Tf protector or whatever is screen name is says otherwise......but serously, even budgeting, say Im getting a bonus on January of 300usd, have 3 preorders of 50 each for march, but they decided to ship today, my fault?
I have a philosophy of don’t pre order something unless you have the money to be charged at any time. It is a good way to make sure you aren’t going crazy pre ordering stuff to the point you are spending more than you have. Because if getting 5 items early blows your budget completely then you should probably cut back and save up some money for more important things. General rule of thumb is to try to have at least 6 months worth of your salary saved up at any given time.
This is exactly what I meant. I know I come off as an asshole but I speak from my own personal experience, nobody should put themself into a hole over a hobby.
The banhanmer was more of a joke, in general, but more for me as I put him on ignore. I'm getting so friggin' tired of these comments and people speaking for others and telling them what to do and how to spend their money, that I no longer have the patience to deal with people who post like that. My ignore list is growing rapidly because I just don't want to hear opinions from people like that. It's not your fault, my fault, even the dude I put on ignore, that all of this is shipping early and shipping all at once. It's still no one's place to tell anyone else how to live their lives. We're grown adults buying kids toys and a growing number of the fandom (and all fandoms) are weird-ass incels. Getting "advice" from them is not at all on my list. If someone's spending money they can't spend, none of our business. If they have it and rub it in our faces, still none of our business. We've got to stop worrying about others and how they live their lives and mind our own businesses. That works, to a point. Problem is, even stores are starting to feel the pain of this. What good does it do to budget for that window when you're getting preorders in now, to pay for, and then 6-8 months aheads preorders come in next week or next month? It's easy to say your way works but it's not always going to. The way they're churning these out, constantly, and shipping early is crushing everyone. When even stores are complaining, you have to know it's getting harder for people, budgets or no.
Still not sure how it's unreasonable for people on here to not expect an item to charge six months out for preorders. There's early and then there's Hasbro needs to be more realistic with their time frames. And, before I get any herp-derp comments about overspending/saving money from one of the gotcha boys on here... not that it's anyone's damned business or their place... but I have a savings for emergencies, my bills are paid, etc. I keep a $500 slush fund for preorders that I replenish the beginning of each month based on what was spent from it the previous month. My monthly preorders average about $200 per month but I keep my slush fund higher as even pre-pandemic it wasn't uncommon for something to show up a month sometimes two months early (back then I only used to keep a $300 slush fund). Even I'm finding it tiresome how much shit has dropped incredibly early the last two or three months. As soon as I replenish my funds it seems like they're almost depleted again. I don't mind stuff showing up two to even three months early. I'm more than prepared for that. However, when you have shit showing up as early as six months ahead of Hasbro's estimated time frames the problem is with their estimates and not their consumers.
But there is no guarantee you will receive something if you don't preorder anymore. I think that is the key point. If you don't preorder an item, you risk never being able to get it for retail prices.
The problem is if you continue to preorder stuff and expect things to be different. Production and shipping are fucked all over the world right now and who knows when it will get better. Hasbro estimates so far out because that’s when they thought they would be able to get the materials, make the figures, and get them to retailers. They aren’t doing this to be dicks. Like I ordered a bunch of micro processor controllers for a project at work and we were told they would arrive in February but then they arrived in September with no warning, while I also ordered 10 simple temperature sensors back in July of last year with a ship date of a month and they finally arrived last week. Literally every manufacturer is having these issues right now, there really isn’t some easy fix for this. If the figures end up getting done earlier than expected Hasbro has to ship them to customers because they need to constantly free up space in their warehouses. They can’t sit on an entire wave of figures for 6 months just because that is what they estimated before. The main thing is that this isn’t the first time this has happened. Sure the first time you can rightfully be pissed off about preorders charging earlier than you planned. But if this is the 7th time preorders are showing up months in advance for you then it is on you for messing up your budget. All people have to do is just not pre order the figures. It’s not like they sell out forever in a week. Hell if you stop preordering and wait until the original release date to buy it you will most likely be able to get a solid deal on them, thus helping your budget even more. After a certain amount of times the responsibility falls on the customer.
Yeah, there are pros and cons to everything. You pre-order something you have an almost guarantee you will get the item you want but you can be charged for it unexpectedly anytime between the moment of pre-order to the estimated arrival date. If you don’t preorder something you can wait until you have the necessary funds for a product but there is the chance it could sell out before that time. You make that choice and deal with the consequences but you shouldn’t be mad at someone else for your decisions.
Even if Kain had millions of dollars saved up it doesn't matter because he still had a budget. The entire point of a budget is to not exceed it. Then why did you say he wasn't budgeting when he was clearly talking about his budget? This sounds like making excuses for a big company. Delays are understandable these days by why would anyone expect things early? You guys are acting like Kain is playing some dangerous fast and loose money game when all he expected was to not be charged early because, y'know, that almost never happens and isn't what he or anyone who preordered along with him expected.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. I agree with Kain that you and people like you are missing the point. If things have cleared up enough that they're starting to get shit this far in advance then it's time Hasbro gets off their asses and reasses their preorder estimates. And for the record this isn't messing with my budget. It just feels like there's very little room to breathe at the moment and it's beyond ridiculous.
I said it in another thread, I'll repeat it here. I know people who are poor, I know people who are well off, I know people who are filthy rich and all of them would be PISSED to have $700.00 in Transformers drop in one month, they'd be pissed to have figures that aren't due for another 6-8 months from now coming in early and all at once. It would be one thing if it were one or two figures instead of an entire wave/assortment. FFS, how can anyone be psychic for one, and two, be *that* specifically psychic? Nerdzoic said he had some SW figures coming in (in a video) that were due EIGHT MONTHS from the video's date and their cases were due in in like 2 weeks from that date. If a store (either with a direct account or using a distributor) has problems keeping up with this tidal wave (and they *HAVE* to preorder, you can't buy from Hasbro without a preorder these days), imagine what a lowly consumer is going through. But really what it comes down to is this: No one cares about another human being except to be nosy and give them "advice" about their lives and how to live it and how to basically suffer. It's so much easier to piss in someone's eye and walk away than to get down in the trenches and help clean them up. Just jump on the "Screw you, you stupid preordering piece of garbage" bandwagon. People don't seem to understand that there will come a day when they're in the same situation and people are going to treat them like S H I T and it's going to be uglier than we ever could've imagined. Why can't people just be decent and not have those moments come to pass? How hard is it to just keep your mouth shut about someone else's actions/life? What does it do for you to open your yap and give your opinion on them or their lives or how they live? WTF does it do for you? I need to know. Does it clear up acne? Does it lower your blood pressure? Does it give you a chubby? Does it give you some euphoric feeling like a psychedelic drug? People are really f'd up, man. All of this over some toys. Not politics, not religion, toys. "I think you suck because you're not like me and I do everything right. Here's how you should do it, dickbag" is just utterly insane to me when it comes to politics and religion, but toys? I just want to burn the friggin' world to the ground and start over.
I saw. We're cool. I shouldn't have snapped, but things are weird right now after learning my aunt had died in August and no one bothered to tell me until today.
Eh. If you're looking to collect whole lines and you want to eliminate retail, you should be able to do this in theory with a budget of $200 a month. You'll have surpluses but you shouldn't have too many deficits. Too much product shipping back-to-back can wreck that and likewise isn't good for retail as it can flood the pegs and lead to clearances. Like I say, I generally have several hundred set aside for preorders and use credit to cover stuff I think has an uncertain delivery date, even though I'm prepared to pay it off right away, just to avoid sudden shocks. I keep everything organized on a spreadsheet. But stuff more than 6 months out isn't covered yet and I save a little bit each month to put into the toy fund. And I have money that isn't designed for toys obviously. Still, I'm canceling "maybe" items now to keep the toy fund from taking over my budget and stretched thin from Eternia. I'm also ordering a LOT less from Super7 (collection must-haves only). And I'm now at the point where I'm only buying "maybe" items if there's a price break after they come out. I don't think that's ideal for Hasbro (or Mattel or Super7) if more people do what I'm doing. They rely on a percentage of people paying full price for items they aren't absolutely sure if they want. If people start focusing on essentials and waiting for deals, it's absolutely going to cut into their bottom line. It isn't about having enough money but it's about timing. Right now, I'm canceling those preorders to free up money to get discounted Super7 and MOTU product now with the idea that I can swoop back in and get the Hasbro product later at a discount or pass on it. Everything in the next 6 months is budgeted for me and the money is sitting in an account except for the Ghostbusters neutrona wand, which I'm counting on my tax refund to cover. Even then, I could make it work but I'd probably look at trimming more fat from my unexpected purchases (fun money) if it shipped tomorrow. I feel like Kain is in an understandable position as a teacher with a fixed budget. But I'm here to say that even as someone who collects a bit more selectively than him, plans ahead a bit more, and probably has a slightly bigger monthly budget that this is definitely impacting my buying habits. I'd be fine if almost everything came in tomorrow but the reality is that, looking at things, I'd get more value by buying discounted stuff now and preordering less at full price. And I don't feel like that's the kind of calculation that it benefits Hasbro if I start making. I feel like they'd be better off if people like me bought at full price as a preorder and didn't think twice about it. But between rising prices and meaningless preorder dates, I absolutely am thinking more about it. If they're going to flood the market, I can absolutely shift some stuff over to only buy on sale or clearance because I anticipate the prices coming down if too much hits at once.
Lucky. Mine doesn't arrive until the 21st. I was able to use a promotional credit to get mine preordered for half price, which means I managed to get all the monsters for under $20 each. Going forward, it looks like the next deluxe wave has no monsters and just looking at space considerations, I'm going to be very hesitant to order more monsters. They're big. They eat space. They're expensive at full price. I feel like monsters are well represented on my shelf. I actually get more enjoyment from armybuilding putties and Tengas, which I've also managed to get cheap. I like crossovers. I like comics stuff. I want space to represent the 90s movie. My Tengas are awaiting an Ivan Ooze. In general, I feel like my big want as far as monsters/bad guys go would be Baboo, Squatt, Rito Revolto, Master Vile, Ivan Ooze, more Ranger Sentries, themed putties, and a bigger Goldar to fit in better with the 7" monsters (and hopefully have better wings). I'm glad I got all the monsters so far for an average of around $14 each but I'm not normally a single episode character collector. I'd probably go in on Mutitus, Bones, and Madame Woe.
To be fully honest, I had a store in Canada who had one Snizzard in stock. I ordered it and hoping it's going to be here Monday at the earliest. However, the store told me package is damaged, so I just worry the figure is not broken too.
