Trust me, I’ve bought a lot of flowers and things to get me back on the good side. Trust is an important thing but after this, it is a very hard thing to regain.
Six months ago, I felt I was nearing the edge of control. I set out at that time to make up a reasonable list of locos that I wanted, and I told my wife what was on the list. I also discovered Outlet Direct at BLI…that helped keep things doable. So, since about October, I have acquired one loco a month, and I have completed my list. Strangely (not so strangely if you believe in goal-setting theory), the rather intense desire to look for another ‘neat’ loco to buy has subsided.
I would recommend that you and the Mrs. have it all laid out on paper, and draw a mark through each item as you acquire it. It will keep her in the know, let her believe and trust in you, but it will also give you a tool and mileposts to guide yourself.
A finite, short list of about 4-6 items, depending on how crazy you have been lately, will make it all fall into place. When the last item is stroked off, start improvements with materials that you have. No more buying unless you sell TWO things.
Selector, I like your thought process. I think that I just might give it a try.
RR Avoid the RR and you will be OK>
When you say postal, I hope you don’t mean shooting.
I really am a poor example of telling anyone about spending, but is has to fit into the budget or you will hate the hobby.
No shooting but the words did peirce me like they should. We hardly fight and when and if we do, it’s mostly somthing I did. I’m just a guy.
Do what I did. Get a second job. I am an IRS Enrolled Agent doing Professional Income Tax preparation. I use the money to indulge my hobbies, the most expensive of which is model railroading. I just bought 15 NH cabeese and 12 NH RS-3s because ya can’t have too many cabeese and RS-3s. The NH didn’t. The supers are always looking for bag boys, and if you are my age Wal-Mart and Sam’s club hire geezers as greeters. You have to know how to smile though.
There lots of cash jobs too. Mowing lawns, shoveling snow or pool work. As my Daddy said when I was a teenager: “If you want a horse, get a job, and buy a horse”, and I went to work at Winchesster’s hustling ammo crates. Loved the horse.
Y I K E S ! ! Isn’t this simply a case of having too much money??? of course this will be denied.
Lots of good thoughts so far, but might I suggest this. Find yourself a niche in the hobby. For me, its installing DCC and sound in my friends engines, mostly brass. They dont want to do it, I’ve gotten good at it, good enough that I have had a brass dealer recommend me to his clients for installs. I charge 20 bucks an hour plus materials, and that finances a good portion of the hobby for me.[:D]
As far as an earlier comment about just getting a new wife. I’ll tell you the truth. It ain’t easy. I went through the big D, it ain’t fun[:(]. I’ve been very lucky though, I’ve found an even better woman than the one I had. [:D]
I think we all have moments like that. However it seems for the most part that the products are getting better. Not all prices trend lower though. I have some projects on my junk collection that will never get built because of all the great streamline cars Walthers is bringing out. 7 years ago I didn’t know that was coming and bought some car sides. At 50 bucks a pair. Now I can buy the same car RTR for $25 to 30. Good thing I didn’t buy that brass C&O caboose last year; now Atlas is selling them in plastic for $12. But of couse there are things I wish I had bought – like some APM bus models. And a few more Intermountain and Red Caboose kits.
So just wait a few years. A better product will be along – not that I’m ready for sound!!!
Enjoy
Peter
conford
So did you get it. Are you an AAPRCO member? Is your car in the register?
Only buy what you can put on your layout. If you follow this, you can only buy so much. Anyway, lay low for a little while, make up with the wife, then build, weather, solder, do whatever, to what you have already purchased. Take me for an example:
At least YOU have purchased tangible items, that at the very least, can be resold later if need be. For me, I like the hobby of model railroading, but I also like horse-racing. Now THATS a very expensive hobby, that unless you win consistently, you end up with NOTHING to show for your investment of money and time. I have always given myself a monthly budget for “donating to the ponies”, and do not exceed it. I now have come to the realization that my hard-earned money can be better spent on railroadiana, and actually ending up with something to show for my efforts. By the way, I really LOVE Brother Derek to win this year’s Kentucky Derby.
As for your obsessive railroad purchases, while you may need more balance in your life, your wife should appreciate the fact your not boozing to all hours of the morning, cheating on her with whoever, dealing drugs, embezelling company funds from your work, or basically not doing anything that could cause you to read about yourself in the next day’s newspaper. If this is all that your doing, yo guys are ok. GL with everything.
PS: I really like how the road sets up for Ohio State in the Tournament. Wonder what kind of odds I can get on them?
Mike
If your spending on the hobby is adversely effecting or preventing you from purchasing a home, investing for the future, etc. then you need to need to do some soul searching. I suggest sitting down with a financial planner. They’ll probably try to sell you insurance but it will help you to start thinking of the future and not for the current gratification of a new engine purchase, etc.
Don’t beat yourself up, but do act responsibly.
if the wife gets ticked off just reminder her that the purchase was model trains , which keep you in the house , and not a bottle of perfume for some other woman [:D]
Awww, c’mon… just one more locomotive… one more locomotive… please? I’ll never buy another one again… honest! Just one more locomotive…
Two grand doesn’t go very far when buying locomotives, but spending that kind of money, on multiple purchases, spread out over weeks or months, without telling your wife, indicates a deeper problem, with you, with your perception of the partership, with your perception of your wife’s adherence to the partnership. There’s a problem there, and in my opinion, trains are just the symptom. If it wasn’t trains, it’d be fishing gear or something else.
At some level, you already know this. You expressed no surprise when your wife found the bills and got angry, so that was an expected consequence during every purchase, yet you still made the decision to proceed. Somewhere in the thought process you went through during each purchase is a clue to what is wrong. “I want this loco, I have the money or the credit to buy this loco, I haven’t discussed spending this money with my sworn partner, but…”
You need to figure out what justification follows “but…” in the preceeding sentence and fix it, (or at least recognize it and conciously decide to live with the implications) because if you don’t, the laws of natural consequence have found a seam in your partnership and are working to blow it apart. Fixing it may involve replacing a partner or living with one who isn’t meeting your expectations, or changing something that you have done, or just understanding where the breakdown in the thought process is, but I’m seeing a crack in the foundation there, and once ignored, or plastered over, those have a way of time-bombing on you. I think the train purchases are your way of plastering over a deeper issue.
Shiny new plastic in the display case usually stops me for a second look, but I’m nobody’s fool. I have room for X number of locomotives, and all the marketing hype on earth isn’t going to change that. Once the basic stable of rolling stock and loco’s are in place, throwing money at the layout won’t turn bare wood into rolling hills and superdetailed towns. It’s time to look inward.
Hi, I’m the push an’ shover, and I gotta problem…
I needed 12 steps for MRR, but have perhaps have licked the MRRAA compulsion of buying everything in sight on e-bay. This is how bad it is/was…
I have a 3.5’ by 8.25’ layout with no less than 4 major obstructions (furnace pipes/vents/filter access, etc.) I a bit of a layout but tore it apart except for “most” of the mainline to restructure it better. The demo debris is piled in the middle of the layout now, so nothing can run.
I have maybe 30 locomotives and 100 cars, plus uncounted unassembled buildings stored in the attic. Don’t get me started on the wires, switches, buss terminals, decoders, signals, dcc system, ad nauseum. Complete insanity. There’s no way I can use all this stuff without building a larrge outbuilding on our very small lot.
Off the topic…
zgardner18 you said that your pic was taken at the livingston club layout.
Is that the same club that is in the basement of the Depot?
I was at the depot layout in 1994 on my way to the helena train show.
Do they have a website? I’d like to see it now 12 yrs. later.
I remember it being mostly benchwork at that time…
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by jeffers_mz
Two grand doesn’t go very far when buying locomotives, but spending that kind of money, on multiple purchases, spread out over weeks or months, without telling your wife, indicates a deeper problem, with you, with your perception of the partership, with your perception of your wife’s adherence to the partnership. There’s a problem there, and in my opinion, trains are just the symptom. If it wasn’t trains, it’d be fishing gear or something else.
At some level, you already know this. You expressed no surprise when your wife found the bills and got angry, so that was an expected consequence during every purchase, yet you still made the decision to proceed. Somewhere in the thought process you went through during each purchase is a clue to what is wrong. “I want this loco, I have the money or the credit to buy this loco, I haven’t discussed spending this money with my sworn partner, but…”
You need to figure out what justification follows “but…” in the preceeding sentence and fix it, (or at least recognize it and conciously decide to live with the implications) because if you don’t, the laws of natural consequence have found a seam in your partnership and are working to blow it apart. Fixing it may involve replacing a partner or living with one who isn’t meeting your expectations, or changing something that you have done, or just understanding where the breakdown in the thought process is, but I’m seeing a crack in the foundation there, and once ignored, or plastered over, those have a way of time-bombing on you. I think the train purchases are your way of plastering over a deeper issue.
Shiny new plastic in the display case usually stops me for a second look, but I’m nobody’s fool. I have room for X number of locomotives, and all the marketing hype on earth isn’t going to change that. Once the basic stable of rolling stock and loco’s are in place, throwing money at the layout won’t turn bare wood into rolling
I’ve been to some shows recently. I think when people fill up the back of a trailer with HO stuff they might have a problem. 
[:)]
Hey! Been there, done that! But it’s better to have a trailer than to not have any room for the wife and kids to sit!!![:D]