Prioritising in the age of Austerity

[dseagull]

(Firstly, please note this is not a political rant about the economy, nor is it a sob story designed to attract offers of free toys - but it is my way of setting the context for what I think might be a valid discussion with some differing approaches - I'd also like to keep it away from the oft-repeated yet boring mantra of 'xxx RTR company charges far too much for their products'. Ta )

 

I've been continuing the built of my shed layout this weekend and have hit a couple of walls. By that, I mean that I know what I want to accomplish, but I need to wait until payday to pick up the bits. Usually, this wouldn't be a problem, as I could smply work on another part of the project, but I seem to have hit several areas where I can't continue without spending some money.

 

To use my own situation as an example - I am engaged, living in a rented house with the resulting bills, and my take home pay is circa £930 a month. My better half works part time, but from our combined income, after taking out rent, council tax, petrol, bills, food etc I'm left with not a lot for life's little luxuries (magazines, toy trains, a mobile phone that works, pots for our ever-growing collection of Vegetable seeds to eventually live in, burgers at football, that irritating rattle on the car etc)

 

Now to use my layout as an example - I have laid, wired and partially ballasted the track. I have put in the foundations for scenery and a river. I have built a Goods Shed. At the moment though, there is a lot bare cork. Off the layout, I have started construcion of the Station platform - but this has halted due to running out of platform supports - and indeed the Station building. I can't work on the river because I haven't got the materials for the riverbed (rocks, tree branches, 'bottom of river gunk' etc). I can't begin construction of the trees (A) and riverbank ( .B because I haven't got A - the book I want to use for inspiration and advice and B - the Static Grass applicator I want to use or, indeed, scatter/static grass in any case. As for the obvious play/test answer - in a particularly tight spot that was December in which I had just started my new job, but hadn't been paid a full month's money, I sold the only two DCC chipped locos that I had available to test with in order to raise funds for Christmas shopping!

 

It got me thinking - when funds are tight - what (and how) do you prioritise?

 

Do you get 'the basics' in place across the board, spreading the available funds for the month thinly to get something everywhere, or do you get one small area 'just so' before moving onto the next when the magic money machine is willing to spit some more notes out?

 

For me, Payday is Tuesday and I'm still to decide? - does do I place an order for more cast bits to finish the platform and see if I can stretch to the kit I want to bash into shape for the building, or do I get the 'river area' sorted, with resulting purchases of an electric tea strainer (OT, but please don't tell me I can make one for a fiver, my soldering is a national disgrace - frankly I'd rather spend 20 quid and know that it is at least safe!) and some grass fibres - or do I really push the boat out, root around to see what I can find to offload and buy myself a loco? (The last one might be a rhetorical question!)

 

So - advice specific to my situation is more than welcome, but I am just as interested in the general response as well - I always find it interesting to see how different people tackle different things - and with most people feeling the pinch at the moment, possibly help others who have the same 'If I do A, then I can't do B, but if I do B, then I could at least make a start on C - but then not doing A would mean that C would have to sit in a box for a few weeks anyway' quandries.

[hayfield]

I would either do

 

1 The bit which is holding everything else up

 

2 The bit which would allow me to do something else which does not cost anything (scratch building from items rescued/re-cycled from home or work)

 

3 The thing I like doing the most

[Kris]

At the moment for me rent, food, bills etc come way before railway costs but that doesn't stop me dreaming and planning. The car also has to come before trains as well as this gives me the potential to earn.

[Catkins]

Having been in a very similar financial situation as yourself, but taking a slightly different route to raising finance for food, I have found that I have a lot of modelling projects on the go, and I have began to pick up on some of them.

 

I personally find it impossible to part with any of my model railway and diecast collections, so I applaude your bravery in selling, the other thing that I find is that I spend when the times are good, purchasing on the basis of "I have an idea, that could be useful for it", or alternatively "I like it, I'll buy it, and make a plan around it"

 

I can't give specific advice about your situation, but I would say that you go along the route of spreading the money thinly across the layout, for a general appearance, and look around the house / work for suitable re-usable materials.

The other thing that I do is I set a budget that covers all my outgoings - I don't own a car, and can't justify the cost because i live four miles (an hours walk) from where I work - I budget for lifes little luxuries, and try very hard to keep to it.

 

Is your shed layout steam or diesel? Do you, or your partner drink tea? - If the answer to the second question is yes, then you could always use dried tea leaves (opening a tea bag first) as ground cover, if your shed is a steam shed, so much the better.

Good Luck

[rob D2]

Busy spending my redundancy as I speak !

 

Same boat really, had the baseboard before the company went pop. Sold £250 worth if stock on ebay to fund some track to put on it.

 

£50 Xmas money also spent, starting new job in ME in 2 weeks , but no chance to model when I am 3000 miles away . Trying to afford a paint spraying mask so I can at least get the rail sides done before I go ...

[Guest dilbert]

I plan my hobby expenditure into projects in a similar way to the household budget - you don't get any surprises when you understand the financial outgoings of items and it also allows you prioritise and better nderstand the potential timing of monies to be spent. It's not always easy.

 

One thing I have always done with weekly essentials (fuel, food) is never to use plastic card or cheques. Only a single cash amount that is drawn at the start of each week. On a daily basis, any loose 1p/2p/5p coins go into a tin, at the end of the week surplus notes/coins go into the same tin. At the end of the month, open tin and discover what is inside and decide what to do with it, You can place this money in a savings account, have a treat or just leave it in the tin for the following month. The old saying 'look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves' still rings true... dilbert

[dseagull]

Some interesting thoughts - budgeting definatley helps - of course, it would be good to know exactly when things like the water bill would turn up to be able to factor that into it as well!

 

My point though was less the 'other things are higher priority and the trains get whatevers left' part of the initial post, but more the prioritising what gets done first when you do have x pounds budgeted/left over at the end of the month - to spend.

[charles2]

Hi!

 

A very interesting thread - thank you dseagull for starting it!

Yes, I have at times had a bank account that does not cover what needs to go out. The one thing that I would start is by prioritising the little things - along the lines of Dilbert saying the old 'save the pennies' mantra - the kind of thing being if you go to the football (& is that really more important than food or the gas bill?), miss out on the burger; do you really need to drive down the road to the local shop to get the paper - is it walkable thereby saving petrol (& getting exercise, being good to the environment etc.)? Some times just stopping the little bits really adds up to the being able to get the big bits! If you go to the pictures, sneak your own maltesers in instead of paying twice the price there! It all helps!

 

 

Hope that's of some help!

Charles

[HLT 0109]

It is indeed frustrating to to have time to do something but being unable to proceed for lack of the bits you need, so I go with the idea of getting the general layout done as and when funds permit, leaving the finer details until later. Often the finer details are less expensive (but not necessarily so) and sometimes you can think of alternative ways of doing things - perhaps finding you don't need to buy the item you thought was essential. As the general layout proceeds, further apportunities present themselves for model-making activity without expenditure. The downside to this approach is that it may mean higher initial expense on infrastructure.

 

In my case, having designed the track plan, my priority was first to lay as much as I could. The limiting factor was that my son was painting the backscene which would be inacccessible once the baseboards were fixed (a permanent layout). Persistent (but gentle) persuasion was required.

[Guest dilbert]

Some interesting thoughts - budgeting definatley helps - of course, it would be good to know exactly when things like the water bill would turn up to be able to factor that into it as well!

 

My point though was less the 'other things are higher priority and the trains get whatevers left' part of the initial post, but more the prioritising what gets done first when you do have x pounds budgeted/left over at the end of the month - to spend.

 

If you know the amount to accrue for your water bill, then assuming that you have no leaks etc..., when the water bill arrives you should be covered. If you don't know, then ask the water company for an estimate - they should be able to provide a reasonable figure based on the number of people in a house, appliances such as a washing machine, dish washer et al... also ask them for the periodicity of their invoice.

 

I would also build a 'float' to cover unexpected expenses, rather than spend all of what is left at the end of the month.

 

The only reason I mention this is that defining priorities is then approached with a different mindset... dilbert

[Guest Natalie Graham]

If you are starting out on a limited budget model an obscure prototype in a minority scale. That way there is less stuff available to buy anyway and as you need to build nearly everything yourself it takes longer and so spreads the essential expenditure over a longer time period. Working in a smaller scale helps too, since the quantity of materials to build a loco, for example, in 2mm scale compared to, say, O gauge is much less and correspondingly cheaper. When I thought I would give railway modelling a another go after several years of inactivity I built a little HR 0-4-4T in N gauge out of the bits of brass left at the edges of some long time previously built 3mm etched kits and the wheels off a defunct Bachmann US switcher. The only things I needed to buy for it were a motor and gears.

[Oldddudders]

I think the prioritising issue is tough - we have certainly known times when there was "more month than money"!

 

As far as the layout is concerned, I think the intended final result may give you a clue. ISTR you are heading for a roundy, so I suggest that completing bare baseboards but with a single complete loop of track should be the priority. That way any trains you can afford will have something to do! It also gives you the satisfaction of having a working railway of some sort, and then the detailing can begin in various places, as materials - bought or scrounged, as per some of the useful suggestions above - come to hand. Placeholder buildings made from cereal packets etc. will add a degree of purpose, hopefully to be replaced in due course when the purse-strings may be eased a little.

[Guest stuartp]

I can't work on the river because I haven't got the materials for the riverbed (rocks, tree branches, 'bottom of river gunk' etc).

 

Does this need to cost anything ? Twigs, pebbles etc can all be got for free from the garden (not necessarily yours). I'm not sure you need the static grass applicator either, I know they're the dog's whatsits but try a puffer bottle first (squeezy tomato ketchup bottle - you can always decant the ketchup into an empty jam jar if you're desperate to get stuck in).

[Kris]

Does this need to cost anything ? Twigs, pebbles etc can all be got for free from the garden (not necessarily yours). I'm not sure you need the static grass applicator either, I know they're the dog's whatsits but try a puffer bottle first (squeezy tomato ketchup bottle - you can always decant the ketchup into an empty jam jar if you're desperate to get stuck in).

 

I was just thinking something similar. Looking for alternative solutions to the I need it so I will buy it can save loads of money. Why buy card for internal unseen structures. I bet you have plenty of card that goes in the bin / to the recycling site that would work for this.

[Dave777]

Didn't we do a thread on how to model while spending as little money as possible about 6 months ago? Can't for the life of me remember any key words for the title though.

[Karhedron]

I'm not sure you need the static grass applicator either,

I have seen people make their own out of seives/flyswatters for a few pounds that work much better than puffer bottles but cost far less than the shop-bought ones. Again there was a thread or two about it last year.

[The Stationmaster]

Talk about the age of austerity - there's a piece in the 'paper today about the boom in spending on cosmetic plastic surgery! So in reality for many folk it's all a matter of where you spend what you have got and the cosmetic surgery boom seems to suggest that some folk think that means the, er, 'scenery' (BTW the boom includes men as well as women).

[Kris]

I have seen people make their own out of seives/flyswatters for a few pounds that work much better than puffer bottles but cost far less than the shop-bought ones. Again there was a thread or two about it last year.

 

There have been several threads about doing this. It's not hard at all to do, I've done it. It was a hard choice however whether to keep the fly killer bit as it was very satisfying giving a blue bottle a good backhand.

[GC Jack]

I don't have a budget for models, I have enough kits to last three lifetimes.

 

I just tend to prioritise on one or two and buy in a few bits to complete them. I had a lucky find when a friend sold me a vast collection of bits and pieces previously owned by a relative who had passed away - he was kit builder.

 

The happiest and one the best modellers I have known was a chap called Mike Dickinson. he built scratchbuilt card buildings usind just brickpaper and bits if wire etc. They were outstanding and every year he sold many to a dealer who made a very good profit on them.

 

I'll post some pics up later.

 

Jack

[dseagull]

Some interesting answers, as suspected!

 

What I have taken note of is the several - "You can do things cheaply that look good" posts.

 

So, I'm still going to get a static grass applicator - at some point - but I'm also going to try things like this alternative

 

Thanks all for the input

[Grant Newhouse]

Speaking personally, I’d get trains running first. It’s easier to imagine scenery then it is to imagine trains running over an unfinished layout. After that I would I would look for bargains on what your need, and wait for sales before getting your supplies, but all this requires time.

 

 

For cheep layout supplies like wood, I’d say that the best thing to do is dumpster diving, not an appealing proposition but let me explain. Often at construction sites you see dumpsters with scrap plywood, 2x4’s, foam off cuts, extra wire, that are all perfectly good for layout building. Ask some one you know in the trade, or just go to a site and talk to the foremen if you can climb in and root around. I don’t think many will mind, the less they have in the dumpster, the less they have to pay to take it away, right. If its construction waste you won’t really have anything nasty to deal with, just wear your safety boots, some thick cowhide gloves and watch wear you step. I’ve picked 2 rolls of 14 gauge wire, 1000ft rolls out of the dumpster when they finished the renovations on the village fire hall. That wire is the basis of my wiring and quite a few trees’ as well.

 

 

Also for bench work, doors work great. Ideally flat hollow core doors, but any door, as long as it is not warped, will work. Even doors with indented designs will work; use them to your advantage to represent depressions. A bit of filler, paint and varnish and you’ve got your self a river bed. I’ve seen barns full of doors that are just asking to be turned into layouts. On the drive to work look for houses under going renovations, plenty of doors and other bits perfect for bench work, just make sure you have permission.

 

 

If dumpster diving isn’t your thing, try a second hand store. In Canada habitat for humanity run re-sell stores and sell extra paint and lumber, plus all sorts of other building supplies. Good place to get cheep supplies and do some good, don’t know if it is in the UK though.

 

 

Train show’s usually have some one selling used track and rolling stock. You can save lots money that way. Upgrading rolling stock can be more time consuming and more rewarding then buying kits.

 

 

With all that said, there are going to be compromises, but if your up for a challenge I’m sure you could cobble a layout together from waste wood, spare wire and second hand track. The only problem is time. Get some thing running so that when you have nothing to build, you can at least sit back and ‘play’ trains.

 

 

Grant

[6959]

In the 1930s, 40s and 50s it was not possible to buy everything you needed to buld a railway so improvisation was key.

 

Find a friendly old *art who has a collection of old model railway mags and will let you borrow them. Scan through them to get ideas.

 

Alternatively, look out for very old do it yourself books which often have ideas for making something out of nothing.

 

Jumble sales and car boots could be a source of useful junk especially if you go around at closing time and find the guy who has had a bad day and does not want to take stuff back home.

 

Salvaging was a practised art long before there were containers called skips or dumpsters.

[moorlander]

Agree with fellow posters, its the time to be frugal when planning anything these days.

There used to be a thread on here about how to model on the cheap, with tips and ideas. Is it still going on.

 

There are few i admit few and far between bargains on ebay. Personally i go to toy fairs where you can pick up some good models quite reasonable too.

Last year got a immaculate dark green Hornby 9F for under £30 unboxed as an example,

 

If a model is a few years old , does it really matter. like a car aslong as it goes , will anyone be bothered with detail, if pulling a rake of coaches round your layout.

 

Its not what you spend on the hobby but what you get out of it, i find.

[aberdare]

I agree with Grant on this one. I have a restricted budget and have acquired four internal doors which will be used as a baseboard, they will also enable me to fit a river bed in by cutting away part of one surface and using the back or internal face of the other side. Also for flocks I used teabags bag in the 80s when I was modelling again on a tight budget. It,s just about being creative.

 

Jim

[Kenton]

I think the most important thing is to be able to prioritise.

 

One man's austerity is another's profligacy.

 

All spending has to be classified as essential (to live) and non-essential (the luxuries that make life a pleasure). They are not the same for everyone except at the extremes. Getting your own balance requires a lot of careful soul searching.

 

To me, petrol (more specifically the running cost of a car) is an essential as without it I am unable to get to work. Yes, I could give up work and find a job with a easier commute, but probably on less pay and not so mentally rewarding. Food, to me is fuel and I have cut back on the number of meals out. It is amazing how cheaply you can eat if you cook for yourself and not fall into the take away trap. Football I have no interest in (or any sport) so that is certainly not essential and a mobile phone on PAYG is remarkably cheap if you don't use it. Again certainly not essential. Not keeping up with fashion (and that includes the hobbies) is another important element. Holidays are another area where people overspend, again a luxury.