, the net cost of the whole car isn't really something I worry about.

Besides, a hundred years from now, who's going to care? 😁

[Blista]

I have to admit to having a spreadsheet to keep track of things.  Mostly it's so I know what paints I've got and what motors, servos, etc I need.  I don't track costs but on more than one occasion it's saved me from buying a new kit.  I see how much I already own and what else I'd need to buy to complete a new kit, and the urge to buy disappears.  In a way I'm kinda glad that Tamiyas and the other stuff I've bought aren't really worth anything on the used market around here.  I'd panic and sell up almost everything.  Anyone need 20 cans of PS paint at retail price? 

[jonboy1]

On 4/26/2024 at 3:33 PM, markbt73 said:

Rule number one of any hobby: Never, ever, ever keep track of the money. If you can afford it at the time, and you want it, then get it. If you can't afford it, save up or go without. But life is too short to be an accountant about things that are supposed to make you happy.

I completely agree. I've always been of the strong opinion that if I can't afford it, I don't get it. Other than our mortgage I've never had a loan or anything on finance or HP and intend to keep it that way. I know I'm probably in the minority thinking this, but it works for me and if it doesn't work for others, that's totally cool.

What I should probably have explained is why I started the spreadsheet in the first place. I was bought a re-re Sand Scorcher when they first came out by my lovely wife. I kept seeing the amazing stuff people like @Toykid and @simensays were making and really wanted to have a go at something maybe 1/4 as good. I was a complete novice in terms of what was what with parts and compatibility, having been away from the hobby for 30 years, so I kept notes of parts I might want, where to get them from, how much they were, what I needed to do with them to make them fit and so on, all on a spreadsheet. And I think it just stuck. Plus, later on I started doing restorations and so on for others on the forum, and would log everything I needed to buy so I didn't get to the end and think "how much was that?" and charge them over the odds. 

More recently, and I think this is probably a function of age, I've found myself thinking "have I already got one of those?" or "I need one of those, but I'm sure I've seen something like that recently" and have checked my spreadsheet and found that, yes, I do already have one, and I paid half what I was about to for another!  

Ironically, one thing I have never done is think "I really ought to stop spending on this." It is my one hobby, I've had "project 1:! scale cares in the past and they just took up way too much time, money and space, I don't have any other "vices" - I can't even drink anymore because I'm now allergic to alcohol (who knew that was a thing!) so if this makes me happy and I don't put myself in debt for it, I'm going to keep enjoying it regardless of how much each buggy costs. That said, I do think I've pretty much got everything I really wanted, and my collection is at the point I don't have room for all of them to be displayed, so how much I continue to spend on them remains to be seen. Who knows, maybe I'll get into folk dance next.....  

 

On 4/26/2024 at 3:54 PM, silvertriple said:

And while i'm almost not buying any kit anymore, I'm mainly buy vintage cars nowadays : there is more fun to restore a car than to build a kit, for most of the cases... But budget wise, I know where I start a project, but I never know how I'll finish it. And just for the sake of the exemple, my first Nichimo cost me almost nothing... But I invested about 300 hours CAD work in it, and if I pile up all the printing costs, a NIB car could have been more affordable, possibly... But, there is some pleasure in making those projects, and I can tell that while it's not economically realistic, it is still more rewarding than buidling any kits...

Yup. agree 100% - it's all about the build, and if it's a resto, getting all the right vintage parts and hardware, if it's new, it's getting all the hopups! 

 

[Grumpy pants]

Lunchie? 
Photos?

Please 😊

[jonboy1]

2 hours ago, Grumpy pants said:

Lunchie? 
Photos?

Please 😊

The body is still in the to-do pile, mainly because I can't decide how to paint it. The chassis is therefore gradually collecting dust in the garage. It does run really nicely though - completely different to a normal Lunchie.

link is here - https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=139363&id=33463 saves me trying to find pictures and link them again   

Since posting that showroom entry, I've decided the Pumpkin body is going elsewhere (it's actually in the process of being painted right now!!) so the Lunchie body will stay with this chassis.

[Wooders28]

I used to keep receipts (before spreadsheets, although, I don't know how to use those things anyway...), for RC and then my 1:1 projects further down the line. 

It got scary glancing through and having quick reckoning up , especially when I started thinking of compound interest! 😬

The scariness stepped up exponentially, when I got married..🙄🤣

Although, all my RC cars & gear (the 1:1 project has its own layed up insurance cover) are stored in the garage, which looks to only have £1000 worth of insurance cover, and just my race car probably costing close to that (factoring in the radio gear etc) I should probably maybe get one of these, spreadsheets , and get suitable insurance cover, if nothing else....

[RichieRich]

On 4/26/2024 at 1:24 PM, GToddC5 said:

Edit#2: The point of no return for me, and when I knew for sure that things where getting a bit crazy, was when I started buying bearings in bulk 

Yeah, I think that's the line. I've also crossed it. 🤣

[Kpowell911]

On 4/26/2024 at 2:14 PM, jonboy1 said:

 

Games consoles are roughly £500 and and the games are £50 each, so depending on your gaming enthusiasm this could be a cheaper option, but far less active. 

I wouldnt call myself a Gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do own the ‘big three’ consoles. 
 

Last August, I bought a PS5 when they were discounted to £399, and bought Gran Turismo 7 for £30, so £429. As I say, Im not a gamer, but It tells me when I turn on the game Ive been playing it for over 400 hours. Ive also played a few other games, mainly ones that were on Playstation Network that I had a trial for. So realistically speaking my PS5 experience has cost me less than £1 an hour…. And that cost is going down and down. I could recoup some money if I sold the console. If made me think, I guarantee Im not getting that sort of return on investment on my RCs….. My BBX cost a lot more than my PS5 and a game and Ive not got anywhere near 400 hours+ out of that.