[NateNichols]

I'm in a unique situation in that I got handed a bunch of stuff a few years ago and I've been trying to sell all of it and get it out of my place. It has gotten my interest in terms of trying to take stuff I find and flip it for profit.

I've had pretty solid success on just my local Craigslist here in Dallas with people just wanting to get rid of stuff for some extra cash and didn't care much about it or just didn't know what they had to begin with and also didn't care.

I'm not saying I've scored a $1K card for $10 or anything like that, but I scored some cards a few weeks ago for $50 that will probably turn out to be worth about $400 or so once they are graded. Add a few of those types of scores together and you either have turned a nice little profit or you have yourself a solid collection starting to build up.

You just have to be patient and persistent on your searches for the right cards, right condition, and right price.

[slufan83]

I limit myself to $100 per pay period (get paid on the 15th and last day of every month). I sometimes go over if I see a good deal and I'll usually charge it to my PayPal Smart Connect account and then pay it off my next paycheck. Combined, my wife and I make decent money, but I have no idea how these guys break all these cases and whatnot all the time. I've always wondered about that stuff. We make a little over $100k combined every year, but I for one like to have nice vehicles and whatnot too. I've never asked, but these people busting cases all the time have to be loaded....because even on my salary, I could never afford to just drop thousands at a time on cards.

[Phillies_Joe]

Dom, I think there are many roads to take and still enjoy the hobby/baseball. The one thing that has always helped me personaly is that I really never chase high dollar cards. Myself, I'm always happier getting 20 cards I need than 1 or 2 awesome cards. Second, try finding a local group to trade/buy/sell with in person. Nothing eats up your money faster than doing 10-20 trades a month. I figured out that it cost me roughly $850 last year in postal fees alone for cards I sent out....this includes getting the lowest rates possible. Also, instead of busting boxes, do what you did when you were a kid.....go buy a couple of packs at a time. Before my fire, I was actually only buying 1 blaster per week/ every other week of Topps Series One - working on the commerative coin series. It satisfied my carving every saturday! Also, look at getting into some case breaks. Good luck......

[sesfan01]

If I can't trade for it, I just live without it. I gave up a long time ago in being the top super collector for any player and accepted being the biggest super collector I can be and still have a wife and family (happy wife happy life) ;-)

+1
plus I've got 3 young kids myself and finances do get a bit tight once in a while.

---

For me, I tend to stick to a "savings plan" approach for budgeting. What I mean by that is that I will put back $5-$10 every week or every other week until I have enough saved up to check out the card show each month and the card shop. Since I am a player collector (and my collection has gotten pretty extensive) I usually have to be very selective on which cards I buy. If I don't pick up anything from shows or the card shops one month, then I will hang onto the money I've saved up and use it as a cushion for the next time I'm able to purchase. I've actually gotten some amazing cards I thought I would never have the opportunity to own because of this, and my collection has grown immensely in the past 3 years since I started collecting this way.

[petillo64]

Right on. Thanks everyone. Some great advice. All I care about is that it is fun and adds to my love of baseball. The second I become worried about too expensive of cards, and especially prospects or young players that could plummet in value, it took ALL of the fun out of it for me. When I want to gamble, I go to the local cardhouse. I want to keep collecting FUN. Fun does not involve $500 orange bowman chrome autos of a guy who hasn't reached AA yet, for me at least. I'm thankful that I have had good taste so far in my PC's of young players (addison russell and Joc Pederson... boy do I wish I would have held onto Pederson's cards a little while longer), but the second they hit high prices, it turned from a "fun collection" to serious business lol, and felt guilty sitting on such high $ cards.

Here is what I am thinking of doing...

$60/month budget. Anything I don't spend will transfer over to the next month. NO SPENDING AHEAD OF BUDGET, EVER. This budget includes supplies/shipping.

Player Collecting-
PC's will be 50 cards max of PC players. For example, I will keep 50 of both Bregman and Yelich. If there is a new card I want, I will need to select one from the 50 I have to sell/trade. This will hopefully let me keep the PC fresh, but also ensure that I appreciate my new pick-ups to the fullest. If I can't find a card to swap out for the new one, then I must not really want the new one that bad!

Some sort of affordable side project(s)-
I had a few ideas I always wanted to do...
1.) Topps cards of HOF'ers final year. I always loved looking on the back of Reggie Jacksons/Pete Rose's mid 80's topps cards as a kid and being able to see the full career stats. Sure, Willie Mays will be in a mets uni, and a few others will be funky, but it will be fun.
2.) Putting together league leader binders for each major stat category. Another one of my favorites as a kid were the league leader cards. I still love running into a '88 topps LL card and seeing the top 10 batting averages in a given league. It may be kinda cool to put together/organize a binder by stat category.
3.) Picking up my favorite cards as a kid from the junk-wax era in BGS quad 9.5 form... From 89 Topps traded Griffey to 91 Stadium Club Frank Thomas (remember when it was considered a RC? I spent all of my birthday money on that sucker in 92).

Anyway, thanks for the advice so far! I'm thinking that the final year player cards and league leader project will keep me actively trading as well, which will be awesome.

[joba the clark]

I sell what I don't want on ebay, use the paypal to put towards what I do want. I limit spending my own cash as much as possible. However sometimes at Walmart I will pick up a blaster of something. But I also have a job that allows me to collect scrap metal from changing parts at different sites I work at and I am able to rack up a fair amount of cash every few weeks that I mostly put towards the hobby.