How do you afford it all?

Got on the fire dept when I was 19. 10 24 hour shifts a month left a lot of time to work days off jobs.
Mowing, landscaping, stump grinding and my good friend is a plumber/remodeler and always needed help.
Been married twice and raised 6 kids. I've been buying, selling and constantly upgrading my collection over the past 20 years.
Like Craytab said it mostly sustains itself now, if I want something new I usually sell something.
 
My wife and I have 2 kids and don't make alot. We are both still paying off student loans. The little extra money we have usually goes towards the kids activities. My wife also has a rabbit hobby. I only get about 2 knives a year and I very rarely spend more than $150 a year on sharp things.
 
bigmark408 said:
I try and budget myself to about a grand a month on knives because my other hobbies are expensive. 😉
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I'm too ashamed to even admit what my monthly average was last year lol. Up until just a few days ago, I had gone 5 months without buying anything, but then I relapsed.
 
I haven't bought a knife in over a year. The most I have spent on a knife is about $120 or so (ZT 200 or 350 IIRC). I accept the fact I will never own a Sebenza, Hinderer (sp?), or any custom. A Manix 2 is s30v, flat grind, G10 and around $90, that is good enough for me. Plus, if I ever lost a $400+ knife, I'd cry.

My wife and I have no kids, we make decent $, but knives are quite low on the priority list for us. I'm not a collector (unless I hit the lotto), just a user who understands that having a knife is handy.

If you were to rank all BF members on a "knife obsession" scale, I'd be near the bottom of the list.

I too often wondered what some folks make per year and what their knife budget is.
 
I don't afford it all. Last new knife I got was a Kershaw Link (great knife for the money though) sometime in January. I work for a hospital through their staffing office while finishing my college. My wife is self-employed as a child therapist. We have 2 teenage boys that suck up most of our spare cash. Luckily we are simple people and don't need much. When we got married my knife collection got rated around $5-6k for insurance purposes. Since then a lot of those knives were sold to buy other knives, other things, or pay off debt. My tastes in knives have become simpler too. I've also come to enjoy having less knives around - blasphemy I know. Hell if someone offered to buy me any knife I wanted I'd probably choose a birch bark puukko from Pekka Tuominen.

Usual way I afford new knives at this time - sell a knife that is sitting unused. Occasionally the unused knife sells for more than the one I am getting. If so that money gets set aside to add on to another purchase. Sometimes I use holiday (Birthday, Christmas) money to buy a knife. Rarely do I just buy a knife outright using cash or card. Gone are the days of my single w/o kids life where I just called up a custom maker and ordered a knife. I miss aspects of that, but I find the memory of getting my oldest son the Case knife he wanted if he got his math grade up better than the one of my first Lile knife.
 
How do you afford it all?

I don't... haha I have a huge want list but it will probably be a while before I pick up another. I try to resist impulse buys and cheaper knives and try to save up for stuff I really want.
 
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Lots of leftovers, I never eat out(maybe twice a year) and have stopped my daily Starbucks run on the way to work.
I've also put over 250,000 miles on my car and like others I have an enormous want list that I will probably never have half of.
I try to limit impulse purchases as much as I can, usually I'm both happier with the knife and spend less.
 
First and foremost I only buy with cash! And I only buy knives I can afford! And I only buy knives I will use!
 
^^^ WINNER!!!!
I have an HVAC business and I do pretty well......I LOVE what I do!!
The money I make goes to the fam......pretty blonde and 3 fantastic sons!!
My knife money comes from my other addiction......pool!! Been playing for 40 years and I'm pretty good. Play tournaments all over NY & NJ and do ok!! One of my sons took a liking to it when he was around 10 and that little shit can play!!
Win or place in a tourney = a new blade!!
Joe
 
I buy when I have the available funds. I don't borrow money to buy knives. If I use a credit card, I usually pay at least that portion of the balance within a few days of the knife purchase. Unfortunately, I have been carrying a balance. I use debit cards primarily for day to day purchases and work on eliminating any credit card type debt as quickly as possible.

To date, I have not sold any knives. Knife purchases are much like guns, ammo, fishing tackle, and so forth for me. There is a give and take based on the present need or urge to acquire something. I do sell firearms from time to time, but not nearly often enough. I have pretty much stopped buying any firearms as most of what I want now are pretty pricey. All consumer debt gets eliminated prior to firearm purchases unless it is an absolute steel.
 
I'm a college student. I survive off of potatoes and Ramen, lol.

But for real, I support myself and a little of my girlfriend. I have worked multiple jobs at a time since I was 16. At one point during a high school summer I would go to a community college class in the morning, to drive to a Luthier shop and work 7 hours, to drive home and work as a small engine mechanic until around 10 at night, when I drove to a bar or some other establishment to play with the band. Through all of that, I think I missed 2 volunteer fire department calls.
Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of help growing up, and I still get a lot of help now. But I truly do believe that I have worked hard and earned everything I have.
I kept my grades high all through school, and had over 20 hours before I graduated high school. I'm now on a full ride scholarship to Texas A&M for a mechanical engineering degree. With all my simpler classes out of the way, I have more time to continue work as a small engine mechanic. I drive a 2015 small truck, and Me and my father just split the cost of a Laguna cnc machine. I have no dept. So whenever I do really well in a class, and I want a new knife, I pick it up. That's how I justify it.
 
Up until recently I've only ever had various inexpensive knives. I've been dreaming of owning various customs for years but couldn't bring myself to try and save for the amount of time necessary to purchase one of the 5 or 6k knives I had wanted. Then I finally compromised and bought a few pricier knives then I usually buy. I'm now at the point where I own about five mid-techs and have pretty much maxed out my budget for awhile. I really want to purchase another knife for myself but will have to sell something first.
 
I got into this hobby a little later in life. We had saved enough for the kids college. Lived in the same house for 15 years. Fixed all that I could around the house, mow my own lawn. We still save cans and bottles and turn them in for cash. Worked hard and now I am in a position that I have some free'd up cash after contributing to my IRA. I still don't buy customs, but I can buy nice production knives, and maybe a mid tech. My secret was living a conservative life and saving.
 
I own my own pool service business here in Florida. There are months I have no repair work to do and then there are months like this one that I've been swamped. I'll go pick up another one soon. I have 6 EDC's and one dedicated work knife. I have a Large Sebenza with Box Elder Burl and after I bought it I had a bit of buyers remorse, well that was until I looked at the date card and saw that the knife was made on my parents 55th wedding anniversary. She's a keeper now! I'm going to buy another small soon, but it will have to be made on one of several special dates. I'll probably get rid of one or two of mine when I buy the small Micarta Sebenza Insingo as I'm not a "collector" I just buy knives for specific times to carry one.
 
Excellent thread idea. Really enjoyed the read - this one is for Knife Addicted Anonymous.

To chime in: packing bagels for lunch every day, buying clothes only when I have to, watching tv (basic cable part of condo fee) instead of cinema, cooking from scrap, using public transportation. My daughter is growing up so I need to cut back but suffer relapses sometimes. I recently lost my job and bought a knife rght away to cheer myself up. I only wish I was a one-knife guy!
 
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DINKs...not childless to support this blade addiction, but I guess that's where discretionary funds go given the circumstance.
 
The company I work are gifts promoting in all kinds of material like resin, porcelain, wood, Alloy etc. I can only save few to several hundred a month.

Never doubt this hobby is a deep hole. but not until you started knife collecting, would you be aware of how deep it is. It is as deep as the appreciation the knife brings to you.

But I never appreciate production knives except the first WH, which was my first and I guess it should be rated midtech.

I drive used cars, have lunch box, work over time and have a second job. I do not smoke, do not drink much, do not have other hobbies. that makes my collection 6 grand now.
 
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I started collecting after the nest was empty, and the house, and student loans were paid off. I don't own a boat, Harley, mid-life crisis car, or a BIG truck. All of our cars have 100k+. I became tired of cleaning guns years ago, and got rid of everything but the bare essentials.
My Sere 2000 is the most expensive knife in my collection. I have always tried to stay in the $50- $100 range. I have enough knives, hawks, machetes to alternate a different one, every other day for a year. I think I am almost done collecting. I still have a weakness for blue handled knives. Thanks Spyderco:(! I am just trying to slow down, and enjoy the ones I have instead of spending my time looking for the next "good deal".
 
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onojoe said:
I got into this hobby a little later in life. We had saved enough for the kids college. Lived in the same house for 15 years. Fixed all that I could around the house, mow my own lawn. We still save cans and bottles and turn them in for cash. Worked hard and now I am in a position that I have some free'd up cash after contributing to my IRA. I still don't buy customs, but I can buy nice production knives, and maybe a mid tech. My secret was living a conservative life and saving.
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This is me, I have quite a few nice old slip joints from my dad and grandads but just got into the newer knives a couple of years ago...after I paid for my daughters college degree and the lions share of my house that we have lived in for 17 years. I do most of my own home maintenance and have a pretty good job, along with always contributing to my 401k, so I now have some disposable income for me. It is nice to be able to have another hobby, after coins paid for quite a bit of my daughters college, but that market has been bad for a few years now (It may be time to do more than leg a little back into the metals).

Anyone heard about when the Grimsmo Rask is finally going to ship? That was my first foray in to the higher end ($600+) market and it has been a cluster so far, a really bad idea!
 
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