The benefits of a nonexistent budget
I don’t have much of a budget for yarn or rpgs. In fact, most of the time, my budget is best described as nonexistent, for a handful of reasons. In addition, I have highly limited space. These two things combined mean that I rarely buy things, and if I can, I will always try to make do with what I have.
However, though it may seem like a bad thing, I actually love my situation (most of the time). The budget, and the fact that the budget is not easy to stretch, has taught me a lot of lessons about myself and my crafting and gaming.
I’m going to clarify something. I have a budget that includes money for things that I want to have. However, it takes some serious scrimping and saving to get that budget to cover anything I really want – and good tools and supplies are expensive no matter the hobby. This means that anything I buy, I know I really want.
I don’t buy, for instance, six balls of laceweight wool yarn just because I saw it at the yarn shop. Impulse buys aren’t in the budget. Instead, I save my money for a special yarn or rpg book, marking what it’s for and saving so I can afford it.
Most of the time, that is. I’m only human, and sometimes there’s a reason I’m looking for 6 balls of laceweight wool, like needing to make a friend a present. I can make an impulse buy, but I know that it’s keeping me from buying something I really want. It takes me about ten weeks of savings to buy one D&D book, on my budget. This means that I need to know what I want to buy when I save, so I have more time to consider a purchase and I can buy stuff I’ll actually use.
For instance, I saved up to buy the Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, a D&D5e book, a few years ago. I only had the money to buy one rpg book at the store, and I knew that I would use XGtE more than any of the adventures on the shelf, because I could use that material in many campaigns, while I could only play an adventure a few times before it got boring, and never with the same group twice. It went into my rpg stash, a bookshelf that’s got most of my rpg stuff (everything but dice and my nonexistent minis), and I always make heavy use of the stash I’ve got.
Whether it’s yarn or RPGs or something else, my stash is always where I start a project/campaign/thing. I use what I have, because I have to, but also because I want to. Every ball of yarn in my stash has a story there, even if it’s “cheap acrylic craft yarn left over from being a little kid that my mom let me have” or “bought on impulse years ago because I really loved the colors and I wanted a shawl”. I try to use this stuff, and even when the stuff no longer speaks to me the way it used to, I try to use it in other ways; I make stitch swatches and use it as spindle leader yarn and make cats cradle loops and use it as a fiddle, and I don’t waste it. I don’t usually just give away yarn, because I’ll always find a use for it. Unless I hate the yarn or need space, if I like a yarn it stays.
I’m also good at adapting things. I don’t have the money to buy the rule book for a game? No problem, I’ll play another game that is free, or one I already have, or write my own game. I can’t buy a pattern for a beautiful shawl I saw? Okay, I can see how it was constructed, and I can make myself a shawl in the same shape using that cute blue yarn I have. I’m not supporting copyright infringement. I don’t illegally download something from a site that hosts copyrighted content for free. I use the original idea as inspiration, but I never use another creator’s work if I can’t afford it.
I think this last benefit, learning to adapt what I have, is the most important. It teaches me new skills, and reminds me that, even if I look at another person and envy how they have easily disposable income to spend on hobbies, I have just as much creative skills and make just as good things, and I value the product more because I had to do more for it. I think that’s kind of the core of this list: I don’t have money for it, so I’m putting more of myself into it.
And I’m lucky. I have room and board I don’t have to worry about, I have a stable situation at home and in general, and I’m healthy and safe and happy. Others don’t have that, and I know that to someone out there, my basically nonexistent budget is more than they could hope for, so I am grateful that I have what I have.
Comments