Reflecting on the past year is a regular habit of mine. In addition to the notable life events, though, I added some hard numerical data to the mix this year, and this post is the result.
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2022 was an eventful year for me and my family, but not so much for my gaming. Over the course of 12 months (or 365 days), I ran two DnD sessions, and played maybe a dozen MtG sessions. Compared to how much I have spent on DnD and MtG, I don't know that it was worth it, beyond sating my desire for new things.
The one New Year's resolution I kept from last year was to maintain a 'hobby budget'. The Games category is by far the largest chunk of my hobbies (other headings include Books, Stuff for Kids, Alcohol, and Eating Out). Since I began intermittent fasting, Eating Out has declined (yay!), but I also started a YouTube channel (Ben Buys Beverages) in October, so the alcohol category has been on the uptick, but that is not the purpose of this post.
The purpose of this post is to accept that RPGs (a mix of DnD and OSR and both-adjacent) ate lots of money, spent almost entirely on Kickstarters and Drivethrurpg purchases. To be specific, $972 US dollars on these items - with several Kickstarters still awaiting delivery. I have faith they'll arrive, but not this year.
Which is different from the money spent on Magic card packs, sleeves, and singles for current or future decks; that rings up to $876 for the year. About half of this went towards my Away Decks project (for the record, the R and BG decks have won each time played, and the UW deck came in second, so I consider the whole thing a success), and while I have a temptation to do another round of Away Decks (GW, UR, B), that project will definitely sit on the backburner.
Don't misunderstand, I know that I am fortunate to be able to have a hobby budget like this, but overall, nearly $2000 on games that I don't get to play all that much is not the best use of my money. Looking at the numbers, if I keep away from Kickstarters and only buy Magic singles I have an immediate need for, the costs should be more than halved.
All that said, I did get in some writing in on the blog, both in published posts and partial posts awaiting completion. Quite a bit of writing, actually, and next year promises much more, as I am planning to participate in the #Dungeon23 challenge.
Perhaps next year will see more gaming - I certainly hope so!
And I hope your year sees more gaming, too.
Happy Holidays!
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