What's your CD budget?

[San Antone]

Most of my budget nowadays is spent on streaming services:

BPO Digital Concert Hall ($15/month) - a recent investment, which I can cancel at any time, and may end up doing
Met Opera on Demand ($15/month) - same as above
Spotify ($5/month)

I am also a member of Early Music America which includes access to the Naxos Classical Library and Grove Music Online (a great deal for the $60 annual membership): $5/month

I still buy CDs/downloads and here lately have bought some big boxes, but generally I don't buy that much.

Streaming services = $40/month
CDs probably another $30-$40/month

Translating into about $1,000 a year.

Which is more than I want to be spending, so, I could cancel the BPO and the Met and live on Spotify and my collection with the occasional CD purchase, and cut that in half.

[Moonfish]

Hey MI!
Are you staying within your cd budget ($500-1,000/yr) this year.....?     

or did I miss a zero?    0:)

[Mirror Image]

Hey MI!
Are you staying within your cd budget ($500-1,000/yr) this year.....?     

Good question. I really have no idea. I believe I am (for now).

[Ken B]

Good question. I really have no idea. I believe I am (for now).

John is a graduate of the Enron School of Accountancy.

[Mirror Image]

John is a graduate of the Enron School of Accountancy.

[Moonfish]

How are your annual budgets for music purchases doing?   

https://www.youtube.com/v/cpbbuaIA3Ds

[Jo498]

I think I wrote above (or in a similar thread) that I wanted to get closer to an average spending of 25-30 EUR/months. So far I think I failed and I am closer to the "traditional" of about 50. Maybe I manage to buy nothing in August...

[Que]

Anything up to a 100 euros per month is good for me....

There are a lot of more expensive hobbies!   

Q

[Jo498]

I agree.
But used to spend around or more than 100 EUR/months for many years in the past (the goal of about 50 EUR/month is already a considerable reduction compared to what I spent until 2012 or so) and I cannot afford it anymore, especially in terms of storage space (and selling/gifting away a few dozen CDs does not really change all that much with 4-5k discs), so I am striving for logarithmic growth if I can't get to steady state...
In any case I thought that such a reducion was easier than a "zero diet" for several months. I have tried the latter as well but this tends to lead to binges so the overall effect is not as expected.

Even if I got down to 30 EUR/month this would still be more than almost all people I know outside of classical music online fora...

[Henk]

LOL.

I try to buy not more than I can digest. Doesn't always succeed, but I think it's a rather sane approach.

[Jo498]

By now I don't usually buy more than I digest. But I have a huge amount of un- or half-digested stuff on my shelves. I do not go to Ebay anymore because there I tend to buy stuff just because it's so cheap and while I have made some incredible bargains or found stuff I had been looking for for ages there I also got lots of "useless" duplication of standard repertoire. I try to avoid further duplication of standard repertoire. I have had several boxes of Beethoven's symphonies or sonatas for years and only listened to one or two discs.

But I am also getting wary of all that lesser known stuff that gets praised by some. A few weeks ago when jpc was selling a bunch of MDG for EUR 10 (instead of 18 or 20, but still not really cheap compared to the prices I try to pay) I bought 5 of those discs: Burgmüller string quartets, Vierne piano quintet and string quartet, one disc of the Glazunov string quartets and one disc each with chamber music by Boellman and Klughardt. I have not yet listened to the Klughardt disc and I have to re-listen to all of them but of those I have heard I think the only piece I would rate as an important "discovery" (for me) is the Vierne quintet (and maybe the last of Burgmülller's quartets). The rest was not too bad but I do not think I'd have missed all that much if I had never heard it and instead listened to music I have already in my collection.

[springrite]

Hey MI!
Are you staying within your cd budget ($500-1,000/yr) this year.....?     

or did I miss a zero?    0:)

For John, when the max budget is reached, the year is up, regardless of the month. A new budget starts right away, from zero, of course.

[Henk]

By now I don't usually buy more than I digest. But I have a huge amount of un- or half-digested stuff on my shelves. I do not go to Ebay anymore because there I tend to buy stuff just because it's so cheap and while I have made some incredible bargains or found stuff I had been looking for for ages there I also got lots of "useless" duplication of standard repertoire. I try to avoid further duplication of standard repertoire. I have had several boxes of Beethoven's symphonies or sonatas for years and only listened to one or two discs.

But I am also getting wary of all that lesser known stuff that gets praised by some. A few weeks ago when jpc was selling a bunch of MDG for EUR 10 (instead of 18 or 20, but still not really cheap compared to the prices I try to pay) I bought 5 of those discs: Burgmüller string quartets, Vierne piano quintet and string quartet, one disc of the Glazunov string quartets and one disc each with chamber music by Boellman and Klughardt. I have not yet listened to the Klughardt disc and I have to re-listen to all of them but of those I have heard I think the only piece I would rate as an important "discovery" (for me) is the Vierne quintet (and maybe the last of Burgmülller's quartets). The rest was not too bad but I do not think I'd have missed all that much if I had never heard it and instead listened to music I have already in my collection.

Both counts for me as well. So much undigested stuff... And, as nice as it is to discover new composers, it's not my duty. However some I cherish: Bononcini, Kreutzer, Wilms among some others.

[Henk]

John might just steal his stuff from Harry..

[Mirror Image]

For John, when the max budget is reached, the year is up, regardless of the month. A new budget starts right away, from zero, of course.

[Mirror Image]

Harry most definitely has me beat and I'm all the more sane for it.

[springrite]

Harry most definitely has me beat and I'm all the more sane for it.

We can agree with part one of your statement, but you are not fooling anyone by trying to slip through part two!

[jochanaan]

I haven't bought a CD in more than three years, and in fact have sold or donated most of my collection while the rest is in storage.  My living and financial situation is such that space and money are absolutely at a premium.  But, making a virtue of a necessity, I've listened to a fair lot of good music on YouTube while continuing to build my career as a music performer.