In the spirit of the usual whines about hobby prices, I thought I’d add one of my own. Actually, this is not a whine about hobby prices per se but how the prices we pay for non-hobby stuff (you know, food, clothing, shelter, a set of radials for the family bus) has a grievious impact on the amount of model railroad related material we can buy.
The wife and I took our two grandaughters to Sacramento for a couple of days starting Thursday. Among the places we visited were Old Town and the California State Railroad Museum. We spoiled those two girls rotten, but more on that later. Thursday night, after a nice dinner, I discovered that the left rear tire was extremely low. My first reaction was to groan about having to put that stupid little temporary spare on. It was impossible in the dark to find what the problem was. Fortunately, there was a Wal-Mart nearby, so I went and bought some of that fix-a-flat in a can. Not the best idea, but I had no desire to change a tire unless I was at least back at the motel.
Come the next day we find out that there’s a sizeable chunk of metal stuck in the left rear tire (and the fix-a-flat’s still holding). IOW, it’s not going to be fixable and we’re going to have to replace both tires. They were going to have to be replaced in about 6 months anyway, but there goes time AND money. We get to the COSTCO about 3 miles away and I go into the store to get tires. Turns out they have Michelins (which I normally buy anyway) for $70 off if you buy all four. The problem is, that all four were going to need replacement in about 6 months anyway so it made no sense to buy only two. $399.23 and an hour later, off we and our four new radials go to Old Town and the CSRM, which the girls enjoyed enormously. They also got their pictures taken in those old time costumes.
There are several observations I want to make here. It’s not what you have to
Andre, it is exactly the way you stated it. It is not the cost , it is those unplanned and unwanted expenses that limit our spending on our hobby. I do my modeling on a shoestring budget and have to save up before I can afford to buy even a length of flextrack. Literally, my MRR money is in a cookie jar, and as soon as there seems to be some amount of $$$ in there, the money miraculously vanishes into the nirvana of unplanned household expenses. [:(]
And I don´t even have grandchildren - yet!
Btw, just compare the price of a BLI Paragon PRR Q2 brass hybrid with the all plastic Brawa S2/6 - both are being made in China. The Brawa loco sells for $ 833, which is close to the German retail price.
Andre: I think the grandkids are nowhere NEAR the expense hogs that they’re made out to be! coff coff hack HACK sniffle snuffle HONK!![xx(]
It’s the dang house! My house conspired to bust a pipe joint that sat behind a gyprock wall such that I had to spend $$$$ on a length of copper pipe (ever price them things?), drywall panel, showerhead, cleanup, and a small carton of the good stuff AFTER I had all that extra work to do! And do you know where my hobby $$$$ went? [:(!]
INTO fixing and repairing!! That’s where!!![:(!][:(!][:(!]
OH—and don’t get me started on sales taxes!![|(][:-,][soapbox][banghead]
It’s not only the “big” stuff that’s gotten out of hand!! Spam @ $2.79 or more per can (was $2 last year!), tuna at $1.30+, not to mention gas & utilities!!
No, these things are not going to ruin my hobby budjet, but there are some folks that have to decide between food and medicine - and not just in the third world places we spend way too much on!!
Seems like the whole country is going to Hades in a handbasket!! Let’s get out priorities streight!!
Don’t look for sympathy from me. About 4 years ago, we had to have the sewer pipe from the house out to the street replaced. That was $6,000. Then there was the time the incoming line water line from the street sprang a leak and that had to be replaced. There went another $3000.
Did I mention we’re re-roofing the house this year?
my trick with grandchildren is try to get them honked off at me around the end of november. that way i get out of popping big time for christmas gifts. i usually try to make up with them before spring so i can get some help with the yard work.
Looking back, three beautiful daughters and three drop-dead handsome grandsons, life has been one unexpected expense after another. In spite of all the belly-aching I’ve done and continue to do, it’s all been a fantastic voyage and I wouldn’t change a thing. A good wife and great kids - all the rest is immaterial.
Our railroads are stuck in time, forever repeating a day in a bygone era, for the most part, like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.” The real world marches on, though, and we watch those happy innocent children grow up, hopefully into young men and women we can be proud of, but somewhere along the line they forget the simple joys of making waffles, watching cartoons and, for the most part, playing with trains.
Enjoy every minute with your kids and grand-kids. You can’t get them back.
A recent article in the paper showed the average private sector worker pay to be $47,000 while the average public sector pay was $72,000. How long can this country last with those figures. Just in this state of Taxachussettes public sector pay over $150,000 a year has gone up 30% in the last 18 months. It all boils down to more gov = more taxes = more expense for all needed consumer items = less hobby dollars.
My grand daughter is only a couple months old and I feel bad for her. She is going to be growing up in a world that has been ruined by the leadership of the last hundred years. I don’t look at what she is costing, but what she will be paying for what we have let happen.
Let me see if I can figure this “grandparents” thing out, first these “kids”(a horrible term) are someone elses children, so you are entitled to only 1/2 of them (one of the parents of these children is related to you, the other is not related to you)) and the really big question is you, are ONE set of grandparents, what about the other set of grandparents? remember, there are always 2 sets, who gets most use out of the grandchildren, is there a set of rules and a schedule when it’s your turn or the other set of grandparents to socialize with the children. You are probably not doing the children or their parents a favor by “spoiling” them, remember, there’s another set of gramps and grammas doing exactly the same thing with these children, anyway, it’s all a big mystery to me , let me know how this works.
Somewhere between the tires and the razor blades you seemed to be on a serious tirade about rising prices.
My apologies if you weren’t serious about rising prices being a problem.
Enjoy
Paul
I was actually making fun of such tirades (at least about hobby prices). Or should I say TIRE-ades. The thing originally started out as a rant about tires and how they screwed up the ability to buy hobby items. Then I realized if it weren’t for the grandkids, we wouldn’t have gone to Sacramento which would have meant the left rear tire would have remained undamaged which would have meant that the tires could have waited another six months or so to be replaced.
'Course, we still need to put a new roof on. That’s a lot more expensive than tires and has an even more deleterious effect on hobby purchases.
Don’t look for sympathy from me. About 4 years ago, we had to have the sewer pipe from the house out to the street replaced. That was $6,000. Then there was the time the incoming line water line from the street sprang a leak and that had to be replaced. There went another $3000.
Fellas, it’s okay to mention taxes and their impact on our hobby, but let’s not introduce partisan editorializing that break our discussions into political ones…please.
A recent article in the paper showed the average private sector worker pay to be $47,000 while the average public sector pay was $72,000. How long can this country last with those figures.
So because somebody publishes something that means it’s true?
And even if it’s true does that tell the whole story? How many federal workers flip burgers, work as hotel maids, retail clerks (Wal-Mart, et al.), migrant farm work, etc;, and how many work in jobs that are actually highly paid white collar jobs in the private sector? It would seem to me the types of jobs would skew the data upward.
The real question is not about averages but about private vs. public sector pay for the same job.
Sheeesh! Can’t anyone open up a pity party thread in here without someone stomping around being a grump?
Pity party’s fine with me. Just be aware that I’m holding the real big ticket items in reserve. If there’s going to be a pity party on a thread I started then I intend to make sure that I’m the guest of honor at that party.
As for the grumps, ignore them. They’re pity party poopers.
