GMG Classical Music Forum

The cumulative effect of the Purchases Today and Box Blather threads is to make us all look like super wealthy people who buy loads and loads of new CDs all the time. I'm sure that's not the case. But I am curious to see the size of people's purchasing habits.

I have a hard limit for myself, of about US $650-700 per year, or around 1-1.5% of my income.

cutting way back

I chose between $500 to $1,000, but the truth is I haven't bought as many CDs last year or this year (so far) as I have in the past. I'm trying to scale back my purchases and I'm always in the process of culling my collection somehow to make room for other recordings.

Don't have a hard budget but my estimate would be between 1K to 2K per year nowadays.

Well, I say 500-1000, but in truth it could be more than that, I don't really know. Certainly it is far closer to 1000 than to 500... :-\

8)

I should have thought about my vote before pressing the button. I could be cutting back and still drop thousands of bucks a year.  :'(

3000$ last year, probably 1/2 of this this year.

At first I was confused whether per month or per year... ;)
I voted 500-1000 per year. For the last year I am probably closer to the lower end, I am trying to set a limit of about 50 EUR/month on average. I do not always succeed.
But around 2004-10 or so, I think I was solidly one category higher with at least 100 EUR/month. But I have less money now and also reached a level of saturation.

I actually buy far less CDs than years ago (when it can easily be 100 CD per month), but the per CD cost is much higher due to the fact that I have so much now, the ones I buy are often the rarer CDs and they cost more.

I am not sure but somehow I got from 500 or so discs in the early 2000s to about 4000 ten years later, so I must have bought a lot. I hardly buy any of the big boxes, so my CDs are not as cheap as those come. But I tend to buy from secondhand sellers and usually pay less than 5 EUR per single disc on average (on some orders it's closer to 2-3 EUR per disc). I usually refuse to pay full price. I rather wait for sales or second hand offers.

I am retiring from full time work soon so need to drastically cut back on the CD compulsion otherwise I will be in the work house. My CD smuggling into the house days are coming to an end  :'(
But there are a few months to go however. >:D

I don't have a budget.  If I want it, I buy it.

Quote from: springrite on April 25, 2015, 07:19:14 AM
I actually buy far less CDs than years ago (when it can easily be 100 CD per month), but the per CD cost is much higher due to the fact that I have so much now, the ones I buy are often the rarer CDs and they cost more.

Yes, this describes my situation well, also. All the low-hanging fruit has been picked, or else my taste for low fruit has waned... :(

8)

Quote from: vandermolen on April 25, 2015, 07:37:40 AM
I am retiring from full time work soon so need to drastically cut back on the CD compulsion otherwise I will be in the work house. My CD smuggling into the house days are coming to an end  :'(
But there are a few months to go however. >:D

You need a more current picture of yourself in your avatar; you've scarcely aged a bit, not enough to retire! :o

8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanst on on April 25, 2015, 07:39:53 AM
Yes, this describes my situation well, also. All the low-hanging fruit has been picked, or else my taste for low fruit has waned... :(

8)

Me too.

My rule is that I can only spend either PayPal money, gained by selling stuff on eBay, or by part-exing at my local music shop.  Obviously, both those rules can be overlooked if an unmissable bargain comes along, such as amazon.it's 30-disc VW box.

Quote from: vandermolen on April 25, 2015, 07:37:40 AM
My CD smuggling into the house days are coming to an end

My God, I'm not alone! I thought I was the only one who did this!
I feel so much better now, I think I'll go to the record store.  :)

Poll duty:
I picked $500-$1000, although it's probably more like $750-$1000. Or $900-$1000.

Quote from: NJ Joe on April 25, 2015, 08:40:05 AM
My God, I'm not alone! I thought I was the only one who did this!
I feel so much better now, I think I'll go to the record store.  :)

Poll duty:
I picked $500-$1000, although it's probably more like $750-$1000. Or $900-$1000.

If there is a $1 to $2000 category, most of us would fit into the same box.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on April 25, 2015, 07:41:14 AM
You need a more current picture of yourself in your avatar; you've scarcely aged a bit, not enough to retire! :o

8)

:)

Quote from: NJ Joe on April 25, 2015, 08:40:05 AM
My God, I'm not alone! I thought I was the only one who did this!
I feel so much better now, I think I'll go to the record store.  :)

Poll duty:
I picked $500-$1000, although it's probably more like $750-$1000. Or $900-$1000.

My smuggling tendencies were nurtured from youth. I grew up in a large flat (apartment) in Earl's Court in London. Whenever I bought an LP I sneaked round through the communal garden to my bedroom window, which was always left a bit open at the bottom for our cats to get in and out. I then threw the LP through the opening onto the floor of my bedroom before appearing, all innocent looking, at the front door a few moments later. At the school where I work I have a special CD tray in the Staff Room.  >:D

Quote from: The new erato on April 25, 2015, 07:04:47 AM
3000$ last year, probably 1/2 of this this year.

Do you mean that you will spend half of this amount within 2015 or that you have spent already $1500 in the first 4 months or 2015?

Interestingly I found lists and estimates of my purchases 2010-12. These are lower bounds because Ebay and some odds and ends are not included, only stuff I bought at the 3 main online stores where I shopped most frequently.
This lower bound is surprisingly stable at about 680-730 EUR for all of those three years. So I guess the true amount was probably 800-900 EUR on average in those years. (I am pretty sure it must have been more for some years ca. 2005-09, because I had more money and more space back then.) It's definitely somewhat less for 2013-14, probably around 600 each year. But again, some odds and ends might easily add up to another 100 or more, so all these figures hold only as estimates/lower bounds.

This is still too much as I do not have the space (nor the money but the latter will hopefully change eventually but not to such an extent that I do not have to care about storage space at all). I should try to cut it to half the # of new CDs, that is about 250-300 EUR/year or about 25/month. The easiest way would be to forego any purchases every other month and keep to roughly the amount I spend now in the months when purchases are allowed. Too much fasting will only lead to mad binge buying...

I am also trying to sell some CDs but this yields usually only 30-50 Euro/year, except for one occasion when I sold discs for more than 200 EUR before a move (so I had to move only 22 boxes with CDs instead of 24 or something like that).

I have a monthly budget of 100 euros for CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays. I try to spend as little as possible, typically 40-80 euros/month.  I spend probably 700-800 euros/year.

Quote from: Jo498 on April 25, 2015, 09:44:53 AM
Do you mean that you will spend half of this amount within 2015 or that you have spent already $1500 in the first 4 months or 2015?

The first, hence the qualifier probably.

I certainly have a CD budget.
It is just that I usually never stay in budget. 

I am trying to cut back, and I am buying less (he says, with a $100+ of CDs in the shopping cart for later this weekend).  But I should be buying way less....
And living alone, sneaking CDs into the house is rather pointless.

£120 pa to spotify and maybe £200 pa tops for the odd recording here and there. If I want to hear it I usually find a way to do so.

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on April 25, 2015, 10:44:49 AM
I certainly have a CD budget.

And living alone, sneaking CDs into the house is rather pointless.

I think of it as practice.

Aiming for a maximum budget of £60 per month for CD's/Books.

Actual average spend is closer to £70 per month (1275 USD per annum) over the last 40 months with all those boxsets and what-not of the last couple of years...

I log in all the CD/Books purchases in a spreadsheet to keep it in check...-ish...  :blank:

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on April 25, 2015, 10:44:49 AM
And living alone, sneaking CDs into the house is rather pointless.

But...but...what about the neighbors?? :o

Quote from: NJ Joe on April 25, 2015, 12:31:18 PM
But...but...what about the neighbors?? :o

Luckily the neighbor below me has been gone for a week, so right now I'm blasting Constantin Silvestri's coupling of Love of Three Oranges + Shostakovich No. 5 with no repercussions!

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 25, 2015, 06:27:41 AM
I chose between $500 to $1,000, but the truth is I haven't bought as many CDs last year or this year (so far) as I have in the past. I'm trying to scale back my purchases and I'm always in the process of culling my collection somehow to make room for other recordings.

Ah John! You mean your monthly budget, right?  :D :P
You just spent $200+ on the five Sibelius boxes! I estimate your annual cost for cds at several thousand dollars and perhaps even more based on the purchases you made (which I do enjoy following in the GMG Purchases thread). You seemingly tend to prefer single releases at the cost of $10-$20 or so. I am not sure how you could manage your past purchases with a $500-1,000 annual budget!  >:D
Higher powers know that we all probably should be in that realm or even a lower tier. So what is your actual monthly budget?  :-\

What budget?   0:)

*I am very good at making packages go away and quickly integrate new arrivals into the piles. Only time-lapse photography would give me away*

Quote from: Ken B on April 25, 2015, 11:48:16 AM
I think of it as practice.

+1   
Hear, hear!

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 25, 2015, 06:27:41 AM
I chose between $500 to $1,000, but the truth is I haven't bought as many CDs last year or this year (so far) as I have in the past. I'm trying to scale back my purchases and I'm always in the process of culling my collection somehow to make room for other recordings.

John, I've seen you spend that much just on Skalkottas!

I tried to not go over $200 for CDs per month. Budget is not an issue though, my biggest concern is the lack of time to listen to what I purchase.

Quote from: Ken B on April 25, 2015, 05:00:42 PM
John, I've seen you spend that much just on Skalkottas!

:P I haven't even listened to any of those recordings either. :-[

Quote from: Moonfish on April 25, 2015, 03:08:53 PM
Ah John! You mean your monthly budget, right?  :D :P
You just spent $200+ on the five Sibelius boxes! I estimate your annual cost for cds at several thousand dollars and perhaps even more based on the purchases you made (which I do enjoy following in the GMG Purchases thread). You seemingly tend to prefer single releases at the cost of $10-$20 or so. I am not sure how you could manage your past purchases with a $500-1,000 annual budget!  >:D
Higher powers know that we all probably should be in that realm or even a lower tier. So what is your actual monthly budget?  :-\

Yes, actually I paid $226 for all of those Sibelius BIS sets (incl. shipping). Yeah, I do seem to go for the single releases these days and this is because I've already bought a majority of the box sets I want. As for single releases, it really depends on the price as to whether I buy it or not. I don't buy CDs that are over $12 unless there's just absolutely no other good sellers and it's a recording I truly want in my collection. I was just being a bit conservative with my guess of $500-$1000. As I've mentioned before, I'm actually starting to scale back as I haven't bought as much as I used to.

Quote from: Mirror Image on April 25, 2015, 07:19:03 PM
:P I haven't even listened to any of those recordings either. :-[

That's why I picked Skalkottas!

Quote from: Ken B on April 25, 2015, 07:48:40 PM
That's why I picked Skalkottas!

:P

Quote from: Soapy Molloy on April 25, 2015, 07:56:06 AM
This would be the limiting factor in my case.  Thought less so since reaching an arrangement with the regular mailman about a special "drop zone" for anything vaguely CD-shaped (bonus payable at Christmas.)  ;D >:D 0:)

:laugh:

I buy very few music CDs any more. Last week I bought a CD of Taverner masses at my local used CD-DVD store, for a whopping $2.99. But I spend about $100 a month on DVDs and BluRays of good films, used through eBay or Amazon Marketplace whenever possible. (More when Barnes and Noble has a 50% sale on Criterions.)

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.

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

or did I miss a zero?    0:)

Quote from: Moonfish on June 14, 2015, 08:29:09 PM
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). ;D

Quote from: Mirror Image on June 14, 2015, 08:32:28 PM
Good question. I really have no idea. I believe I am (for now). ;D

John is a graduate of the Enron School of Accountancy.

Quote from: Ken B on June 15, 2015, 06:42:55 AM
John is a graduate of the Enron School of Accountancy.

:P

(https://theotherhubby.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bill-lumbergh-gif.gif)

How are your annual budgets for music purchases doing?   >:D

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

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...

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

There are a lot of more expensive hobbies!   :D

Q

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...

LOL.

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

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.

Quote from: Moonfish on June 14, 2015, 08:29:09 PM
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.

Quote from: Jo498 on August 02, 2015, 04:07:10 AM
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.

John might just steal his stuff from Harry.. :D

Quote from: springrite on August 02, 2015, 04:12:25 AM
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.

:P

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

Quote from: Mirror Image on August 05, 2015, 07:45:22 AM
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!

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. 8)