Solving the money, space, time conundrum

When I tried this blogging lark before, I wrote a piece about three principle factors that impact hobbies - money, space and time.   

Six years on and I think that this piece is more relevant than ever so I thought I'd do an update on how these factors have changed for me in the intervening years.

Money is such a hot topic at the moment which everything seeming to get more expensive by the week.  I've been lucky (ie. worked hard and been careful) and have disposable income.  However, as I wrote back in April this year hobby costs have risen and this has modified my purchasing.  So the financial impact on the way I approach the hobby has increased.

Space has always been an issue and as I've kept adding to my collection and become interested in yet morenew periods, there's been even more of a squeeze (literally) on the space I have available.  I've had to make a conscious effort to limit my book buying over the last year with bookshelves groaning under the weight.  Most rulebooks I now buy in PDF format and only print those I'll game with.  Part of my plan for the last part of the year is to look at improving the storage of all my hobby stuff.  The space issue is therefore also exerting a change on the way I approach the hobby.

What about time?  Here we have seen an improvement.  Back in 2016 I was spending a minimum of 16 hours a week commuting.  Although this improved with an extra day at home, I was still spending around 4 hours a day commuting.  And then we had Covid which was the game changer.  A lot of those projects that had been sitting there got done.  On returning to work I've had a change in location reducing the commute and also another drop in days, being only required to go in twice a week.  That's increased my hobby time which has been great so I can't complain on this aspect.

So what can I do to balance the other two factors?  Something that helps on both the financial and space fronts is to look at smaller scales for new projects.  At the moment I'm very interested in 10mm.  I have a few hundred Punic Wars figures in this scale and while I've been sorting these out, I've begun to really appreciate them.  10mm offers a satisfying compromise of an enjoyable painting experience (figures still have detail), is affordable and easier to store. 

So there we have it, I'll no doubt ramble on more about this at some stage down the tracks. 

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