Could 2014 Make Lego Fans Bankrupt?

[Wodanis]

I definelty am speningd a lot more this year. There have been so many great sets this year that I'm struggling to keep up. I'd like to get back into Star Wars but so far City, Creator, Lego movie and now Ideas has been occupying most of my budget. Don't get me started on the cost of my MOC modular police station which is still in progress. At this rate it will be October before I maybe finish buying the parts. That being said I can't complain.

[TheLegoExperience]

There are a lot of factors that may affect when you make a LEGO purchase, which helps you manage your budget:

• When will the set go EOL? Some sets may only have one production run and so you may want to get those early, especially if scalpers are doing the same. But if the set will likely be on the shelves for a year or more, you can delay your purchase.
  For example, the Parisian Restaurant sucked me into the Modular Building line but I that will be the last Modular set I will buy because it will still be around for some time.
  

• Which store will you buy the set from? If the set is not a LEGO store exclusive, then you may be able to get better discounts from other retailers when they have sales or you have a charge card that offers cash-back or a discount. For example, I rather get 5% discount from Target than 5% VIP points from LEGO when purchasing smaller sets. And there are websites like ebates that give you cash-back for linking to the store through them. Then again, buying from LEGO directly is not a bad idea if you're going to use the savings to buy more anyway and that month has a nice freebie.
  

• It may be a good idea to set aside funds for a big one-time purchase because you never know when there might be a sudden sale or deal or coupon. For example, LEGO had triple VIP points on Black Friday, which is a good time to buy exclusives and large sets.
  
• And if you find yourself buying sets and then having them sit opened for months, then maybe you should spend more time building than buying.
  

Yeah, this is how my mind would go if I used that thinking.

* Buy it the first time you see it in a store, it could be out of production early! In fact, better get 3!

* Buying things at LEGO store feels more right then at any old Target or Wal-Mart!

* I would like to get the things I want during a sale, but I have a spare $20 right now and I've been dying to get the set!

* I've just haven't found the time to build the set, it isn't a waste! I could just put it on BL if I didn't want it!

Edited July 10, 2014 by TheLegoExperience

[KristofBD]

Well, as a historic themes fan, this is actually an extremely cheap year: No Western theme (2013), no Pirates (2015) and only one wave of the Hobbit (with no D2C set). The only non-historic set I just could not resist was the Parisian Restaurant (one of the best sets ever imho).

So I guess it depends on what themes one is most interested in: this is not a golden year for all Lego fans. To me 2012 and 2013 were far more expensive (and better).

Edited July 11, 2014 by KristofBD

[Lady K]

Food vs Lego , yes we don't need to eat this week.

Well this year has caused us to eat at home more often and spend less on quick fix food/snack/junk food at the grocery store just to keep Lego spending. As a mom of two TFOLS we sure do need a lot of Lego each month to keep with all our builds. That said it is nice to justify purchasing a larger set because we will share the pieces.

[cold_fuzion]

I've been fortunate this year in that I was able to sell off some things around the house and use the money for LEGO. I think I've spent something like $700 from that. The end result is that I now had a tremendous amount of sorting to do and an unopened Parisian Restaurant starting at me daily. Honestly I found myself buying a few sets just because I wanted the minfigs and that got annoying. "Well, I could buy the X-Men vx. the Sentinel set for $50 or I could just buy the minifigs individually for more than that... hmmmm."

I do agree it's been a great year, but I hope they slow down a bit. I don't think I can keep up with this for much longer.

[rollermonkey]

Trying to be a good boy:

Instead of building Sandcrawler in one night, I told myself I'd do one set of numbered bags each day...

Well, the #1 bags weren't very stable, so I did the #2s the first day, too.

Then yesterday I did 3 and 4, but didn't like how much was sticking up and did #5... which although not actually attached, I stopped there.

We'll see how long I can hold out from binge building the rest, but for $300, I'd like to get at least a few more days!

[talos]

I have just this year gotten back into buying sets, and yes, its costing me a lot... I have gotten a couple 2nd copies of the modulars on top of some of the new sets. I better not say how much $$ ;-)

Now I am going to go to Disneyland next month and will be visiting the Lego store there, I hear its a must see store. From what I have heard, its great. I wonder what I will get. Definitely want to check out the Pick a Brick wall, and the Trevi Fountain set will be available by then. I just ordered the Mini...haha, and its only mid year!

[fossil1999]

It depends. Pretty much the only purchases I will make this year will be the 7644 MX-81 and around 30-40$ on bricklink parts(Wheels, windscreens, that sort of stuff).

Edit: By the way, it is amazing how browsing thourgh bricklink makes the order cost go up! ("This only costs $3, I'll throw it in...What about this?...")

Edited July 21, 2014 by fossil1999

[Drock]

Different strokes and all that...

For me, 2014 is pretty cheap.

[BigTonka]

Difficult topic indeed. This has been a very expensive year for me.. and still is not ended yet:

160.00 - Parisian Restaurant

50.00 - TLG Moto Chase

100.00 - Benny spaceship

100.00 - Mini Cooper

50.00 - Ghostbusters

140.00 - Technic Airplane

220.00 - Volvo front loader *

200.00 - UCS Slave I *

200.00 - UCS Tumbler *

35.00 - Exo suit *

TOTAL: $1255.00 (not included taxes and shipping to my country)

This Iist came after I decide not to buy a lot of several sets would like to have (Simpsons house, Sea Cow, Triple E, SW stuffs, TLM stuffs, etc...) and this not include purchases made to eBay or Bricklink for out of production sets an parts.

So YES....it's a lot o money and too many awesome sets at almost the same time: a real nightmare for a lot of us because I believe that most of the AFOLs around the world can't buy all of them, specially several of the same set. So at the end is very frustrating to not have the condition to buy what you want because is expensive and need to rely ant the end of overpriced out of production sets on BL and eBay by scalpers... specially when TLG refuse to ship to forwarders making the scalpers almost your only option to get them even if the set is still in production.

Personally I would like to see less expensive D2C releases per year... to me this year was a abuse and I don't want to see the next one...

[Ardelon]

Well, as a historic themes fan, this is actually an extremely cheap year (...)

So I guess it depends on what themes one is most interested in: this is not a golden year for all Lego fans. To me 2012 and 2013 were far more expensive (and better).

+1.

This has been an unusually cheap year for me when it comes to LEGO spending for this very reason.

[Kumpelkante]

+1.

This has been an unusually cheap year for me when it comes to LEGO spending for this very reason.

me too. At least i could complete my collection of 2013 castle sets (you would buy the dragon mountain too if it was 40% off) and some lone ranger set.

but not so fast: theres the tumbler and a hobbit wave coming up.

[-Horizon-]

For me there is not many sets I really want this year.

Benny's SSS 99.99

Exo-Suit 34.99

Maybe the Hobbit sets

So I'd say about 200.00 for sets after a few odds and ends here and there.

Though I'd like to branch into the 3rd party customizers this year, and I can't forget BL and PaB. So I'll probably stay close to my budget.... Hopefully..

[merman]

True: very expensive year.

I bought:

- Parisian Restaurant

- Simpson House

- All Simpsons CMF's

- All Lego Movie CMF's

- The Sea Cow

- Benny's Spaceship

- Fairground Mixer

- Volvo Loader

- Mini

- exosuit

And some smaller sets. It is better if Lego would spread the exclusives and big sets some more. I can't have yet another year like this one. The christmas sets are also coming!

So for 2015: easy on the exclusives!!!

[_epicster_]

I think I've spent about $385 on LEGO, with a bunch of DC purchases, One GotG set, one SW set, and most of the Simpsons CMFs. The bad part about this is that it's only been like 1-2 months since I've been collecting Legos again ( I did from like 2006 when I was really young up until like early 2012 ) And now I'm looking to buy the Milano from GotG, the tumbler, the Exo-Suit, and I still want to complete my DC collection (Another $350-ish), so I'm hoping my birthday and christmas can cover the DC sets (not including the tumbler) and I can save up for the rest hopefully. This year is going to be expensive for me, but that is mostly because I never got the 2013 DC sets.

Sorry if this was painful to read, it's long.

Edit: Damn I forgot about TMNT, which I'm looking at another $200 for getting all the movie sets and a few show-based ones

Edited July 22, 2014 by _epicster_

[Venunder]

I can just about keep up with all the sets that I want. But there is no way that I can buy the sets that I need. :)

While this is a great year for Lego, with all the new sets is there a danger that Lego might overproduce and head back into trouble if the next "big thing" comes along at the wrong time?

Probably not.

I expect the next 3 years will be just as full of new and wonderful lego sets if not more.....

Edited July 26, 2014 by Venunder

[Legopicler]

Think of the big picture! If we did not buy lego, the lego company would go bust and there would be no more lego for the children of the world. So whilst we may suffer financial hardship, its our civic duty, its almost charity. Can we claim tax deduction for altruistic lego buys? No? Oh well.

[Paul B Technic]

Surely you buy what you can afford? If you are not meeting your bills and payments then why would you buy LEGO?

[BrickPop]

Having only just come out of my dark ages at the end of last year (thanks to my daughter's interest in Lego), 2014 has definitely been an expensive year!

She loves Lego Friends so we've bought quite a few of those sets (all at discount on amazon etc). Coupled with a few kg eBay bulk purchases for parts and some PAB cups, we've had a great time building Lego together

[BrickBuilder3213]

So, it turns out that I had to get a job in order to buy my daily doses of Ultra Agents, Ninjago and Hero Factory. :P

[alanyuppie]

As a frugal AFOL..I reluctantly skip huge sets as soon as my MOC-mindset kicks in. Whatever parts in those premium sets will end up in my pile-of-bricks eventually ... no matter how aesthetically pleasing those sets are . I prefer my LEGO in small doses, lasting me 1-2 hours of a fun evening.

[TheBrickPal]

No, but 2015 certainly could make me bankrupt.

[SweetiePie88]

I did do a bit of buying this year hut no where as much in previous years and this year is about wrapped up for me. Only things left are series 6 animals if they show up this year, a buy through a Lego guy, a question mark on the target holiday poly pending what it is, and checking for good clearances. Oh, and i do need two more sets of sterelite drawers for organizing stuff.

Next year the major things will be Lego friends stuff and mom and I really want JP items. Mom is normally just into the mega bloks hello kitty stuff but JP is really catching her eye. If they do a doctor who line, I could see my uncle going over to the Lego side XD