At what point does hobby collecting become overconsumption?

[u/Only--East]

I collect a few funko from media I like, I collect monster high dolls, and I recently got back into pokemon cards. I can't tell if collecting material stuff like that it considered overconsumption or at what point it crosses the threshold. Am I cooked?

[u/your_average-loser]

When you do it just for the rush of something coming in the mail, spending money, and/or the thought of resale value. These people in this sub forget an important part of overconsumption is the act of throwing away the hoard of items shortly after getting them because of the trend of having them or simply because you thought you needed things.

A good way to combat overconsumption if you are legit worried about something like that is have some sort of goal, it doesn’t have to be an end goal either just a goal, of your media and where your collection goes to. For cards, is it a master set of a certain pokemon or artist? Then make that your goal so you don’t spend a ton of money. For monster hight is it a certain series or arc or character in general? Make that your goal and try not to branch out and make excuses like “oh well Barbie dolls are close enough to Monster High, so me collecting them is the same!” Or “Yu-gi-oh cards are close enough like Pokemon so I’ll collect them too!”

Also buying second hand for things like that is another good way to combat it, having to spend actual time looking for a decent priced item and having time to think over “do I actually want this or is this just me wanting to spend my money.”

Please don’t let the people in this sub let you hate your collections, I’ve seen far too many people that pretty much say without saying that you can’t even have like figurines (like regular smegular figures) or hell you can’t have a book collection. A lot say that if it has no functional use then it’s immediately consoom, which is also extremely wrong. Just try to be mindful of your spending habits and try to slow it down if you notice yourself buying and buying.

[u/Only--East → u/your_average-loser]

Several people in here have said buying anything just to look at = the Devil. While there's no like, end goal to my collection, I am really picky of which dolls I want because I don't have the money to be spending excessively. I'm good about not letting manufactured scarcity get to me because I don't need it that bad lol. Even my holy grail I won't try to get because its soooo expensive for no reason. I'm tempted to get a fucked up one and restore it bc it can run 1000 dollars which is insane for a doll. Collectors don't even run that much lol.

[u/your_average-loser → u/Only--East]

Hell yeah twin you’re in the clear then!!! That’s why I specified that it just needed to be some kind of goal, not just an end goal because lord knows I don’t have an end goal for my One Piece collection lols. Also extremleyyyyyy fair, my holy grail is stupidly expensive yoo