Do you budget?

Hello! I just bought my second Azone doll (woo!) and I recently saw a video from a doll collector lolita on insta, can't remember her name sorry, talking about how to budget when you have different hobbies. 

Even though I have been a doll enthusiast for a couple of years and I had some dolls before, this is the first time I'm trying to form a collection. Do you have any tips or recommendations when it comes to budgeting and how to keep tabs on the prices of second hand dolls?

9 hours ago, Larkness said:

Do you have any tips or recommendations when it comes to budgeting and how to keep tabs on the prices of second hand dolls?

For keeping tabs on secondhand prices, I would narrow down the list of dolls you really want and then keep records of prices on various sites in an Excel sheet. There’s no point in keeping an eye on dolls you’re not interested in or only mildly interested in because the market fluctuates too much.

For budgeting, you just need to do some simple accounting. Subtract your expenses from your income, then set aside a portion of the remainder for your hobbies (ideally after paying yourself first).

Depending on your circumstances, you might want to build up an emergency fund of anywhere from 3-18 months’ worth of expenses and invest 10-15% of your salary into an index fund for retirement planning, but this is not financial advice 😅 

How much you dedicate to your doll collection is up to you. I don’t really budget per se, but I do keep a mental note of how much I spend each month and how much leeway that gives me to spend the next month. Sometimes I “loan” myself money (budget from another month) when I really want something but will go over the allowance for that month, which means reduced spending the month after.

If you need hard numbers to keep yourself in check, use a budgeting app like YNAB.

6 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

For keeping tabs on secondhand prices, I would narrow down the list of dolls you really want and then keep records of prices on various sites in an Excel sheet. There’s no point in keeping an eye on dolls you’re not interested in or only mildly interested in because the market fluctuates too much.

For budgeting, you just need to do some simple accounting. Subtract your expenses from your income, then set aside a portion of the remainder for your hobbies (ideally after paying yourself first).

Depending on your circumstances, you might want to build up an emergency fund of anywhere from 3-18 months’ worth of expenses and invest 10-15% of your salary into an index fund for retirement planning, but this is not financial advice 😅 

How much you dedicate to your doll collection is up to you. I don’t really budget per se, but I do keep a mental note of how much I spend each month and how much leeway that gives me to spend the next month. Sometimes I “loan” myself money (budget from another month) when I really want something but will go over the allowance for that month, which means reduced spending the month after.

If you need hard numbers to keep yourself in check, use a budgeting app like YNAB.

Thank you for the (not financial) advise haha, I have tried budgeting apps but I always forget to add the expenses 💀 I think I'll give it a try again.

I have a bunch of tabs on my phone's browser with the dolls on my wishlist but I think an excel works better, thanks again! c:

1 hour ago, Larkness said:

I have tried budgeting apps but I always forget to add the expenses 💀

Not sure exactly how YNAB works, but I imagine it’s similar to other apps where you give it read-only access to your accounts and credit cards so that you can automatically see everything that comes in and out every month. No need to manually enter anything.

Honestly my budget advice for dolls is not really money advice per se. It's just this: be patient, and don't fall for FOMO. Everything either pops up on the secondhand market eventually, or it gets a re-release if it's popular (see DDdy Sasara Kudugawa - who was a grail of grails for a lot of people and got a pretty surprise re-release on a better body).

So if you see a doll you really want but can't afford today, take a deep breath, keep being disciplined about saving and watching, and wait. Boring advice, I know, but it's the reality of the beast. 

As far as price tracking, it's honestly just leg work. If I'm waiting to see a girl secondhand, I will check ebay, mercari, and mandarake daily until they make an appearance and just keep a loose mental note. I don't track in a spreadsheet but that is a good idea. I just kinda know off the top of my head what certain dolls cost after a while. There's usually not many true 'deals' to be had in this hobby. They do happen, but not with so much frequency that the dolls need to be tracked like stocks or anything lol.