Goals for 2024, Grades for 2023

 新年明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！

Happy New Year Everybody!

So with the acknowledgement that the blog (and by extension every last one of us) is a decade older now out of the way, here's a report card for my New Years Resolutions for 2023 and goals for 2024. As is tradition for the first day of the year on this blog.

2023 Grades

3. A limit of 30 Sports Cards and 30 Non-Sports Cards for the year

F. Just a flat out F.

2. One Non-Certified Autograph Intended for Me

A. Got a few TTM returns back this year, and a bunch of signed polaroids and photographs from cosplayers this year.

1. $600 Limit

F.

Honestly at this point I have to come to terms with how my main spending habit with this hobby is to splurge on like 10 different $40 cards during one random afternoon every 5 months and justify it because of a combination of feeling overworked and how I have a bigger budget to work with than I did when I was in college.

I also have no real desire or want to fix this, nor am I in a position where I need to save money for more important things so I don't expect this to change in 2024 and I'm just going to stop pretending to care. My apathy towards sports cards at certain times of the year is probably going to save me the most money.

2024 Goals

3. Get A New Hobby

Cutting back on this hobby is one thing, filling the void it filled is another. Work fills up the void in terms of time I think it'd be best served for me to find another hobby to get into lest I go nuts on a spending spree again. I don't really want to get into another genre of collectibles either.
Right now I want to see if I can get into something more practical, like cooking. I've been cooking non-stop since I came back from my vacation but I want to improve my skills and stop relying on easy noodle-based dishes. Maybe later in the summer when my work schedule lets up I might look into cooking classes.

2. Still Track My Spending

Okay so it's not like I'm able to put down thousands for superfractors or whatever and not blink. I do need to keep a log of what the heck I've spent just so I have a number. The last three years I've averaged out to like $1,500 per year. If that ends up being where I land again in 2024, sure. Not exactly big baller money, but a decent chunk of disposable income.

Also, as much as I harp on my baseball card collection (because that's the main crux for this blog), I do also need to focus on how much I've let non-sports go unchecked. Whatever I've spent on this hobby does not include the stuff I've spent on cosplay polaroids or figurines or plush dolls or other general merchandise. It's a lot easier to pretend it's not much when I don't blog about it too often, but that does add up too. Especially since that's where my attention goes when it's not on sports.

1. One Non-Certified Autograph Intended for Me

I've slowed down considerably on autographs (I didn't even go to a single baseball game in 2023!), but I would like to add one that's specifically for me. Probably from the non-sports realm.

Anyway time to bid one last farewell to 2023 with a recap of what I thought were my best/favorite pickups in mostly chronological order.

It'll be really easy to see why the baseball card hobby started falling by the wayside for me.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care.