Right now, I am socking away as much as I can for the Lionel Acela due out in September 2005. And a good thing too! I currently have only a slight $500 saved.
My question to you veterans: Any tricks to saving for trains? Eating less, making the electric company hold their hands out and making the mortgage company wait for payment not withstanding.
So far, I have only been able to put change and few dollars in an old milk can and roll it once or twice a month.[?]
I don’t think there’s any short cut beyond what you are already doing. Save your money as you can, even if it’s a few dollars (or cents) at a time. I strongly urge avoiding credit cards, unless you have the ability to pay off the whole balance at once.
I’ve been selling off some of my HO and N stuff to help buy O gauge equipment. I also tend to buy used equipment at train shows, swap meets and on Ebay. I don’t have a “train budget” as such.
I try and put $25 a month into my “Norfolk Southern” train fund. Its Williams, so it shouldn’t take too long, plus with Fathers Day coming up, I might get it early. Hope…
One area that I have saved is I used to go out for lunch every day. This would be $8.00 to $10.00 each day. Now I get Sub-Way or Mr. Chicken at $4.00 to $5.00 each day. This was a big savings.
If you smoke, I don’t cut back on that. Maybe even stop. If you drink, even pop (soda), just cut back and drink some water with lemon-lime juice.
Maybe cutting back on donuts or even chips, who knows you may even loose some weight and be a little healthier. So I wish.
Some good suggestions. Tax refund is a great idea! I’ll see if I can pry it from my wife’s hands next year. This year, she had the audacity to buy my four-year old new clothes and pay property taxes with it! Women! Always spending our money on junk![:D][:D][:D]
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Get on track with this new diet and you’ll be steaming down the rails towards a new life of fitness and enjoyment.
I am saving for one of those WWII aircraft pylons - my son and I have an ‘airport’ as a fixture in the center of our oval layout. They sure are expensive.
I’m saving for the first set of F-units to come along in PRR livery with the level of detail of Lionel’s new F3’s and all 8 prime mover sounds. Has anyone heard whether Lionel’s Railsounds 5 will add the missing notches?
I try to keep my change in a big water cooler bottle. After a few months it gets pretty heavy. You don’t really feel change when you put it a side, a little at a time.
Picture this one empty plastic gallon of milk holds 60.00 worth of pennies. So you can just imagine how much change you can put into a five gallon water bottle. I haven’t gotten more than 1/5th of the way up (darn new catalogs always get me!!).
Angelo