Who says this games expensive?

[autococker04]

In early April 2019 I had given up all social media and Reddit for Lent. On a long car ride with a coworker who wasn't much of a talker I was about bored out of my mind and trying to think of what I used to do before Facebook and Reddit were the only websites I went on.

Then it hit me, in the mid-2000's, I was super into paintball. I should see if PBNation is still around. It was! Kinda. And MCB too! I couldn't remember my logins at the time so I went to scrolling through the B/S/T sections to see what I had missed out on in the last decade.

A few days later I decided it wouldn't hurt to pick up some sort of pump, probably stock class so it wouldn't cost too much and I wouldn't have to get an air tank or anything like that. I figured a PGP would be perfect but couldn't find one for sale. So I found a backbottle phantom with a 12g changer and SC feed. A few days later I had my new first gun.

Being obsessive about record keeping, I thought it might be interesting to see how much I end up spending on paintball as a whole. It wouldn't be much, just field fees and a little paint.

HA

That's when I started this spreadsheet to keep track of every single paintball, field fee, piece of gear, shipping cost, and selling price of everything paintball related. I couldn't figure out how to share the sheet, so here's a video of it. Probably a couple hundred transactions in all. Positive money in green, negative in red. Gray highlighted if I sold everything in the package.

Today, with the sale of a mask, I hit the tipping point. I'm up for the first time since April 2019 at $51.45. I think I like B/S/Ting as much as playing.

https://imgur.com/a/wGoMWbt

Where do you guys think you stand life time? Profitable? Inventory heavy? Prefer not to think about it?

[russc]

That's just obsessive, haha. I think I'm net negative in the thousands at this point.

[DocsMachine]

Where do you guys think you stand life time? Profitable? Inventory heavy? Prefer not to think about it?

-Impossible to calculate.

I've bought, sold, traded and given away several thousand markers since I started. With all the horse-trading I've done for parts, work, services or whole guns, there's no possible way to calculate a dollar value. Given my luck, probable heavy loss, though.

I do know, however, that I've spent somewhere in the ballpark of $65,000 in machine tools, tooling and accessories so I can build, fix and create them.

Doc.

[Axel]

I do know, however, that I've spent somewhere in the ballpark of $65,000 in machine tools, tooling and accessories so I can build, fix and create them.

Doc.

That seems reasonably frugal given that you've run a more or less fully equipped machine shop since before the millennium

[Trbo323]

Since around 2015 I'm in the ball park of neutral. That's when I started flipping gear, now my paintball budget runs in a separate bank account and not connected to my paycheck in any way. I buy beat up markers, rebuild and refresh them and typical sell for double

But I still play on occasion, have managed to upgrade many pieces of my gear and even managed to get a piece of gear that was on my dream list (agd 6 pak)

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

[Cdn_Cuda]

I’m pretty similar to Trbo, except I just use a spreadsheet and no separate bank account. I started keeping track about a year ago, maybe more. I’m in the green over $500 currently.

I buy, fix and flip to good returns. Usually just sell local but started to post here now too. I’ve been able to fully outfit some family members, do an MCB giveaway and donate money to help our members who are in need.

I’ve also upgraded my soft goods, masks, added to my repair supplies and landed a unicorn (included a trade) and started a custom build on it.

Keeps my wife happy as well as she knows any spending is self-sustainable and gives me a nice little hobby fixing things.

I rarely play and don’t keep track on field costs though.

[Toestr]

I've definitely bought more than I've sold. In the event that I do end up selling them, I do think I'll be about neutral though.

My buying strategy is to pay well below market value if I'm not sure if I'll end up liking it. That way I can sell it at or below market value, and still make a profit. If it's something I think I will like, I don't have a problem paying full price on it.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

[Chuck E Ducky]

Years of playing xball and traveling, puts me way in the Red. I think playing huntington beach cost me like $7k one year. I don’t regret it one bit. The experience was worth every penny spent.

However I do have a unique collection of gear that’s worth a bunch. I have made a decent amount at random times and haven’t really lost much on PB gear I have bought and sold. I do ok buying and selling. I don’t really keep track of it. I stopped buying and selling a lot after removing Social media from my life. Now I just buy lol.

I do have a bunch of basic gloss black VSC Phantoms I should let go of now that I have a bunch of fancy Ano ones.

[ReconSWS]

Can you be my accountant? Aye BST is another facet of gameplay!

[Tinybear]

I honestly don’t what to know how far in the red I have gone all these years. I swear if it were not for paintball and motorcycles I’d likely be a wealthy man lol. Then again I’d likely be pretty miserable too so....... I guess I will take the costs.

[DocsMachine]

That seems reasonably frugal given that you've run a more or less fully equipped machine shop since before the millennium

-Well, to be fair, being a full-time airsmith is not exactly a Fortune 500 type of business.

It's not just a shoestring operation, it's a frayed and re-knotted shoestring. The kind of business where if you pass a panhandler, he'll give you a couple bucks and say "you need this more than I do".

Back to the OP, the two things I hate about this, is if I wind up saving something for a while, it depreciates. The longer I keep it, the less valuable it gets. Conversely, if I sell something, it shortly thereafter gets more valuable. Sold my favorite red-and-chrome Fastback, thinking I'll just build another from the next batch. I think I got $650 for it. It'd be worth over twice that today. Sold a nice KP rifle for what was, at the time, a pretty good price. Those, too, are worth two or three times what I paid for it.

Doc.

[Grendel]

I don't even want to guess. Back in the early 90s when I was playing tournaments and judging (reffing) a lot of tournament series I decided to only buy gas with a BP gas card for a season to track just gas purchases. Well when I looked at my gas purchases just for a season I spent over $2300 in the early 90s and I know I was spending way more then that on other paintball stuff. So I vowed never to track my paintball/related purchases ever again.

[Tarsun2]

its cheaper now than it was in the 2000's... thats for sure.
I got into downhill biking and that too was an addictive and expensive activity. The bikes are insanely expensive, you need to also buy a lift pass for the day/weekend, sometimes you travel and have to factor in gas, hotel, and food. and then the parts are expensive and the maintenance and fluids and such. then there's the gear needed which can also get expensive.