Here’s the first part of the promised annual financial report. In a previous post, I laid out the budget I had set for my 2009 figure purchases. Now, I will look at my spending behavior in detail and analyze the effects of working within a budget.

As you can see, I managed to stay under budget. (Yay!)

You’ll notice that I burned through my allotted funds rather quickly, making the vast majority of my purchases within the first four months of the year. To be fair, I didn’t actually commit myself to a budget until a month or two into the year, so my first three or four purchases of the year were made without regard to any particular financial plan. Even so, I had thought my initial budget rather generous and I was disappointed to see how quickly those funds disappeared. I had to curb my figure spending drastically in the latter half of the year to ensure that I stayed within my budget. As a result, I missed out on several figures I probably would have otherwise jumped on.

You may also notice that my two costliest transactions were both through Tokyo Hunter. I think this is, in large part, due to the fact that both of these figures were Japanese-exclusive releases.  In addition, the Miku figure was purchased well after the period of general availability, so market supply and demand forces were well in effect.  I do think Joseph’s proxy fees run a tad higher than others I’ve dealt with, but he also offers the most personalized service I’ve seen.

Now, for some statistics:

• Number of figures purchased: 9
• Number of figures sold: 4
• Average cost of figures purchased: $128.74
• Average net gain from figures sold: $41.73
• Most expensive purchase: $259.10 (Voks – 1/6 Hatsune Miku)
• Least expensive purchase: $75.00 (Max Factory – 1/6 Kokonoe Rin)

My net gain from selling a figure from my collection was only about 1/3 of the cost of a new figure. While this number can vary quite a bit depending on what you’re selling, it does give you an idea that it’s not unreasonable to expect to have to sell several quality figures to finance the purchase of just one new figure.

That’s it for my annual financial report. I plan to follow up with my personal best and worst of 2009 and highlight some of the key figures that I missed out on this year.