Collecting How Much do You Spend on Pokémon?

Brave Vesperia

Brave Vesperia

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Hello, fellow collectors and players.

I'm sure some of you were also wondering, how much do you spend on the card game? Do you have a weekly budget, a monthly budget, or even a yearly budget? If any, how large is that budget? Also, do you buy in small amounts at a time or all at once?

Personally, I don't buy as many packs as I used to because my money has been going elsewhere such as food, savings and investments. From time to time though, I enjoy getting a couple of packs every week or two and sometimes I get a booster box every 3 months or so. In-between then I get single cards since I play, although much like packs, I don't get as many as I used to since working on weekends makes tournaments impossible most of the time.

Without further ado, let the discussion begin!
 
I budget ~$30 a week as "fun money," and since my other hobbies have been in a lull for the past month or two, that's all been going toward singles. I spread out the cost of a deck over multiple weeks, picking up the big ticket items and filling in the rest of the order with staples or cheap support rares. I recently bought some packs to trade the online codes, but since I don't have time to attend leagues and trade I don't see the value in random pulls. I also try to set a little aside each month so that pre-releases don't hit the wallet quite as hard.

Being a responsible adult isn't fun. :(
 
Not very much. :p I have €50 a month of disposable income, but that's for all the things I buy for myself, not just Pokémon. So, I buy a couple booster boxes of each Japanese set, as well as occasional promo and gift packs and such when they come with cool promos that I like. Occasionally, I'll get some sleeves if I like the design, or a 3-pack or tin of English cards. A couple times a year I might buy a plushie if I can sneak it past my husband. :) So, maybe €300 or so a year goes into my Pokémon collection, about half of my "fun things" budget, with the rest going into video games and other things.
 
Less than I'd like to but more than I should :)

I try and get one booster box every time a new set comes out. I also buy random blister packs if they are on special in Tesco (and quite often if they're not) and I'll buy cheap (i.e. non-EX) singles if there's a specific deck I'm trying to build.

Assuming 4 booster boxes per year and an average of £10 every two weeks or so on boosters/singles that would come to.... god... £560 per year. That's not even including pre-releases or the £25 train ticket to my nearest league every couple of weeks.

I am never showing my fiancé this thread :)

This is why I would never consider myself truly competitive at Pokemon. It blows my mind when I see guys at league forking out for 4-4 lines of mega EXs and the like. There's a girl at my league who built a Mega Gardevoir deck pretty much from scratch using exclusively Full Arts and Secret Rares. I can't even imagine how much that would cost.
 
My budget is strange. I usually have around $40 on hand at a time, I'll start by getting a few packs from a set to get a few misc. NFE's and Trainers, then I use around $10's worth online to buy cards I need to round out the broken evolution lines I got. For example, when Primal Clash came out, I got 6 packs. After that, I used money to finish off the Ludicolo line I got, the Flygon line, the Medicham line, and the Blaziken line.
 
For me, I buy a box a set (80), go to 1 prerelease (so 50 dollars), a few packs in the store on the days before release (30), and also buy some singles to complete my decks (50-100).
So like 250 every 3 months, or like 1,000 a year. It used to be a lot more when I bought more packs and not singles, but at the same time I have a job now and have more disposable income at the moment.
 
I started getting back in the game not too long ago so I was dropping like 40-50 a week on boosters (I know, singles are better but w/e). I decided to go to League earlier than I planned ( I didn't have a deck built or enough stuff for one so I decided to wait till I had one) and I had a friend who traded me some stuff for decks and such. In 2 weeks I managed to double my binder content through trades and weekly tournament winnings and I only spend 20 bucks a week. Shows what a League can do for ya, haha
 
Tournament Entry Fees, gas money, and hotel rooms are all I spend on it. I trade for all the cards I need.
 
Gosh Brenton, I don't even want to think about how much I spend on Pokemon xP But it seems fun to figure it out, so I'll give it a go.
So, every Japanese set I buy about 3 boxes, a pack or two of sleeves, and the deck. (with shipping and all, it's about $100 a set). = $400 a year
Every English set, I usually buy an Elite Trainer Box, so that's (about $42 a set). = $168 a year
(except with Roaring Skies I splurged and bought myself a booster box of it)
So just with purchases for the boxes, that's about $568 a year.

And then I'll usually splurge and buy a few promo boxes during the year (probably $100 worth for the year).
Then, single packs. I might buy a few (5 or so) whenever I've got some extra money in my grocery budget. So I'm responsible here aha.

So, probably close to $750 a year. And that's a lot to me, since I'm in college. Hopefully after two more years of college, I'll be done here, and I'll have more money so that I'll be able to buy more x)
 
For me I think Maximinn's answer says it all. Not what I'd like but more than I should. I don't normally buy boxes but when you think about the EX's and FA's just spending the money to get those costs about twice as much as one box only without all of the other cards that really don't get much use. Then we add in all the random holos and other such cards I want (like an alternate typing line of a Pokémon such as the fairy Gardevoir in Ancient Origins, I'll get reverse holos of that line except Gardevoir if it can be a regular holo instead) and the assorted promos in a set...yeah, more than I should but not the amount I'd like.
 
It really depends. Considering that when I'm in Ireland it's more or less impossible to find booster packs or decks, I tend to splurge on packs when I'm in the UK. Even then I try to have a limit, maybe £30 a week (10 packs at least)
 
I've been saving my money lately. I used to spend so much on Pokemon I lost count. However ever since I got the Plasma Eevee decks I haven't spent much since those have been my competitive decks. Otherwise I just buy singles once in a while and trade. Used to spend at least $60-$100 a month during BW which was a bad idea and I cut down on it. This was mainly because I didn't really know what else to do because I usually played in fun tournaments and had POP Promos so I didn't really INVEST money into Pokemon. Then after Gen 5 it was like "Ahahaha....There goes all my hope. TIME TO ACTUALLY BUY CARDS"

Lately I've just been trying to stick with trading as my main source of deckbuilding. So at the moment I'm working with a very VERY low budget. The lack of proper VGC support at League and in general also kind of hurts cause I'd rather play the video game than card game at the moment.
 
For me like $50 a year. Car gas to go to the Pokémon Leagues 2 or 3 times a week do not count.
Mostly on figures, single cards and a few other merch.
 
I don't pay more than £6 for a single card on principle. However, my solution to getting more expensive cards is to sell my pulls and put the money into a "Pokemon fund" which I can then redistribute. So I end up spending more on packs than singles.

That said, I tend to buy about 10 packs for £20 everytime a new set comes out (with the exception of Ancient Origins, which I'll be getting a box of) and then it's generally league entry/the odd blister pack for £10. So...hmm...usually that's about £50 every few months, including any singles.
 
This is the exact reason i invested alot of money into huge amounts of products a year ago to start selling casually on ebay. I sell cards to get money to buy cards for my collection and it worked out alot better than i thought it would!! I am constantly selling hundreds of dollars worth of cards a month so that in turn gives me a few hundred extra to spend for myself.
so i would i spend about 100 a month out of my actual job money and about 300 to 400 a month from selling cards!!
I had to find some way to feed my card addiction and still be able to support my astronomy and guitar obsessions lol although I've been playing guitar since i was 10 so i have more than enough equipment already haha
all my hobbies i have been into have supported themselves by selling omd equipment to buy new equipment and the same goes for pokemon cards!!
If you could find a way to save up some extra funds to invest in bulk pokemon cards to sell i would recommend it because it would give you extra funds to buy for yourself.
I have consistently been able to buy a case of booster boxes of each new set for the last 6 months and still be able to pay for a house , car etc etc and still have extra play money!! All because i invested alot into the hobby early to sell!!
 
I usually get 4 packs of cards a month, with the exception of my birthday and christmas (2 months) where I get around 12 packs of cards. I never buy english boxes and I've bought 3 Japanese Boxes in the last 3 years (around 50$ per box). I also buy a card on ebay every two to three months, I usually keep the price range to around 15$.

4 packs of cards is worth $16. 12 packs is $36.

$16 x 10 = 160 + 36 x 2 = 72 160 + 72 = 232

Last year I bought 5 Ebay cards. 15 x 5 = 75

232 + 75 = 307. I also bought a Wild Blaze box last year. 307 + 50 = 357. That plus two prerelease fees (60$) = 417.

So I spent 417 American Dollars on Pokemon cards last year. However, I did sell around 20 bundles of 100 commons, uncommons, and rares on ebay. I made 180$ off of that.417 - 180 = 227$. Around the price I expected.
 
I'm very picky about what sets I want to collect.

I'll usually buy one box and see what I get. Afterwards I'll wait around a year for the prices on the cards to drop and buy up the rest for my collection.

But since I went to collecting older sets, I try to find good deals on cards I still need.
 
I save up money and then spend hundreds at a time. But a lot of my stuff is kept sealed, so I am not sure if that counts, because I slowly sell it. At first as a kid, spent about 3/4 of my money if I am going to be honest, on packs, a few decks, mostly blisters, and a few tins. Blisters used to be the best, at target for $10 with three packs, and I remember always getting new stuff, not the old school ex packs, which I would do anything for now (except pay $20 a pack...). About 3 years ago I only would buy packs if I got a great deal on a pack lot, getting non-weighed packs for under $2 a piece. Then I started buying singles, probably around $25 a month, except for May through July being $200 for those months. Recently I got into the Japanese market, and began buying in bulk when a great product was released. So then I probably spent about $500 on a giant order twice a year, and then$50 for every other month, but sales would cut the cost down to around $10. Examples of big orders were for the release of the mega metagross Japanese blister packs, I bought 6 boxes of them, with 6 blisters each. I also got some xerneas/yveltal 6 pack blisters, and shipping from amiami is outrageous. And now I get more for the money though, because the yen dropped. So I purchased 4 boxes of 12 jumbo rayquaza packs, 20 packs of sleeves, 2 boxes of 6 mega rayquaza decks (the rayquaza ex cards from these sold for so much! one of the best investments), a box of 6 double crises blisters, and a few rayquaza deck boxes. And now I just ordered 10 pikachu make believe sets for $350. That was really lengthy, but sometimes while reading these forums, I just feel as though people could get more for their money like I do, but then again, I had to save a lot for the initial investments, and yes, I do open packs too. So overall I would say like $1000 per year over the years.
 
My deck budget depends on which of my favorite Pokemon are printed. I know when Pidgeot EX comes out, I'm going to "gold" out my whole deck.
 
I have two draft groups currently, so I do one 8 pack and one 6 pack draft for pretty much every set. I also buy singles, but seldom actually buy a complete EX deck and just borrow the cards for tournaments.

I guess that comes to about 70€ per set, plus possible sleeves and such.

I haven't bought any booster boxes yet, but I'm thinking about getting one box of the Ancient Origins set.
 
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