Like many small business owners, I had to make changes when I started my business. Downsizing my personal spending was the hardest part, as my take home pay dropped by two-thirds. You learn a lot about the value of money when you're forced to cut to the bare essentials and there's no other source of income to tap. The biggest change is how I valued my time.
Nobody is going to pay you an hourly wage based on your efforts, so there's none of the usual mental comparisons. You can no longer say, "Well, a $20 car wash is worth it, because I make $50/hour and it will take me at least an hour to wash my car." There's nobody willing to pay you $50/hour to do anything, or even a dollar an hour. Wash your car yourself or you're out twenty bucks. When you realize you need to sell $250 in games to cover that car wash, you'll start looking for the bucket.
As you start cutting your expenses down to the bone, you place a much higher value on your money and especially your discretionary income, such as entertainment dollars. I mention this because cutting my expenses by two-thirds allowed me to see what I truly valued and what was fluff in my life. The result was promising.
Trading down on cars, was a big one, followed by entertainment expenses that seemed a bad value, like going to the movies or dining out. Gym memberships that didn't get used, subscriptions to magazines I didn't read; that stuff was easy money. Eventually I dropped my Tivo and satellite TV, changed my broadband service to something reasonable, and relied on fixed cost entertainment services like Netflix. I mention all this because one thing I didn't cut: spending on games.
It's true that I was more wary about my spending on games, more concerned with value for my dollar, but the amount I spend didn't change much. In the last few years I've bought armies for Flames of War, Warhammer Fantasy and 40K, and have kept up with my D&D habit. Granted, I get things at cost, but it just meant I got more for my dollar, not that I spent less. Games are a tremendous value, even when incomes are low. I believe this based on my own experience, and I believe we'll continue to see that with hobbyists that visit us. I'm confident that hobby games can stand up to any entertainment medium as a strong value. The only thing that has changed is the value proposition, the desire for better value for the money that will put a fork in many less useful products.
