How Do You Finance Your Train Purchases?

You need to take it a bit further (perhaps you have).    Get a few hundred $1 bills from the bank.  Soak in a special bleached based wash (makeup of which may be purchased directly from me for a small fee) until all the ink wears off.  Then, using your laser printer and an HD quality scan of a real, crisp $100 bill, print the image on the real money paper.   This way it will pass the authenticity checks when you use them at the train store.  Or better yet---go to a casino and turn them into chips which you never use yet return later to cash out for other bills. 

Wish I could remember which novel I read this in---pretty sure it was a Jack Reacher story...lol

 

---Greg

I work part time at a local hoppy shop. Charlie 

Been over forty-five years, but selling oregano to NYU students used to be a good way to come by some extra cash. 

 

Pete

       
       

What marijuana?  It was oregano and the NYU students were too naive to know.

 

Pete

LOL…Texas Pete
Sounds like a ground floor opportunity to me..

K.C.

Well, at least when they found out they could make some good spaghetti sauce with it.

For about 13 or 14 years, I drove the same beat-up wagon.  Once the car payments ended, I just "diverted" the money to my train hobby, figuring that it's money that I had been spending anyway.  

 

A Fool's Reasoning, I know….   

 

- Mike

I read them all looking for someone to announce he was either a male escort or chippandales dancer...

 

Me: I scrounge the couch for loose change after dinner guests leave....

 

Me I do any way I can, beg, borrow and thought about stealing but decided against that. I really like Texas Pete method.

I use the U.S. Government method:  DEFICIT SPENDING.

hello guys and gals..........

 

We paid cash for the trains whenever possible.  Using a credit card or borrowing money is like being a SLAVE to the lender (banks, credit card companies). It took us 4 months to pay(4 payments of 300 dollars send to Mr. Mann) for the 5011.

 

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678

Tiffany

Having read a couple of hundred articles in the popular 3 rail publications, rarely was it disclosed how the owners of gargantuan train collections and 2000 sq ft layouts afforded their empires. Journalism 101 would require that info as part of the who, where, when, and how equation. There must be a reason that the money trail is kept hush-hush when it comes to many of the elite published of the hobby. Maybe we should all take a lesson from that.

I mine supernovas for Illyrion.  Very lucrative albeit somewhat risky.

if you don't use a "cash back" credit card (Discover, for example), you are literally losing money paying with cash on every purchase you make.  i sign up for monthly deals between 1/2 to 5% back on purchases so a few times a year, a few hundred dollars of my current balance gets paid for free.

 

with just a little self control, there are many other credit card deals available.

Cash and credit, pay it off, then start again. I work within a certain range with the credit; sometimes its low, sometimes high, depending on my interest. The main thing (for me) is to STOP at a certain point, regroup and then start again. I use the same credit card (since 1988) and get a rebate. Once in a blue moon, i will use the Pay Later feature on the bay, but I don't like it, because six months goes by quickly and the bill then presents itself at usually an inconvenient time. Over the years, I naturally made a lot of purchases; some people think I have much money to spend. In reality, I buy items one-at-a-time, within a certain range of spending power. This is nothing special.

I made a trade.

A stranger with a goatee and bad sunburn offered my all the trains I want in exchange for my soul.

How could could I say no?

 

I definitely think I got the better part of that deal.

I robbed my brothers piggy bank!

I wait until one of my colleagues at work is out to lunch and then I swipe his/her cubicle chair and sell it with the buy-it-now option on E-bay. The reaction when the victim returns from lunch is one of suprise and confusion but since no one can find the chair the usual practice is to substitute a chair from one of the conference rooms. 

 

  As a result, most of the conference rooms don't have chairs so everyone has to stand during a meeting. This has had the benifit of drastically reducing meeting times. As a result time formely wasted in meetings has been freed up for doing work and our overall productivity has improved to the point that we are all in line for a year end bonus ...so it's a win-win situation the company sees a positive impact to the bottom line and I can keep purchasing trains.

Mr. Woodcock, 

How did you ever survive that last explosion!

Sundance Kid

When I was a kid, my Father had a garage and built stock cars and hot rods.  Many years before the TV guys of today were born.  I started buying cars to fix and sell while in High School.  My whole life I have been buying and selling speciality vehicles to gather extra funds.  I always have some Corvettes for sale.  Doing this has done myself and Uncle Sam well.  I like Jags and old Mustangs also.  This car hobby has also paid for my education and build my home mortgage free.  My Police Department retirement and SS takes good care of my other hobbies.  Being a confirmed train nut, I have always been able to finance my train purchases.  We all have to do what works.  I have slowed down a bit with the cars but the trains keep showing up.

 

All I want now is for my health to hold out a while longer so I can keep doing what I love to do.

 

Anyone can have whatever they want in life, all they have to do is get up and go work for it.  Some of us like to work extra.  I am thankful I was able to do that.

Marty, I didn't know you were an auto broker too.  How about finding me a 70 roadrunner 4 speed:-)  G

George,  I purchased that car new for $2,950.00.  Blew two motors drag racing due to the crappy external oil pumps.  I traded that 6 months later for a left over 440 Six Pack Charger with a 4 speed.  That was a wild ride.  The cars have been good to me.  We live in the greatest Country in the world and anybody can make all the extra they want.   Cars have always been a fun second job for me.  It pays for trains. 

Texas Pete, I'm not pretty, but I agree about almost having to commit armed robbery to buy most of these newer, fang-dangled, expensive trains, so I have to wait for income and buy what's on sale!!!!

Ralph

Stay marked up and go to work. Not lay off (call in sick) as much.

For about a month or so at the end of the year, I stand outside a big department store with a black pot as I ring a bell dressed as Santy Claus.  You heard of Santy Claus, man, right?  I make lots of bread, man.

 

I just wish I was born rich instead of being so darn good looking!

 

 

With all the parties coming up I just pass the old hat around.

Completely legit and better profit margin.  Surelv there was no misrepresentation.

Pat B.

What marijuana?  It was oregano

Well my train budget is now very low, not at all what it was. I promised the wife and kids I would not do those thing anymore that supplied me the money to buy the trains, O I forgot, I also promised the judge too.

I buy what I want.  If there is any money left over we buy food.

Gentlemen,

   My military retierment covers most purchases, the Military use to pay me good money to put Rapists, Murders, Drug smugglers, Treasonsits & such in the calaboose.

I am peaceably retired now, play with my Gun Dogs, Fly Fish and build my addictive train layouts, to keep myself out of trouble. 

PCRR/Dave

Hello Al Galli............

 

LOL,We do the SAME thing ............  but we cannot to do that anymore .

 

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678

Tiffany

Cash

I have certain services that I must carry out.

On the seriousness side, I don't have much discretionary income.  I get most of my model equipment via gifts.  My wife asks me what I want for birthday, Christmas, etc, then either she or I orders it.  Then she wraps it, and I act surprised when I open it .  

I collect just nyc now-my favorite railroad is the up but you have to be well off just to

collect up steam engines-big boy-challenger-4-12-2-etc plus turbines.

I sell what isn.t my favorite to get engines I want.try to pay .70 percent debit and balance creit card.

if you collet scale steamers this is not a cheap hobby.lionel has always been expensive.

I was going to say from train repairs, but the last 3 train repairs just went to replace the washing machine motor and pump assembly:-(  G

Marty F. We had the same external oil pump drive shaft breakage problem until we went dry sump.

 

Purchase strategy?  Earn smart, save smart, spend smart.