The Plan

Sooner or later, I’ve got to reign in my spending habits on cards.  So I came up with a plan, and have already begun to enact it.

You see, there are several boxes that have fallen into my price range recently that I have been wanting for awhile, so I want to tear through them over the first quarter or third of the new year/decade.  After that, I hope to dramatically reduce my monthly card expenditure indefinitely, having satisfied the itch for the specific boxes I’d been wanting.

I have the first two boxes from the list coming in January: 2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History (Finally officially on it’s way!) and 2008 Donruss Threads baseball, as well as two packs of ’06 Playoff Football Playoffs bonus packs (Two for a buck less than just one normally costs?  Well if you insist).

Oh, for those creepy enough to keeping score, what’s wrong with you?  And my price range is less than $50 (not counting shipping).

Here’s the list of stuff that’s fallen I want to pick up:

Baseball

2005 Donruss Champions- They’ve been known to drop just into my range on weekends and during special sales.  The base cards and set in general are pretty odd, but I like these a lot and really need to make up for my only hit being a So Taguchi bat card.

2007 Upper Deck SP Rookie Edition- I don’t know why I want a box of this, I just do.

2008 Donruss Threads

2008 Upper Deck Goudey- Just want a retail box.  I need some more Sports Royalty and Hit Parade of Champions.  Collecting both of those.  Anything else is just icing.

2008 UD Masterpieces- A retail box will suffice with this too, though it appears the hobby boxes have dipped into the mid-$30s…

Some topps Jumbo HTA box (most likely from 2008, but we’ll see)- I don’t think I need to justify this to anyone, even if I end up getting fugly 2008s.

2009 UD A Piece of History

2009 Upper Deck Spectrum- It has enough going for it for me to justify at around $40 a box.  I’m leaning towards this for my January purchase.

Basketball

2008/09 Fleer- I love the ’86-’87 and ’88-’89 parallels.  And four hits per box ain’t bad.  I may be poor, but I do loves me some hits.  The amount and potential for being decent weigh into my purchasing decision.  Notice that most of the boxes I want offer up a whole bunch of hits.  I like them for my PCs and also because I love to be a generous trader.  I’ve come to realize that if I can make someone’s day, it makes me feel every bit as good as the great cards I receive in return… And the hits, they help me do that.

/tangent

I badly want some ’09/’10 topps and/or Upper Deck too, but they are out of my range for the time being.

Wrestling

2007 topps WWE Heritage III- A&G minis, baby!  What more needs to be said?

2008 TriStar TNA iMPACT! Wrestling- Two words: Gail Kim.

Non-Sport

Upper Deck Marvel Masterpieces (probably Series 2)- The quest for more sketch cards!  Plus the base cards & regular inserts tend to be hella tight.

Razor Ink Vault- Okay, these aren’t in my price range either, but damn I really want a box.  I was so close to pre-ordering one at just over $40, but couldn’t pull the trigger, and now they are $50-something.

There ya go… I hope I can knock all that out in four months without having to sell a kidney or something.

Oh, and if y’all are feeling generous, my birthday is February 9th (the big two-five), and I’d really love a box of anything on the list above (especially Donruss Champions or Ink Vault) for the momentous occasion.

Err… that was pathetic and shameless and I’m sorry. m(_ _)m

So that’s the plan.  Focus in and get all the stuff I’ve been wanting that I can afford consistently and relatively quickly so I can cut way back for awhile and save some cashola.  It ain’t rocket science, and there is a major potential flaw if many more boxes I might want fall below $50.  But it’s the best way I can think of to keep things going strong for awhile, but also set a real timetable to buckle down and start saving some money.

Now here’s a pretty picture for reading the whole thing:

Project S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is in effect. Oh yes...

Project S.T.A.L.K.E.R. means Sweeping Through All Lovely BrooKes, Even Relics.  Brooke Morales has been in every year of Benchwarmer since the beginning in 1992, and I intend to collect every card of her.

Hooray for Benchwarmer!  Hooray for Brooke!