2012-->2013, part 2: money money money mooooney...MOOOONEY!

Yesterday I covered my 2012 and 2013 resolutions, then promised that I would return today to talk about the financial aspects of my collecting habit, both last year and going forward.

After June I posted a mid-year look at my spending and selling, and I'm proud to report that I stayed disciplined enough that I continued to record every purchase (and sale), no matter how tempting it might have seemed not to do so.  That would have been a massive waste of time, though, and there really was no point in not keeping an accurate running total so I could keep my spending reasonable.  Also, I've maintained that I try to be reasonably transparent with my spending on my blogs, and I feel that I've lived up to that.

So today, you get to see my net spending for an average (?) year in my collecting life, including how often I bought stuff, where I was most likely to purchase cards, how I did trying to sell, and maybe some other useful info.

Before I begin, a few notes:

• Anything I purchased with "house money" such as gift cards, eBay bucks, and even bottle returns (a gray area, yes, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want) didn't count towards my spending total, though if those only covered a part of a purchase, I prorated the price accordingly.
• Purchase totals for online sources include delivery costs.  Basically, I was good about reporting the full price paid every time I bought something.
• Purchase totals for retail include Michigan sales tax.
• Selling totals (I believe) don't take into account what I had to pay to ship those items; I felt like it would be more interesting to capture the total price of each sale, especially since shipping costs are pretty much implied when you sell over the Internet.
• I didn't track spending on packaging for and shipping of trade packages and giveaway items.  I think of trading as a zero-sum game (where everyone wins!) and while those costs are a necessary evil, I don't believe they merit meticulous tracking.
• I also didn't include the cost of any supplies I purchased for myself, such as boxes, sleeves and top-loaders.  While those purchases are related to what I spend on this hobby, I also don't feel they merit consideration when looking at yearly spending.

Ok, on with the show!  First up are some buying numbers and charts:

Let's get down to some stats, shall we?:

• Total spending:  $3,173.76
• Average monthly spending:  $264.48
• Most spent in one month:  March ($533.72)
• Least spent in one month:  December ($0!  I can't remember the last time I went this long without buying anything!)
• Largest individual purchase:  $300 for the "IPP" lot of Michigan Wolverines on March 30
• Source purchased from the most:  COMC, $1,463.55
• Source purchased from the least:  Group breaks, $24
• Average spending per source:  $396.72

COMC clearly ruled the roost here, accounting for nearly half my 2012 spending, and for good reason:  I love buying me some singles, and so far there hasn't been any other place that's been such a reasonable source for collecting my favorites.  Look for that to continue this year.

eBay was the next most useful, and I really did pick up some exciting stuff for my PCs this year, mainly in terms of the Michigan collections, but not entirely.  Similarly, my spending at card shows included zero dollars spent on boxes, with all of it going towards my baseball and Michigan PCs, trade bait, and autographed memorabilia.

While I don't have numbers for my 2011 spending, I can tell you for sure that I spent a LOT less on Blowout this year as those boards have kind of devolved in my opinion over the last few months.  No loss, though--there's always other places to spend my money!

That $300 in-person purchase, while costly, was most certainly a boon to my Michigan PC, especially because of the fact that I picked up both a good number of high-end stuff and a bunch of new players for the football collection.

The $200+ I spent on retail was my biggest regret of the year, but looking at that number gives me plenty of motivation to avoid the same mistake this year.  Meanwhile, I certainly don't regret joining Dimwit's group break, but as I explained yesterday, I don't see myself participating in any breaks this year.  I may, however, spend a bit more on a site like SportLots as I seek to complete a few more baseball and football sets.

Overall, I spent a good chunk of change, but I added so much useful stuff (and relatively little junk) to my PC that I can say without a doubt that it was worth it.

Next up, a look at how I did with some sales:

NOTE:  the eBay total above is $55.

And some stats:

• Total sales:  $769.75
• Average sales per month:  $64.15
• Most sold in one month:  July ($222.75)
• Least sold in one month:  as you can see, there's a bunch of zeros up there...
• Largest individual sale:  $200 for multiple lots on the Blowout forums.  Technically, I sold more in one day on COMC, but that included many individual sales along with one large port sale.  So for the purpose of this post, the Blowout lot wins it
• Smallest individual sale:  $0.50 for a 2001 Topps Chrome Adrian Gonzalez on COMC
• Source sold to the most:  COMC, $430.75
• Source sold to the least:  eBay, $55
• Average selling per source:  $256.58

I hadn't really planned to dabble too much in selling this year, but in the process of trying to get rid of unwanted stuff earlier in the year, I put up a bunch of lots over the course of a few days on Blowout and did fairly well.  Later, I finally jumped into COMC head-first and had a blast dumping some unwanted trade bait for some store credit, all of which I promptly spent (and plenty more!).  Finally, during my 2012 Topps Football frenzy I managed to sell a Drew Brees manupatch and Chris Houston 1/1 for a bit more cash.  The fact that I totaled more than $750 absolutely amazed me, and while I can't possibly hope to replicate those results this year (thanks to a dearth of cards to sell, really), that gave me a bit more spending room for the year, which you can tell I think I put to good use.

And lastly, but most importantly, a look at my net spending:

• Total spending - total sales = $3,173.76 - $769.75 = $2,404.01
• Net spending per month:  $200.33

See?  My $2,400 yearly budget I decided upon yesterday wasn't entirely pulled out of my ass!  Besides being an easily calculable $200 times 12 months, that's almost exactly what my net spending was last year, and I see no reason to change that considering the results I had.  The only difference between then and now, as I said, is that I probably won't get involved with selling much, if at all, this year, so look for the total spending number to decrease accordingly.  That's not a problem as far as I'm concerned:  I'm happy to work on getting better at scoring nice deals, plus that'll get me that much more motivated to attain my goal of 100 trades, which might have a bigger stake in terms of being a source of incoming cards for 2013.

Well, I hope this admittedly numerical analysis-heavy look at my 2012 spending was as interesting and informative for you as it was for me.  I'm thrilled to be able to find ways to improve so easily this year, and I'm already aware of how little effort it really takes to track my card spending, so you can be sure I'll be repeating that this year!  Here's to a more frugal but fruitful 2013!

Fun with Blogger stats (no really, it's pretty interesting and there's not much math involved)

(Please don't let the title scare you--you're reading the blog of an English major with an aversion to math that's more complicated than total bases divided by at-bats; there will be no quiz.  Also, there may end up being more images than numbers!  OH NO, THAT'S A RATIO!)

Math is hard!

I realize this is a bit of a throwaway topic for some, but it's something I've been wanting to do for a while.  I often compulsively check my Blogger stats just to see how many people are reading my blog, who referred them, which posts are most popular, etc.  It's kind of fun and often fairly enlightening, and sometimes it's even a bit surprising, but most of the time it's just plain entertaining.  With all that said, here are some fun, enlightening, surprising and entertaining stats:


Where you're from:

In Soviet Russia, bloggers follow yoooooooooooooooou

Naturally most of my audience is from the States, but I have a surprising number of readers from Russia, Germany and Slovenia.  That, or a few of you love to read my blog several times a day while you're downloading porn through a proxy.  Either way, thanks!  I figure my popularity in Russia is due to my communistic leanings during group breaks, where I like to do my best to see everyone get their fair share of good stuff.  Since we're doing stats, here's a useful chart:

For me the biggest surprise here was that another primarily English-speaking country like Canada, represented here by Ralph Wiggum, 

wasn't higher up on the list.  Finally, if you're reading this from Sweeden, sweet little baby Jesus why aren't you outside ogling your extremely hot women?

Page hits here I come!

What you're reading:

Note:  this blog opened for business on 8/28/10

This ends up being just about my favorite metric to look at because I'm always surprised by what the most popular posts end up being.  First of all, the huge spike in January of this year is easy to explain:  some of you might recall my epic run of purchases from the Blowout forums, which I was posting for quite a while.  I made quite a few buys and some of the stuff was pretty exciting, so I'm not too surprised that a lot of you were interested.  Five of those posts are in the top 10, including the #1 and #4 spots.  I can't really come up for a reason for the June spike, though.
#2 might have benefited from being in the middle of that explosion of excitement/quality (much like shows that succeeded after Seinfeld made Thursday "Must See TV.").  That was my third trade with BA Benny, and it was a pretty good one, though I can't identify anything about it that screams "This is the second best post you've ever done!"  Chalk it up to Mike being awesome plus the Seinfeld effect of the Blowout Blowout, I guess.
#3 is actually one of my favorites because there's a good variety of stuff, including a few exciting bits.  Beardy sent me an awesome trade package that November, and I led off with that.  I was most ecstatic about my Michigan quad autograph that I won on eBay.  Finally, I recapped the replacement packs Topps sent me because I was shorted one in a 2010 Topps Chrome football value pack, and the big winner here was actually a big loser:  Jimmy Clausen, in the form of an autograph I later sold.  Again, I couldn't point to a factor that made this top-five material, so in this case I'll attribute it to everyone loving Beardy.
I'll stop with #5 for the sake of relative brevity.  The popularity of this one is just about the least surprising to me because this was the point when I began posting my PC of baseball RCs, most of them being classic older cards, which I think struck a nerve with some of the veteran collectors around here who might be a bit jaded about the direction in which RCs have gone recently (count me in).  I'm hoping it made some of you go back and admire your own rookie card collections since they surely include some of your favorite players.


What you're using to read this:

Let's see, 25% + 8% = 33% of you that are awesome and use Firefox or Chrome instead of IE or the other less-desirable options (though I have nothing against Opera). 

Not bad, only about 8% of you are hipster douches that are too busy being smug to comment!


How you got here:  referrals:

Ever since I bribed a bunch of you to link to me, I've been getting good numbers of hits from being on some of your blogrolls.  My number one source of hits, though, is definitely the excellent Sports Card Blogroll.  If I didn't use Google Reader to aggregate all of the awesome blogs I follow, I'd definitely be on this every day.  As it is, I still use it to find new and interesting blogs to follow (although my number one source for new items is definitely blogrolls and trade posts on other blogs).
The rest of my top 10 is filled out by some pretty popular bloggers:

• dayf of Cardboard Junkie, who did an awesome job pimping my bribes for links post    
• Night Owl of Night Owl Cards, who did his awesome "What's the Best Card In the Package" feature for my trade with him
• Ted from Crinkly Wrappers, whom I'll surely trade with one day since somebody has to take my Blue Jays!
• Mike of BA Benny's Card and Pack Rip Cafes, who's making up for not sending as many pageviews my way by constructing a pneumatic delivery system between our houses since we trade so often
• Johnny/Hiflew of Cards From the Quarry, a.k.a. Purple Rain, my favorite Colorado blogger
• Beardy's old blog, so we'll attribute this to the excellent Mojo Beard blog, the best triumvirate of card bloggers I know of
• Spankee of My Cardboard Mistress, a guy who lives by Jefferson Burdick's philosophy (though hopefully without the crippling injuries)
• All About Cards, which is a great source for card news and box breaks, including one of the better ideas I've seen in the blogging business--their SpeedBreak
• Drew of Drew's Cards, a Yankee collector I can somewhat forgive because he collects Granderson

A big thanks to all of you on this list and everyone else who links to me.  I always return the favor and I never add someone to my blogroll without following them in Google Reader, leading me to a huge collection of awesome and entertaining blogs that help me enjoy the down times throughout my day.

Searches:  useful and not-so-useful:

While these are sometimes interesting, I do this mostly for the hilarity factor, mainly because I love using funny and/or popular pop culture references in my posts.

All-time

Well I'm glad people are finding me when they search for "Too Many Grandersons", although the ones that are searching for my URL could probably save themselves a step....  I mainly wanted to show this to prove that this many people are searching for "unfrozen caveman lawyer" which I've referenced at least once.

This month (July-August, 2011)

Awww, nothing hilarious here.  I do think it's cool that people were finding me after search for Jon Runyan, though.  Oddly enough, I only have the one hit of him.

This week (August 3-10, 2011)

I'm saving "Uncle Sam Earth" for the next section, but I love that I've used "fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuu" enough that somebody searched it and ended up here.  I also love that I just googled "fffffffffuuuuuuu" and got back "Did you mean: fffffffffuuuuuuuu ?"

Today (August 10, 2011)

To the three people that searched "uncle sam earth" today alone, I want to marry you all and start a sect that embraces polygamy, baseball cards and The Simpsons.  I've used this image several times,

and I don't blame anybody else who'd want to use it.  To those of you that searched boring stuff and got here, turn around and go back to Shelbyville and your attractive cousins.


I hope this has been interesting for at least some of you, and I also hope that it gets you to look at your own stats if you haven't been doing that.  If not, you might be surprised (or entertained) by what you find.  Who knows, it might inspire you to become the #1 google result for "Topps collation is like testicular torsion while Black Eyed Peas music is blared in the middle of the English riots."