How much do you spend on Model Railroading? If you are like most of us, it is too much. Particularly when we are married and have a family. Everyone seems to complain about what we spend.
Well, I have a solution. Set up a BUDGET. But you have to include your spouse too.
That’s what I did after getting an ear full of my hobby spending. My wife gets the same amount that I do for her hobbies. If you are wondering what it is, we each get $80 a month. That’s it.
Now she can’t complain. (It started off smaller and increased as we made more money with our jobs.) You would be amazed at how it smooths things over. She can spend her money on what she wants, and she can’t say anything about what you spend, as long as you don’t go over your allowance.
To keep thing separated, I have a checkbook and credit card just for my hobby money and spending. I also have a PayPal account. My wife also has a checking account for her hobby money.
When you are just starting it, you have to be creative to save up for some things. Scratch building is one way. Instead of buying that $75 + kit, find some plans and build it from scratch. Also, if you are really good at something, you can offer your services to other modelers. Three things that come to mind are:
Building kits for others.
Installing decoders in locomotives for others.
Custom painting.
There are more, but you will have to think of them. I do resin casting and sell kits.
Occasionally I do get a new power tool for my hobby, and it comes out of house money as long as I can justify it for home remodeling or some other work related need. You just have to be creative.
I have been wanting to get my own internet buisness started for a long time. Mainly what I would like to do is building kits, and detailingt and wethering railcars and locomotives.
Your idea can work, but it can have pitfalls too. My wife and I both get the same “allowance” every month. No problem right? Well, not exactly, because it comes down to what consistutes a “hobby”. Mine is easy, trains, hers not so easy. She likes sports and does go to some without me, but when we go together, it doesn’t count against her. Her other hobby is the house, but she doesn’t use her allowance for that either since it’s “for the house”. So she saves up her allowance and makes little comments like it’s too bad I blew al my allowance already!
With that said, a bueget to me is a completely different animal and I agree that setting a limit can lead to building stuff yourself (should be posting pics of my scratchbuilt elevator next week).
Like others have said I have made my hobby into a business. I could not afford the brass engines without the business. It keeps me busy especially in the winter time but I love working on trains so I might as well support my habit from it! Some people have way too much to spend…
I have supported my model train hobby for the past 5 years selling Railroad Clocks on Ebay. I had to stop a couple of months ago since my clock supplier stopped selling the clocks I was using, but I am working on a new line that hopefully will suceed. I purchased most of my engines and track this way. I also build and weather building kits that do OK but not as profitable as the clocks. There is always some way to market one of your model hobby skills even if it is only sporadic at times, at least it gives me some spending money. However, I couldn’t begin to estimate how much I have spent on model trains. Probably most of can’'t either,or don’t want to!
There are three basic income streams that pour predictable amounts into three separate bank accounts at predictable times of the month. One is my wife’s - it supports her golf, her casino visits (actually her casino visits break about even) and her collecting addiction. One (the largest) supports all the normal household expenses (and is large enough to run a surplus most months.) The third is mine - some for model railroading, some to support my other interests and enough surplus to have built a sizeable cushion in case something expensive occurs.
I don’t audit my wife’s account. She doesn’t audit mine. We both audit the household account and the credit card statements - but there’s no friction since we both know what’s going on all the time anyway.
As for the credit cards, there are two (one gives us specials at the local supermarket, the other is Visa.) Both get paid off in full every month. (There’s also a MasterCard that saves me the bother of carrying cash, but isn’t used much.) The combined credit limit could pay cash for a replacement if either of our vehicles expire. We seldom use more than a few percent of that in a given month - and NEVER pay late fees or interest.
There are things to be said for being financially secure. (Did I mention that the source of all that income is our rich uncle Samuel, most of it as a direct result of long and faithful military service?)
I suggest you nip that right in the bud. Two can play the “its for the house” game…
That empty spot on the wall by the fireplace???
An excellent location for a new brass Challenger, complete with track and glass case, if I do say so myself.
You could probably use some train-themed “coffee table books” to adorn the various side and end tables in your living room and den. I recently got one called “Steam”, its excellent.
You could probably use some ornamental signaling lanterns, or perhaps some old marker lights fixed-up to put in your den or family room.
Or what about a brass builder’s plate from an old steamer to fill that space beside the stairs?
And did you know there’s a thriving underground market for train-themed dining ware, including full sets of dishes (china), serving ware, silverware, coffee mugs, wine glasses, linen napkins and table cloths-- you name it. I’m partial to the Pennsy look myself… [:-^]
And of course you can pick up all sorts of posters, fine art (even signed by the artist), lithographs, reproductions of various well known artists such as Grif Teller, Winston O Link, and others… p
My wife and I never had an argument on my MRR spendings - maybe just because I am very reasonable and cautious in what I buy. There are of course, many items on my “Me Wants”-list, but most of them I don´t need really, lest I can afford to buy them. I have a simple rule “Never buy anything, that you can´t pay for right away”.
When you go to that big roundhouse in the sky, you can’t take it with you.
Fortunately, our “family sport” of skiing dwarfs the cost of model railroading, so my tracks run under the radar. Over the weekend, I spent $10 at the LHS and then we went to Home Despot and laid out $120 for the garden. Hmmm, maybe I need another locomotive…
Mac … Thanks for starting the thread. Definately is a great idea to have a budget for teh hobby and all other expenses. …
People can enjoy the hobby while being frugal at the same time. This is your model railroad and not the next guy’s, and so there is no need to “keep up with the Jones’s”. Do it your way with your budget.
I like seeing posts here in the MR Forum where people have their “budget fleets”. They rebuild old jinkers and so on.
Oh boy, there’s a fun time! Suprizing as it is, about 90-95% of my locomotive fleet are all seccond-hand “junkers” not yet destined for the scrapyard (O.K., with the exception of 2 or 3 Geeps, but their engines were welded with rust and wouldn’t turn) So far, all run good, and no one expect that the superdetailed locomotives rolling down the tracks are accually seccond-hand Life-Like trainset locomotives that I got for $0.50 adverage . Oh no, did I say that out loud? But really, it’s easy to find great deals at yardsales.
I am lucky because my wife and myself are DINKS (Double Income No Kids) so it makes spending on my railroad a lot easier… I tend to control myself while my wife has encouraged some of my largers purchases since they could be called capital purchases, once I get it I wont need to replace it for years, like my DCC system or buying a boat load of track. Since I got my layout set up for the most part, my spending as gone way down, now it is just a bit of track here and then as I make spur or $20 on trees… instead of several hundred dollars in the beginning.
One thing I discovered about model railroading is that the more time you spend on it, the less it costs. For example: I came upon this theory when I was hand-laying the track on my N-scale layout (30 years ago). I put together a bill of materials and called Caboose Hobbies. For $35 I got all the supplies I needed to keep me occupied as a gandy dancer for 2 years. That’s less than $1.50 per month to be a happy model railroader.
These days, I’ll buy a Campbell Scale Models kit on Ebay and spend a month of evenings building it. $45 for the kit and another $5 in shop supplies - I still get to have a lot of fun for a couple of bucks an evening.
Compare that the buying stuff RTR: a $25 building takes an hour to install - at $25 an hour this hobby costs like golf or skiing. Still, if you don’t have that much time, it might be worth it.
I prefer not to think in terms of how much a product costs, but in terms of how many hours of fun it provides, and what each of those hours costs. As a kit-builder, scratch builder, brass loco restorer, it appears to cost me about $2 per hour to have a lot of fun. That fits the budget pretty easily.
For those occasions when the financial well has run dry, I like to keep a bunch of unpainted people on hand. I can paint about 8 at a time and that occupies me for 4 hours, at pennies per hour.
My recommendation for managing the cost is as follows:
leave your wife’s money alone
build more, buy less
When you are out of money, find an inexpesive facet of the hobby to keep you busy (gleeming track is free).
Boy is this a loaded topic. If I have money nowadays it generally goes to keeping bills paid and food in my face. Being out of work makes you more frugal in your spending, However when I was working and had the money to spend if I needed something it was bought. being single you can do those kind of things. I like the Idea of a budget for your trains though, I think its a good idea, its keeps you from spending too much on something that you may not need right now but thought…what the heck. This coming from a person who has’nt had a layout in over twenty years. And after just getting started again I now find that I will probably be moving again in a short time so there goes that freshly started layout…again. Oh well someday, whilst visons of 2 8 0’s dance in their heads. Keepem on the tall shiny stuff. Neil