Graphing Financial Poverty

Urged by Stripey’s figure stats and graphs, I took a few moments to look at my past two years of spending to see just where all my dirty drug money was going. After gathering all the data and converting them to graphs, I’m honestly surprised I any money at all.

Be prepared for fugly excel graphs and a lot of “WTF was I thinking at the time” comments!

General anime related spending for the past two years. The numbers used are rough estimates, give or take 100USD, but do give a good overall view of my spending trend thus far. Some random observations of note:

• I’ve easily doubled my spending from 2006 to 2007. Most likely having to do with small increases of pay here and there, me having little restraint, or god knows what else but 2006 me seems to have at least tried to stay within a ballpark spending range. Not so much for 2007 me ^^;;
• Beginning of 2007, it looks like I tried to set a hard limit of alloted anime related spending… which worked well for the first 2-3 months but went down hill starting April.
• Heaviest spending seems to come towards late spring/early summer and fall.
• Ever since I had a stable job, I never not spent at least over 100USD per month on related goods. Then again, considering the merchandise I buy usually just two items alone will total over 100USD easily. Stupid expensive R2s and figures I tells you.
• Almost everything is shipped via EMS if not ordered within the US. Numbers used also factored in said cost, which means if I was more of a cheap arse and patient, I could probably save a few hundreds per year just on shipping alone :aorz:

Now to break down my annual spending by type to see just what fancied my tastes that year. For 2006, looks like I mostly bought R1 DVDs probably in part due to TRSI and their almost weekly awesome studio sales. Coming in second are a tie between figures (which could be PVCs, gashapons, plushies, or tradiing figures) and print (manga or artbook/mooks); actually surprised by how much manga/artbooks I bought considering they usually get looked at once and that’s it. Almost as surprising is how little R2 DVDs I purchased as it felt like I got more but considering how expensive they are, it would only make sense I tried to pick up R2s I thought had no chance of R1 or really really really liked; i.e. 1/3 of those purchases are the Fate/Stay Night anime even though I knew it was going to get released here in the states.

Moving on to this year, it seems I switched gears and bought more figures and less R1 DVDs. In fact, quantity wise both 2006 and 2007 look roughly the same yet this year I’ve spent a lot more. For anyone collecting anime goods, I think it’s pretty easy to see the cause is the switch to purchasing more figures, which usually are 2x the amount of any given R1 DVD. Other than the switch to more figures, looks like I cut back a lot on print related goods which mostly has to do with my lack of shelf space and reason(s) mentioned before. Really the only anime related print merchandise I vaguely eye nowadays are artbooks/mooks, as noted in one of my more recent entries.

So overall, I pretty much stick to the same amount of items but which type varies year by year. Of course, it seems I go towards a downward spiral of choosing the more expensive items and thus never see any extra money when everything is said and done. Well, at least I have 2D plastic females and DVDs to keep me occupied right? ^^;;

Just for kicks, I also ended up graphing out my major tech related purchases for the past two years. Usually these purchases are the ones where I end up thinking “WTF why did I just buy this again?” and most likely than not, said items end up gathering dust soon after.

Since the list is rather small, I’ll break it down one by one:

• PSP (2006): Always wanted one once I heard you could do homebrews and play import games without any issues. So one day out of the blue just walked into Best Buy and bought one. Of course, this was after the price dropped a little so it wasn’t too much but still was a random purchase. Since then, I’ve rarely play the thing although that may change in a few months once Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku comes out
• Dell 24″ LCD (2006): Yet another random purchase. I think the only reason I bought it was because Ben’s Bargain had listed it being on “sale” at the time. That or I just felt like I needed a new monitor… honestly not sure which ^^;; The 24″ did me well for the 1 year in my use, until I upgraded this summer, which at that point I gave the Dell to my brother whom seem to not mind the free monitor at all.
• InFocus IN72″ Projector (2006): And the random spending contiues. I honestly blame Woot for this one. Minus the small initial issue, the IN72 was a fricking awesome upgrade in the personal home theater department. Let me say I spent many of hours watching anime and the like on the little beauty. All that changed when I upgraded my monitor this summer, which has now left the projector gathering dust and acting as more junk in my room. Hopefully this will change in the next year or so… but more on that when the time comes.
• SQS Q-Line 650W HTS (2006): Hey, I needed a new sound system if I was going to use the projector right? One of the few major purchases from 2006 that I’m still currently use as it is my all-around sound system for any audio component I have in my room. HDTV, PS3, DVDs, PC, etc. It’s been going strong although the remote’s volume buttons seem to be broken so now I have to manually change the volume. Not too much of issue but can get annoying at times.
• Wii (2006): I’ve thoroughly explained the Wii purchase awhile ago. Since then, however, I’ve barely used the Wii and it’s currently unplugged and gathering dust in a corner of my room. I keep meaning to leave it hooked up in the living room but general laziness and no one really using the system still keeps the Wii as just another piece of junk in my room.
• PS3 (2006): My adventure on this purchase has also been thoroughly talked about in the past. The good news, however, is unlike the Wii I’m still using the PS3 til this day. Mostly using it as my R1 DVD player thanks to 1080p output, the PS3 has easily become the most expensive DVD player in the house. With some interesting games coming out in the future, I should see myself actually using the system for gaming like it’s suppose to be but more on that once said good games come out
• WestingHouse 37″ (2007): It’s been blogged already, and all I can say is the sweet monitor is still in use today. Basically my one-in-all video input source for the computer, PS3, DVD, and digital TV (HDTV looks hot on it!) with no regrets at all!
• Microsoft Zune 30GIG MP3 Player (2007): Just ordered through Woot so more on this little baby once I have it in my hands. Do know it was a real random purchase but at the cost was just too irresistible not to get. Plus my current MP3 player, the iRiver H10, while still working great is becoming a slight pain to deal with… heh, who am I kidding? I just wanted the Zune since the screen is sweet, I can do my own wallpapers, and it displays album art none of which the iRiver can do!