A Year of Open Accounting - January

cross-posted with A Year of Frugal Gaming

Let the excuses begin...
We'll start with the cold hard facts first, then flannel out figures afterwards.

The month started off on the wrong foot, spending wise, with a ream of Warmachine purchases. Now I had always maintained that there wasn't going to be any more purchases for my Warmachine Cryx until I had finished painting what had already been bought and I was half a Death Jack away from fullfilling that pledge. However the proposed start of a Warmachine league at my Local Store brought forward some purchases that had been anticipated for later in 2011 (namely a unit of Mechanithralls and a second Warcaster). Also on the list of ideal next buys was a Cryx Warjack. I had thought about the new plastic Warjack kit and using magnets to give me 3 different options, but I ended up with 2 Ebay bargains of the same model types for less total cash spend. I don't know if "ideal" purchases count as frugal, but it was a bargain (dangerous words to use I know) and as they were pidgeon holed for 2011 purchases anyway I can give myself a pat on the back for being ahead of schedule. Sort of.

To coat these new purchases I also needed so spray primer. I sometimes use Grey Auto Primer from Halfords but I wanted black for the Warjacks and they don't do black Auto primer, so Army Painter is was (that's what the Local Store sold)

After all these outgoings on the account books I was starting to get nervous and guilty. So the Hobby Shed clearance sale was put into action. Items were targeted with bulk and space taken up as priorties, so a few games were put up for sale (shelf hogging boxes) as were a vaste array of Cthulhu RPG books I had sitting around to sell for someone else (for a % cut). It's been a while since I've sold on Ebay, and I'd forgotten just quite how much work it can be. Searching through ebay and finding their Turbo Lister software helped though. The old debate of how long to run an auction and what day to finish on reared it's ugly head as usual. In the end I plumped to finish on a Saturday night, as that would give me some time to pack the wins (hopefully) on the Sunday and get them out. All a bit of work, but the ball is rolling now, and with more modest auction numbers to come hopefully it'll take up less time over the coming months. More importantly I brought some money in to cover the Warmachine purchases and provide a nice buffer for the next couple of months.
All this has somewhat curtailed my painting time and energy. My six purchased Mechanithralls were done before the Ebaying started but there has been a distict lack of brush cleaning sounds comng from the painting corner of Arabian Towers since then. That and the progress of my DeathJack has been tortuously slow. That beast may have to have another brief hiatus to get the "numbers painted" count up.