Day job/budgeting for cards

[smrtn240]

Originally Posted by abothebear

Here is a few bits from my experience getting back into it over the last 3 years:

On the Money Side-
Set a budget that is reasonable.
Stick to it.
Skimp on a month or two to build a budget surplus that will free you up if that moment comes when you've got to have a card out of your usual budget range.
Don't get into any card that you can't get out of with minimal loss. At the same time, if you are buying cards you love, that value should also be considered. There are a few cards I have that I would still love even if they became worthless overnight.

On the Card Side-
Take your time to figure out what your focus is. Since you can't get them all, what would you be most eager to get? It takes a while, when you have a smaller budget, and even when you don't, to make progress on a particular strategy and it is easy to lose interest in that strategy, and add a second, and third, and fourth focus. And pretty soon you don't really have a focus anymore.

Thanks for the advice everyone... this pretty much sums up what I think happened, I lost focus. Hate to say it but what brought me back in to collecting was when I was laid off from my job and started buying higher end $500+ cards to flip and make a few bucks to pay some bills. I quickly got that warm feeling back(you all know what I'm talking about I'm sure) from owning such cards and found myself getting attached to them again. I need to re-focus and learn to budget better now I guess. Thanks all.. You are a great bunch!