I have, from time to time on this blog, talked about being a frugal gamer and hobbyist. Most of my reasoning behind it just came from the notion that thrift was, without context, a virtue. Saving money is good.
But now I am convinced beyond doubt that saving money is a necessity. I don’t want to delve into partisan politics on a hobby blog, but it is irrefutable that items are more expensive, especially imported ones, that many economic factors are in decline, and that it is unlikely to change any time soon. That concern seemed to latch onto my hobby pursuits more than anything, likely because it is one few “discretionary” expenses in my life, even if it is a minor one compared to car payments or credit debt or medical expenses. A penny saved is a penny earned, as they say.
I also realized that I had been quietly, almost subconsciously hoarding hobby material, but not physically. I had several subscriptions that were dumping dozens of 3D printing files into my library at a rate far greater than I was using them. It would be almost impossible for me to keep up at the rate I was spending money and acquiring these items.
So, I have decided to once again take a modicum of control and thrift in my hobby life. You already saw an early sign of it with the Mantic dwarves; these were part of a large haul a friend of mine gave me YEARS ago when he moved. While I haven’t fully explored the big bin pictured above, there are dozens of them. Do I need them? Maybe. I have a dwarven faction in my D&D game that antagonizes the PC’s and these guys could stand in easily. But mostly I paint to paint, not to play, so who cares what it is? There are also a large number of orcs, elves, sci-fi soldiers, and others all bundled up in tubs in my basement. Enough to likely last me a year.
That same hoarding tendency is true of Kickstarters. I am a sucker for a shiny object and I realized when I opened up my “Backed” list online that I had many Kickstarters that I had not even touched. I have even considered doing a sort of retrospective where I go back, dig up and old Kickstarter, and partake of its offerings. Something to consider…
So we will see how this works out. What changes, if any, are you making to your own hobby pursuits these days? I’d love to know.
Strange Vistas 
Cancelling all my patreon and stl subscriptions happened 1-2 years ago. I too couldn’t keep up with the firehose of materials. I’ve occasionally tried to maintain a ‘1 out, 1 in’ principle where I need to paint/gift/sell a mini before I get more. I’ve held the line pretty well this year. I have some parcels with minis I haven’t even opened it’s so ridiculous.
There’s definitely a point where I have asked myself, “how much is really going to get painted not just this year, but ever?
I have, in addition to the “go back and print your Kickstarter” goal also considered the “try to print and paint every mini in a single month’s offering from this guy you bought it from two years ago” goal.
I find I do more actual painting when I can kite around and work on whatever I feel like (needless to say I have a LOT of half finished minis). I really don’t like making it feel like a task/job/duty. Organizing a regular paint night (via discord) has been very helpful. At a minimum I’ll be painting for 2 hrs a week. I do remember there was a blog that was working through the original bones minis and encouraged people to paint, photo, and submit their work. It was a fun communal project for a while. One mini a week is not the way I normally work (big batches), but it was fun to try a new approach.
One of the side effects of the various Revolutions of the past two centuries— the Industrial Revolution, the Commercial Revolution, the Technical Revolution, and the Energy Revolution — is that there will be far more stuff than human beings can process or use… for a long while. The worlds of our fantasy role playing games are often worlds “made only by hand”, felled trees become hewn timbers, become planks and rails, become tables and chairs and spoons, only through mortal effort.
And I think it leads to rather strange results, that so much can now be produced with relative passivity