How much do you spend on this hobby?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Now I’m not looking to get real personal into peoples business, but there has been a lot of talk on here recently about brass, and the value of our collections, and what to do with them when we leave this earth…

Not to mention some views about buying and selling, or just buying, and about buying “too much”, and so forth. And about the relative wisdom of buying more expensive models vs less expensive models.

So that got me thinking, because I have been at this hobby a long time, since about 1967.

And I started out with some stuff my father was building/collecting shortly after I was born in 1957…

I don’t still have every piece…but I have a lot, and have only sold off a hand full of items in those 49 years. Literally, I have only sold about 6-8 items in that time, items I purchased with good intention of using then later decided I would not be happy with, or would not fit my layout theme as well as I first thought.

Compared to some, I have a lot of train stuff…compared to some others, I’m about average, and compared to others, I don’t have much at all.

About thirty years ago, I decided on a theme for my modeling. I have stuck to that theme, I only buy items that fit that theme, and have yet to reach all my goals or get bored with that theme.

So, now the big question, how much do I spend on trains? How much should one spend on trains?

Obviously this is personal, and relates to a number of factors. So I did some math, and tried to put some numbers together on my purchasing habits and my “investment” in model trains.

One thing became clear right away. No matter how big the number seemed at first, it was an extremly small percentage of my income and/or net worth.

My anual spending in the last 20 years has only been about 1-2% of my anual income.

And the life time investment is likely only about 1/2 of 1% of my net worth today, maybe 1% at the very most.

I don’t

2

That was my average when I had a wife and two kids but,I was bless with good jobs including railroading for six years.

As a bachelor(widower) since 1992 I would say 5% of my anual income goes for trains and since I was retired in '05 I now spend around 1.5% of my anual income. My purchasing has dropped 80% since there’s very little I need and even my monthly resupply orders is now every other month.I still buy freight cars and my last engine was a Life Like P2K SCL GP18 in late March. I buy MR,Trains (monthly) and Railfan as well

I will be buying 2 Scale Trains DCC/Sound SD40-2 in their Operator series.Maybe a additional Bachmann GE70 tonner if I decide to go ahead with my planned Lake Side Terminal or LST for short on my U shape ISL that is in the making at very slow speed.The LST is still up in the air and may never come to land.

3

Man are you sure you want to go down that road? Every time one of these topics comes up about the price of the hobby, it spirals into a black hole of negativity.

4

I’m about the same. Plus, I also spend maybe just a touch more on my other hobby, restoring and refurbishing garden tractors.

Fixing and older (20 years plus) garden tractor I pick up for under $100., can easily end up costing the same amount as a new HO scale loco, with sound.

Winter time is for one hobby, summer is for the other.

Mike

5

Hi Sheldon:

You raise an interesting point. I had never evaluated my model railroad investment in terms of our net worth.

When I do the (very) rough math I come in at about 1.3% of our net worth. That will go up a bit in the near future as I buy the materials needed to actually build my layout.

However, you make an even more important point - So What? When I look at the amount of enjoyment that I have had and will have in the future from model railroading, the $ involved represent some pretty cheap entertainment. To put things in perspective:

  • I used to have a vintage MG. If I had kept that car and restored it, it would now be about 10% of our net worth. OK, it would be fun to drive occassionally, but vintage car insurance precludes driving it around every day. You can only go to special events. Other than that, it would have given me sore arms from washing and waxing the thing every weekend. Thrilling!

  • We just had a fantastic trip to British Columbia, but it cost us a bunch. If we had travelled like that a lot in the past we would be bankrupt by now. As far as I can tell, I’m not going to go broke modelling trains.

Ultimately I think the message is that you should not worry about what you have spent on trains (unless it took food out of your babies’ mouths of course). What’s done is done. Now sit back and enjoy it.

Dave

6

I must admit Sheldon that discussing how much money one spends on a hobby makes me somewhat uncomfortable because over the years I’ve spent in the General Aviation field I’ve seen far too many examples that having a lot money in aviation doesn’t necessarily make those participants good at it! And I’m well and truly over dealing with their over inflated egos!!

7

My cost when done with my layout will be $0, why, buy low sell high and most of the stuff I kept is the cream of the RTR market as far as rolling stock and engines.

8

Model railroading spending, for me, is in the same category as vacations, dining out, and other activities that could be easily dropped if times were tight. So as a percentage of net worth, I don’t really know nor do I think it really applies. The total value of my stuff in terms of what my heirs could sell it for will vary greatly depending on how much they are willing to work to get the best price. I never sell anything so I have everything that wasn’t a consumable like scenery, wiring, track, etc.

Over the years I have spent between 0.1% to 2% of annual income, depending on where I was in terms of children and mortgage. Currently, I could spend more, but about 1% seems to be the norm. While I need basic supplies like wire, roadbed, track, paint, glue, etc as I work on my layout, the major stuff like locomotives, cars, structures, control system are already purchased - at least if it’s available in S scale. Most of my structures will have to be scratch/parts built, but I have been accumulating things like door and window castings over the years. So a lot of current spending is on things that appeal to me in HO and O, mostly older kits that aren’t very expensive. Eventually, I’ll have a small layout in both of those scales. And if I live long enough, all the kits will be built!

Enjoy

Paul

9

I never really worried too much about how much money I had in the hobby. If I needed or wanted something and could afford it, fine, but otherwise I did without. I often “settled”, too, and made the best of what I could afford.
I don’t spend much money on the hobby nowadays at all, as I have lots of projects already on hand, along with most of the materials to complete them. The biggest investment I’ve made is time, and that, to me, is as good as income.

Wayne

10

I also have reduced my purchases. In the past, I would jump on anything announced by manufacturers that appealed to me. I now sit back and think about buying any item for while and decide whether or not it I really want it. Because of this, I prevented myself from buying items that are rarely used. I would say I limit my purchases to about $250 a year.

11

Anothet topic here which is more about something else, in this case money, and less about what this foeum is for, namely model trains. [%-)]

A likely sensitive topic. My only answer to the question is more than I would like and not enough. Which touches on a nerve that someone alluded to earlier, that this topic treads dangerously close to on which tends to go south very often. Common sense folks.

12

LOL

So far, no one has told you exactly how much he has spent, and no one probably will.

I made the mistake of tracking the cost of my purchases since I got into the HO scale side of the hobby back in January 2004. For a while, I was uncomfortable regarding “how much” I spent on the hobby. But that has tailed off over the past few years as I now have everything that I need or want. That said, if I go forward and build my Dream Layout, I will need to start spending once again.

I recently had a conversation with a buddy and revealed to him how much I have spent on the hobby over the past 12+ years. He is a sport fisherman as a hobby. When I told him the total amount that I have spent, he laughed and said that he spends that annually on his boat, fishing equipment, docking fees, etc. So, it is all relative.

By the way, Sheldon, you haven’t told us exactly how much you have spent.

Rich

13

Like a lot of you, I spent a lot when I was in a some phases, and much less now that I have much of what I need and want.

To the few who commented about this being a dangerous topic, remember, I am not complaining about the cost of the hobby, or the cost of any item or catagory of items. I don’t think anything in this hobby is over priced, in fact I think most stuff is a bargain, but that is a separate topic - one I have already shared my views on dozens of times.

So we have one poster who admits he is in some sort of model train trading business to support his purchases - good for him, but no thank you - that would spoil the hobby for me. Making money is work to me - not a hobby.

And too that end, I’m going to go on a sidebar in my own thread. I hate the hunt. That’s one of two reasons why I don’t buy “used” stuff. I do buy “new old stock”, but seldom if ever buy stuff “already been played with”.

This also speaks directly to one of my big reasons for not buying brass. My modeling goals call for groups of matched locos to give the “home road” that fleet look of a big railroad. I have as many as nine of the same loco in one case, and most every loco that says ATLANTIC CENTRAL has two or three brothers.

Cost aside, what a pain that would be in brass to hunt down multiple copies of the same locos - so I actually like the idea that Bachmann likely made 20,000 or more USRA Heavy Mountains over the 10 plus years they produced them, making it easy for me to have nine of them - not mention the fact that I only paid $100 each on average…

Point of all this, well many of you got the point. The personal cost of the hobby should be what you can easily afford and not really miss - and not need to recover.

And that should allow the hobby to be the food for the spirit that it should be…and no one should feel bullied into spending more by those who preach “quality”…or spending less b

14

I can’t really answer the question, since I never really paid attention to it in terms of percentage of income or net worth. I have bought more than I need, but I’m a bargain hunter by nature. I’m pretty good about not spending more than my means on anything, including trains, so I never really had much motivation for keeping account of my spending on the hobby.

It took a while to totally settle on how I wanted to approach my goal, or exactly what I like, so I have bought more than I need; and have sold items I found out I didn’t like. I am a lone wolf modeler, so part of the overbuying was investigation and curiosity…educational.

We are moving from Indiana to Georgia in the coming weeks, and I want my new layout to have a NS/Southern RR focus instead of a Conrail/PC bent. Since my new layout will have fewer items than my current one, I expect the sale of the midwestern items will fund the purchase of the SE items…a push.

At my new house in Georgia, I plan to take a more deliberate approach to the hobby, catalogue items, keep better records, etc. I do want to track my purchases better than I have, but like many, I expect my purchases to be fewer going forward than they have in the past.

15

I hear the lament of not wanting to turn your hobby into a buisness. Being successful at most of my endevors at making money (not because I am better at it but will spend the time it takes even if it means 70hr work weeks and 20hr days at times) so the temptation is always there, almost bit the bullet a few times. Don’t think I could be like Howard and do the hobby as both buisness and hobby. Howard has always impressed me.

16

LION spends 25% of his annual income on the trains of him. Only problem is the annual income of him is $Zero.oo.

Figure perhaps $300.00 per year or so, probably much less. New MTH subway train is on the way, but that was from monies horded from last year’s vacation.

I bought a couple of NWSL motors (avout $60.00) with the permission of the Abbot. I can get about that much from him every four months or so. A few cash dollars from the prior for toos or such. If I cal them tools for the Computer Department, I can buy them on my own hook.

LION builds layout of him from found materials.

Net cost for these stations are virtually zero, which is a good thing because my railroad has 23 stations.

ROAR

17

I entered the hobby in January of 2005. I have built three layouts in that time and am partway through the track-laying on a fourth. Total costs, to date, including materials and new tool purchases, engines, rolling stock, track elements, would be about $25K Canadian. That works out to about 5% of my earnings over the period of 11 years (I’m on a military pension).

This was a concentrated period, it being accomplished in only 11 years. I have slowed substantially in the past three years with few purchases except for what I need to start the fourth layout. I have no plans for motive power purchases as I have a nice stable of 22 locomotives of various kinds and roads. I don’t see anything recently issued or coming on line that I want…or ‘need’.

18

Expenses and finances are always very personal. Do I have % number? I don’t, but my the wife tracks everything we spend and I could have one pulled. But why? If you are modeling and spending at a comfortable rate for YOU, does it matter what my spending is? A few months ago when this came up either here or at MRH forums, I responded that I’m retired and spend at 100 to 150 per month. I still do, but its not budgeted. I do have a retired friend who buys about $500 a month just in locomotives and has a plywood Pacific.

But I have spent a lot more some months and not so much during others. Like all spending/budgeting, it becomes a problem when you over spend in 1 area and neglect others. Do you feel you have to spend on trains? That could be a problem. There is on Railwire a guy selling all his Nscale stuff to pend off a divorce. His list of equipment for sale was immense. Just be happy with what you can afford and not worry if you are keeping up with the CaseyJones.

JMO–not in anyway am I attacking you, the topic or anybodies spending

Tom

19

When the new Lionel Vision Line Big Boy came out a little while ago at $2,000 they were lining up to buy it.

20

I never kept track of what I spent on my one and only hobby. I spend very little now a days being retired and beings I lost 2 pensions from companies I worked for who went out of business and with it our pensions.

But all in all I’m still having fun and playing with my trains I have . I now pick up older engines that need a little TLC. Just picked up a Rivarossi UP 4-8-4 which runs smooth and quiet. It cost small dollars.