In this time of Governmental fiscal responsibility. What is your 2013" TF budget?

I'm really trying to be responsible with my TF budget and was wondering what you guys try to set aside for your TF purchase. I was thinking about $50.00 a month but that's just two deluxe models and a voyager class with no consideration to the MP line, 3rd parties or collector items. Then I though 100.00 but that's $1200.00 a year on Transformers and that seems.... stupid. At $50.00 a month I could go 3 months without ordering anything and that $150.00 collector MP item would seem extra special... like a little Christmas. I just don't know...

What about you guys? What's your monthly budget and what are you willing to save up to get? What can afford to run out and get as soon as it comes out?

My toy budget is pretty light these days...If I see something that I can't live without (MP Soundwave for example) I simply cull from the other end of the collection. Lately I have had a pretty good run of selling off stuff locally. There seems to be a growing nostalgia for the Beast Wars stuff that I always only sort of liked. All in all my buying habits are a lot more focused and targeted. I could not even tell you the last time I bought an entire wave of anything. Add into the mix years and years of truly awful transformers movie designs (and their subsequent influence on the regular line), and my transformers buying has been really light. Well...except for the MP line...Which I have noticed are the most interesting robots that Takara-Tomy has going right now. Think about it what. What was the last truly great robot line from takara-tomy that wasn't transformers....The microman DMZ is all I can think of....anyone know if they have anything on the horizon or is it just transformers...just curious...

Less than it was, more than it ought to be. :P

But, in line with what Fel9 said, I can't imagine myself buying more than a few mass-market TFs for the forseeable future. The line became so cheap, so poorly engineered, so quickly that it made my head spin. Couple that with the aesthetic disaster that is Beast Hunters .... well, wake me when it's over.

Best, Ken-A

Quote
fel9
What was the last truly great robot line from takara-tomy that wasn't transformers....

Mmm...well, from what I hear, Takara-Tomy's gearing up for a new (miniature, non-motorized) Zoids kit line this year. Not sure if that means Kotobukiya's high-end kit offerings will cease. Anyway, Zoids' pedigree is Tomy, not Takara, so I dunno if that fits in with the direction you were going...

Ah zoids... I always had a weekness. Is there a catalog or something with all the zoids and their different knock offs or re-colors. I remember Iron Kong and a couple of dinosaurs that I really loved building.

Yeah, I've always admired Zoids...mostly from afar. The kits are pretty killer, but when complete, they usually just collect dust for me. :/ I kinda wish Kotobukiya continues their high-end kit line. I'd love to have a detailed, posable Gojulas that doesn't look quite as dumpy as the the original motorized kit (sacrilege, I know!). Anyway, here are the three Zoids sites I frequent the most:

[zoids.wikia.com]
[www.zoid.us]
[phen0type.proboards.com]

Thank! ON Ebay these things are running $300.00 to $1,200 WTF! I like them but damn. I'd be doing some serious MP and 3rd party buying.

Are you still talking about Zoids, Marvin??? I've never paid over, like, $75 for a Zoid kit...though I've seen a bunch break the $100 mark...

The ones on Ebay for those prices are from scalpers. Although some of the rarer vintage versions can fetch a pretty good dollar, 1,200 bucks sounds way out there.

My annual Transformers budget can only be measured retrospectively through the liters of ass-blood that are lost in direct proportion to the roughness with which the whimsical pricing fairies at TakaraTomy decide to invade my body using the barbed copulators of their Master Pierce line.

The good news is that I've almost run out of modernized G1 Transformers to wish for. There must be less than half a dozen that I'd care to buy. I'd guess that by 2015 my Transformers budget will be voluntarily cut to zero.