I remember back when I could only afford one gun a year. Paying for the house, making sure the wife and kids had the things they needed. I also worked hard and put in a lot of hours at work so that I could provide for my family.
It wasn’t until I got divorced 18 years ago that I found out how much money my Ex-wife was spending on herself or just wasting. I had pretty much let her take care of all the finances, boy was that a mistake. I ended up paying off all my bills and got rid of all my credit cards.
Even after paying child support and making sure that my kids had everything they needed, I still had plenty of money to take my boys on vacation for two weeks every summer and spend my days off with them. I found that I still had money leftover for buying guns. I also did stock repairs as a hobby which always made me extra money for buying guns and ammo.
I really got into buying surplus military guns and was always on the hunt for good deals. One year I decided I would buy a gun a week. It was hard finding one I wanted and would sometimes go a week or two without buying one, but by the end of the year, I had bought 52 guns. The next year I bought 79.
I ended up with a lot of duplicates in my surplus collection, and a few that I didn’t have much interest in. For me buying guns was something I did for fun with the extra money I had. I found that the hunt for the next deal on a gun was more fun then buying the guns.
I retired at the end of last year and and paid off my house. I basically have no bills now. I did start to sell off the duplicates in my surplus collection to make room for other guns. I just sold three this past week for more then double what I paid for them. And I bought another gun to fill a spot in my Enfield collection.
Whit the pandemic and the crazy prices, I basically just put my gun hobby on hold, unless I found a really good deal.
I really love my gun hobby, but I have always put family first. Like my mom, she’s 81 and in great health. One day she said that she would love to have a nice patio in her backyard. So I made it happen.
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My youngest son is 17 and still lives with me. He just got his drivers license so I bought him a car.
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Now I will tell you, a gun hobby can get out of hand. I found that even with three gun safes and a walk-in gun closet, I was running out of room. By selling off my duplicates surplus gun, I went from just over 400 to a more manageable 375.
Here’s the best advice I can give you.
#1 Don’t spend money on guns that you don’t have.
#2 Family comes first.
#3 Don’t be in a rush to buy, look for deals.
#4 Don’t buy used guns for more then you can resale them for.
#5 Never sell guns when you need money. You will almost always loose money.
#6 Have fun with your hobby.
#7 Find a friend to go gun shopping with, here’s mine.
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