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いたします！
Happy New Year everybody. We're finally done with 2020 and we now look to the next 365 days of this new year we call 2021. As per tradition here are how I fared for my New Years resolutions going in 2020, with new New Years resolutions as 2021 goes on.
2020 Goals
6. One Card In, 15 Cards Out
A(?)
A downsizing measure used to basically get rid of excess cardboard by force. I stopped bothering to count after a while but given how much I dumped gave to the likes of Baseball Card Breakdown, Cardboard History and a others at scattered points throughout the year I think I was able to balance it out.
5. A limit of 15 TTM requests per month
A
With zero minor league baseball this was pretty easy to obtain. I only sent about 34 TTM requests this year, of which I got back 17 (so a 50% success rate). As the year went on I got into paid autograph submissions (gotta stimulate the economy), opening the door to more options. My wallet took a slight hit but I've basically learned to be fine with it as I still wanted those signatures, and I grew to justify it further as horror stories of greedy folks expecting dozens of cards to be signed at a time for free started getting more exposure as 2020 went on.
4. $60 cap on sealed boxes/packs for the entire year
A
Barely made it under with 0.43 cents to spare, but I did it. My dwindling interest in wax, reduced trips to stores and scalpers clearing out shelves before I even make my way into said stores made this easier.
3. $150 cap on IP autograph related costs
A
I spent like $20 on Pedro Guerrero IP autos in February, then COVID-19 happened and bupkis for the rest of the year. Welp, at least this was easy.
2. Three cards per month on eBay/Amazon/COMC/insert-online-retailer-here combined (excludes Luis Torrens additions)
F
I never blogged about them but I did have months where I'd buy dozens of cards at a time because cards I'd been long after finally popped up. This goal was as good as dirt by March.
1. $600 Cap [excludes Torrens and Zapping/shipping fees]
F
According to my spreadsheet my total card finances for the year were $864.43. This does not include cards that were relevant to my Luis Torrens collection. Nor does it include the amount of money I spent to ship out cards/items to collecting partners.
Considering how I kept it under 4 digits I won't consider that an abysmal failure, but it's still a failure nonetheless. Especially in a year where my interest supposedly dipped.
Alright with that out of the way, on to 2021 goals.
5. Limit of 10 singles per month
My spending habits were weird this year. There'd be months where I buy maybe one or two cards max, and then a month I'd buy like 24 at once. I have a feeling it might happen again, but we'll see. For now a 10 singles limit just to see if it sticks I guess. Luis Torrens cards are exempt.
4. 1 TTM Return
Thanks to paid autograph submissions this shouldn't be too difficult, but always good to set the bar low.
3. $60 limit on retail purchases
Just so I don't get tempted if/when I ever see cards on the shelves again.
2. Continue to downsize
Kinda vague I know but despite all of my best efforts I still have a fair bit of stuff that I'm on the fence about. Granted a lot of the hold-up is due to trading with my friends in Japan being absolutely shut down due to Japan Post not mailing parcels to America and me having to hold onto stuff for longer than I'd like, but yeah less is more. I guess if I were to offer specifics, I really just need to get my "potential TTM/IP box" basically down to just like 50-ish cards from the 200-ish it's at now.
1. $600 Limit
I keep trotting this out there every year, and this year will be no different. It's good to have a budget. And again Luis Torrens cards will be exempt from this, tee hee.
Honestly my goals for 2021 are kinda loose because I have no clue what to expect this year. Will the Hudson Valley Yankees affiliate renew my interest? Will sportsball even happen? Are we even sure that things will go back to normal in 2021? I don't have the answer to any of these and I'm not going to even try and figure them out now when I know time will tell all.
All I can do is hope that this year is a safely, healthy and productive year for all of us.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care. Wash your hands, please practice social distancing and maintain a 6ft distance from others, wear a mask and listen to the proper authorities on the latest updates on how to best protect yourself from the COVID-19 virus. Also defund the police and reinvest in communities and programs that make neighborhoods safer for all.
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