Balance

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nowherekid85
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Re: Balance

Post by nowherekid85 »

My personal passions/hobbies are cosplaying and making cosplays, and I go to several cons a year. At the end of each year (usually around October) I try and plan which cons I want to go to the upcoming year. My only responsibility is my job. I own my own business and it will always be just me, so I have all the freedom in the world to do what I want when I want.

I pretty much just work every day and take very few days off, except when it comes to con time, or if I want to travel in general, and I take 4-5 days off in a row. I'm just the kind of person who hates not working.
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nowherekid85
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Re: Balance

Post by nowherekid85 »

Well my business was started just over a year ago and I've only been 100% on my own since last October, so the only bigger goal really is to get to the point where I'm completely booking up. Like everybody in the cel chat group knows, I do mobile doggie grooming so I only can take on so many clients, but for $$$$ I get to have fun with dogs all day. Even if I didn't do that, I would have to find some other way of working by myself for myself because I love the total freedom that it allows. I really don't want to deal with a boss again.

Cosplaying is probably my biggest hobby, but I do like doing other stuff now and then. I finally made it to an out of state con last year and now I want to cosplay overseas sometime! I don't see myself slowing down anytime soon, and I don't think I'd want to quit lol. Pretty much everybody I associate with cosplays too, or has very similar interests. I don't have a kid and have zero interest in raising a family. I just don't deal well with children. No kids also makes it much easier to travel and stuff.

Balancing my time isn't too difficult, but sometimes I just wish there were more hours in the day lol. I'm lucky in that it isn't too difficult to balance things and get to do what I want to do. Although I do pay more care to making sure to balance things financially. I don't like spending money in general, but I have an Inuyasha weakness, apparently, and do have a gigantic collection of both cels and of non-production art stuff, and that's where my spending money seems to go lol. I don't do payment plans. I don't buy items unless I can afford the entire purchase multiple times over, even for my biggest purchases. Even more so now that I have my own business, I need to make sure to have a lot saved up in case there's some sort of catastrophe with my van or something. 8O
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cutiebunny
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Re: Balance

Post by cutiebunny »

Bal-lance? What is this thing that you speak of? This is not a word in my vocabulary.

Nah, this is a real problem for most of the people I know in this hobby. And to a certain extent, it is for me too. When I have to work hard, I spend more money because I feel sorry for myself that I'm being forced to do this work. Summer is a very, very bad time at my job. I work at an airport, and summer is the time of year where it is not uncommon for me to spend a full 16 hours at work, and then drag myself home to sleep for six hours....only to repeat it again the next day. I'm a lot more prone to buying stuff during the summer months than any other time of the year. While some of it is due to purchases made at conventions I've attended, a lot of it really is because I spend more when I work more. I feel the need to reward myself for putting up with it, usually by picking up dinner at Chinese restaurant while at work.

Among the people that I know, I think the biggest reason why many of them have spent as much as they have is the socialization factor. While part of this has to do with the expense of traveling to an out-of-area convention, most of it has to do with bragging rights. They want respect from their friends, all of whom have large, often expensive collections, and want that kind of recognition. I have one friend who revels in protests of "Not you again" because of how much he spends at conventions. Another friend just spent $1K+ on a bunch of Kill la Kill douga being sold at Anime Expo simply so he could say that he has the lockdown on artwork from that series. And I know of one particular Fanime staffer who introduces himself by telling you how many Rumiko Takahashi sketches he has as if that's his sole achievement in life. I don't like this kind of behavior. I want people to collect because they enjoy the artwork, not because they feel that they have to continually keep up with the rest of the group. It makes me very sad when I see friends buy stuff less because they want it and more because they want to maintain their status among a group of friends.
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Gonzai
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Re: Balance

Post by Gonzai »

I have no friends in this hobby. All of my anime friends have all left the hobby or like me,
they still collect but don't share much. I collect for me. However, being Bipolar like I am,
I tend to overbuy when I do, spend a ton of money, and then regret it later. Its got nothing
to do with social status, it is strictly the high that I get at the moment. :wack
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