So many movies, so little time...

[toef]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

You know, I NEVER used to buy movies, until I saw how easy it was to sell/trade them. I keep a fairly small collection of things that I know I can watch more than once. But given that by purchasing one movie, I can sell it for a fair price, or make multiple trades down the line from it, I feel comfortable blind buying one or two movies almost every week. I've been doing this for over a year, and the part of my collection that remains for sale/trade stays pretty close to about 10 titles. Most of my Paypal proceeds these days goes to charitable donations to a parrot sanctuary.

So how does this work? You figure you buy a movie, and get back enough from selling or trading it, that it works out to be cheaper to buy then trade/sell instead of rent?

I remember getting 2001: A Space Odyssey from you, sometime during the summer. I don't think you charged much for it ($11?), and I remember being surprised someone even had it for sale in the trading forums, because it seemed the kind of movie people would only buy if they wanted it, and if they wanted it, why would they get rid of it?

Anyhow, I know what you mean about the hobbies and not having time to get to them all. I see another of your hobbies (at least today) is making threads in the off-topic forum (though one of them, unfortunately, got locked right away).

I've actually recently though of getting into home-brewing, as its something my dad used to do when I was a kid, so I have that resource to learn from.

I've also recently become fascinated with flight, so I invested in X-Plane 9 for my Mac, and a nice Logitech controller to use with it (it's just a regular joystick kind; I insist I will never go full-nerd and invest in the yoke+pedal combination controller thing). I also got a nice RC airplane for Christmas, which I'll have to wait a while to use (mainly due to the weather, but also because I'm worried I'll destroy it... one bad landing = no more airplane).

I kind of wish I was a kid again, because even though a big chunk of my day was tied up with school/sports practice/piano lessons, I feel like I still had a lot more free time to do everything I wanted to do.

By the way, this whole thread reminds me of a certain Jim Croce song.

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by toefer

So how does this work? You figure you buy a movie, and get back enough from selling or trading it, that it works out to be cheaper to buy then trade/sell instead of rent?

I did not say it makes it cheaper than renting, but it does defer some of the cost, and makes buying more cost effective. There are movies I traded for that I never would have rented or bought that I thoroughly enjoyed, and that alone makes up for part of the expense. I also still get the pleasure of watching many new releases on pristine, unscratched, unsmudged disks.

One has to ask themselves, if they decide they don't want to afford new releases at full price. Can you afford them at half price? Because you can pretty much get at least half price (usually more) if you watch and sell them right away.

And sometimes, I trade a movie, then watch what I trade for, trade it, trade the next, trade the next, etc., etc. Those are like almost new movies at the cost of $1.86 each. You are right, if you claim that I don't own them and have them on the shelf, but realistically, how many times am I going to take Surfer, Dude off the shelf to watch again? On the other hand, I might take my pristine copies of POTC trilogy and watch them again and again. It's all up to me.