Big Pile Shipping and 2011 Spending Total

The BIG PILE has shipped!  That's what the 12 winners envelopes look like, with a little customs form on top for our Canadian winner.  :-)  They went out on New Year's Eve from CA, so should arrive in your neck of the woods sometime later this week.

A lot of people have been talking about collecting goals recently and how they plan to change their behavior in the new year.  I was interested in how much I spent on cards in 2011, so I asked my wife.  My guess was around $175.  I had bought a 2011 Topps Football hobby box ($55), plus a few Ebay purchases, some Sportlots, and some group breaks.  She told me the actual answer...$327.  I had forgotten some supplies, some miscellaneous Target packs, a Craigslist purchase and shipping on trade packages. But that's still a big gap!  Luckily that is not enough to break the bank or cause a problem in our overall financial situation.  However, I do want to be more aware of what I am spending as the year goes on, so I am going to try to track it on the blog to keep it front-and-center in my mind.

I am also going to limit the "accumulating" aspect of my collecting in the first half of 2012 and focus more on organizing and posting things I already have.  I won't pass up a good trade offer or one of my regular group breaks, but will rather try to avoid those days of trolling ebay or Sportlots without a real "need" in mind (none of this is NEEDED, after all).