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Out side from my day job ( metal finisher ), I collect scrap metal, and sell it. You would be surprized at what you can find around the block on garbage day. Copper, brass ,aluminum, pop cans etc. Everything is sellable. It all ends up in China though, prices go up and down, like the stock market, but it helps to pay for my hobbies. I mean after the house payments, car insurance, food on the table, GAS!!!, etc, it doesn't hurt to get some extra scratch. For example I'm making a run today, and just finished zipping a saws all through 4 aluminum rims to get the rubber off, not easy but its going towards my want list funds. Does anybody do something similar.

i use cash i get at work (not on the pay check, aka wife doesn't know about) and gift cards i get through a work program to pay for most of my rc needs.

I started with just buying some stuff little by little, $15-30 bucks at a time, just from regular spending cash. after I picked up a good 'base' I started buying/selling/ and trading out of that stock lot. I also make parts for people, so any profit goes back in the pot,as it were. I more or less use my Paypal account as my 'hobby' account. Oh, currently at '$0.00'

with the kids and going home for lunch every day now, I'm using what I usually used for Happy Hour or lunch money, hah.

I was expecting to pay a larger tax bill than I did. So that kick started me getting back into rc. It cost quite a lot to build up tons of new spares from nothing! Once up and running the costs will be minimal, I hope.

Typically the Paypal account is RC money. I do contract work and so I am at several different locations throughout the week- so not only do clients and their employees know me as the 'rc guy', most of the people in adjacent offices and buildings know me as that nut who flies his planes at lunch in the parking lot.
I get handed old stuff all the time (a lot of it goes right in the trash), and occasionally I'll get something new too (a very nice temp left a NIB Parkzone Mustang- the brushed version- on my desk as her son-in-law had left it at their house when he lived there several years ago and she got tired of moving it around-- don't worry he told her to give it to someone who would use it!... which we will this summer. ). I also get offers to buy lots off people (my uncle left this stuff or my dad just wants the junk out of his house), so sometimes I resell to get funding for my projects. Most of it unfortunately goes in my workshop and that is why I can't even find my bench most days.
I have also selectively sold some of my childhood toys to fund RC: Big Trak, Star Wars figures (the tall blue Snaggletooth comes to mind), and Armitron (anyone remember that one?).

Between all the other bills and the sporadic nature of my workload I try to do all my hobbies on a shoestring budget. My kids are getting older and my wife has gone back to work, so I am hoping to graduate to an RC line item in our monthly budget in the next decade.

Well, up until yesterday I was able to dedicate half a paycheck to the hobby but it looks like that money may be going towards rent now didn't see that one coming

My family has been recycling scrap and full cars for as long as I can remember. I used to bust up aluminum transmissions with a sledge hammer so it was considered clean and worth more.

Now we mainly recycle aluminum cans and #1 and #2 copper, which can reach $4+ a pound. Full vehicles can easily fetch $300.

But after the bills are paid each month, I really don't have much extra RC money. I spend a little here and there so it doesn't seem like a lot all at once.

I hope you guys are claiming this extra money on your taxes

romulus22 wrote:I hope you guys are claiming this extra money on your taxes

whatever the wife is blind to, uncle sam is also blind to!

kink wrote:Once up and running the costs will be minimal, I hope.

Famous last words there....

kaiser wrote:

romulus22 wrote:I hope you guys are claiming this extra money on your taxes

whatever the wife is blind to, uncle sam is also blind to!

Tell you the truth, not sure which one I would fear being audited by more.......


With the way my life has changed over the last few years, and with work being as unreliable $$$-wise these days, here's how my hobby / rc money comes about these days.....
Over the years I've bought a LOT of cars, with the plan to get them running. Some, I have done. Most, I have not . What this leaves me with is far too much in the way of rc cars, parts, radios and electricals, old batteries, old bodies, and rc books, magazines, and manuals.

I do plan on building up some cars for runners, a couple for shelf / show, but most will be either rebuilt and onsold, or just sold off as-is. This includes a lot of NIP parts for both Schumacher (mostly Nitro and Cat2k / SST) and Nichimo (big pile of parts), and piles of NIP junk that I've collected in lots over the years (things like transmission racks, battery cooling heatsinks, tools and other assorted crap).

The plan is to sell off a bunch, then all profits will be divided into three: One-third goes back into the household budget (ie. to the missus), one-third will go towards clearing some long-term debt, and then into the mortgage, and the final third will be pumped back into the rc budget, becoming what I can spend on whatever I wish.

Sounds like a good plan, don't you think? Of course, I'd better get my bottom end into gear and make some sales!!!! Anybody need some old 1:12s???

Alex

I try to reserve larger purchases (ie, new vehicles) for windfalls: year-end bonus, birthday money, that sort of thing. For smaller incidentals, I just try to save a little cash each month. Right now that's all gone, having gone back into the bank account to cover purchases for an Optima restoration, but I planned on it, so it's ok.

Of course, now when I have no cash is when the interesting stuff pops up on Craigslist... oh well. I've been in a vehicle acquisition phase for the past year or so, and now I'm flush with projects that need finishing, and maybe selling, before I buy any more. My goal is to keep the fleet at its current size (around 25) or smaller, and just try to end up with only vehicles that really mean something to me.

Same here. Big ticket items at bonus time or tax return (when I don't owe ), or I sell something. Smaller stuff I can usually sneak past the wife without getting caught.

I have been putting away at least 10% of my pay every two weeks for years.

I sometimes make a withdrawal the day after payday and just sock it away until I want something.

The problem with this method is that I can have a good amount of cash on hand and if something else comes up (wings, beer, etc) I spend the money on it so I can avoid using the cards.

This leads to less money on RC related items, kits, runners, on and on but I do get to enjoy a whack of beer and wings! I am sure the GF thinks I have way to many cars and trucks already.

It works well if you can afford to put some away every two weeks after paying bills and food and retirement savings.

I say try it, even if it is only 5%, see how much you can save and then all of a sudden a Losi 5T is sitting in the second bedroom!

markbt73 wrote: Of course, now when I have no cash is when the interesting stuff pops up on Craigslist...

Like that minty appearing Nichimo Exceed for $125 tempting!

gomachv wrote:

markbt73 wrote: Of course, now when I have no cash is when the interesting stuff pops up on Craigslist...

Like that minty appearing Nichimo Exceed for $125 tempting!

Exactly. BTW, I'm the one who emailed him and told him what it was.