MacrossMan

I've seen a lot of comments around saving in the cooking department. My wife does this as well, but out of convenience so she doesn't have to cook through out the week. I normally take my lunch and eat breakfast at home as well.

My wife is a penny pincher and hardly ever buys herself anything nice. This past Mother's Day I got her an iPod Touch that I found in her nightstand drawer about a week ago. I have been using it since. For her birthday I got her a leather satchel to use as a handbag and had her initials laser etched into it from here (check these guys out if you're in the market for a new leather bag!!! put them in your will; your kids will fight over it when you're dead!!!). Anywho, the bag is still in its plastic sitting in the closet.

Fortunately, my wife is not into the regular "girly" stuff like purses, shoes and weekly hair appointments. She fully supports my collecting. My birthday was yesterday and she got me the 1/60 DX Macross Frontier RVF-25 Luca Custom.

We try to date once a week with dinner and a movie, but try not to overdo it.

Keep the ideas coming guys! I'm sure we all have seen something here that can help us in one way or another!

Influckingcredible!!!! Damn!!!!

Nominating xsjado to the SSL. Purchased from him on Saturday morning and the decals were delivered to my office on Monday morning in pristine condition! Great seller!

Max VF-1S and TV VF-1A just delivered to my office! Hopefully I can get my camera back to operating normally and get some pics of my v2 1/60 collection when I get home.

i basically sold one of my watches, w/c i bought when i was still single, to fund these macross toy purchases... what i got for it should be my budget and no more... ha!

Good idea. I have a Citizen's Echo-drive watch sitting in my drawer. I replaced it with a Seiko Kinetic watch. I'll have to see what I might be able to fetch for it on ebay!

How old you be?

You know, 2 summers, I tried mowing lawns, but I made only $200 the whole season. Plus, we're in a bad economy. People are likely to say "I have a lawnmower." instead of pay you.

And that always irked me because I was never selling my LAWNMOWER. I was selling my SERVICES.

I really hope that Taco Bell application is accepted. The place is opening up a quarter-mile from my house, 5 minutes by bike.

Just turned 35 yesterday youngling; mind-blowing to think I am old enough to be a father of a teenager! The lots in my neighborhood at minimum 1/4 acre. Most lawns, if not all, are professionally land-scaped and treated. It's part of th neighborhood charter. A lot of the people in the neighborhood are retirees so they are looking to relax and work as little as possible. The others are young couples like my wife and I who are busy most of the time. It's easier to have someone come out once of week to mow and edge the lawn.

That being said, for a kid your age, you could do quite well mowing grass in my neighborhood.

Got my fingers crossed for you on getting that job. I, and I sure most would agree, wish we had an income we could dispose of totally on toys; let alone $8000! Sheesh!

honket, take it as a holiday for our wallets.. hahah..

LV vf-1s is coming so prepare to spend more.. man.. i want my VE-1 + LV VF-1S.. oh no and VF-1A CF, VF-1J CF...

My wallet is dying....

Aint that the truth!

Icing on the cake is great; too much of it is nauseating! This is certainly a welcome for my wallet as well.

Be happy I live with parents and am old enough to get a job, paying about $8000 US.

Man, it's good to be a minor.

What I wouldn't do to be a kid collecting today living at home with mom and dad working a fast food job to pay for toys!

For some odd reason I think there are some Majors still at home with mom and dad living in the basement, writing their name on the orange juice carton; getting old and collecting toys. That aint the life.

A part-time job is good idea. Maybe a paper route early in the morning. My mobile DJ service takes up any extra time I might have to do something part-time. My neighbor's wife is finishing up her residency in pediatric medicine and they might not be in the neighborhood much longer. He cuts grass on the side and has lots of clientel throughout the neighborhood. If his wife accepts a position at a hospital out of state I plan on seeing if he would sell me his riding mower and other equipment and pick up the jobs in the neighborhood next spring. 15 yards at $35 each per week is $525 a week. Easy money!

I was just reading some posts in the 2-Seater thread and came across some funny ideas about funding new toy purchases.

With the economy the way it is and no foreseeable timeframe for when the Yamato and Bandai toy factories will shut down production on new releases I thought it would be cool for us to come up with some suggestions that might help fund new toy purchases.

My suggestion to come up with funds would be to first check your collection and see if there is anything you can live without. Make sure the items are in good condition and be prepared to offer them up at an acceptable price you can live with, without letting them go for crackhead prices. You'd be surprised at how much disposeable cash you have in your collection.

My second suggestion would be to join your job's credit union if they have one. Despositing as little as $25-$50 every other week into an account should help with funding new toy purchases without having to tap into other funding sources.

Also check your jobs cash-in policy for vacation time.

As it stands now, I have all the new 1/60's that have come out (excluding the destroids) including the latest VF-11B (en route).

I've done all three of the above and have been able to fund all my recent purchases without tapping into any other funding sources.

Any other suggestions you guys can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Hmmm, don't know about getting 3, but definitely holding off other valks to buy this. There's just too many damn valks this year. A good thing, but not for the wallet.

Gotta get creative bro! Check some of the posts above. These guys have mentioned being sperm donors and entertained their wives being surrogate mothers (too funny ). Anywho, I offered up my v1 1/60 Super Ostrich, Elint, and Trainer at prices too good to pass by to play catch up. I also sold a set up Stealth Super & Strike Parts. These were things I could part with because I either had extras or I am replacing with v2 1/60's. I also had some extra PTO (professional time off) I was able to sell off recently that funded some stuff.

As it stands now, I have all the new 1/60's that have come out including the latest VF-11B (en route). I was able to do all this without tapping into any personal money of my own.

As the title say I'm looking for a 1/48 VF-1S Hikaru Ichijo with Super/Strike parts.

Hit Agent-GHQ up. He has one for sale fairly cheap considering how much these normally go for.

EDIT: Agent-GHQ has the Super VF-1J. My bad. Stil an awesome piece at a great price.

wow, b-day goodies!

in SDF or DYRL terms, that RVF-25 is like the "Kakizaki Valk" for Frontier... guess that's why it's green and piloted by a p$$y ... at least it has a randome to add to the coolness factor of the valk...

Damn!

In DYRL terms, it's the equivalent of the VE-1 Elint Seeker. RVF stands for 'Recon Variable Fighter'.

My wife was all nervous about whether or not I would like it, but from the look on the box I told her it looked like the "new" Elint Seeker. I told her I wasn't familiar with it other than knowing it was from the Frontier series and that Elint variants are uncommon and that I would definitely keep it.

I'm assuming this is a model and not a perfect transformation toy? If it's the latter, I'm all over it.

It's a toy

Being the 1/48 fiend I am, this will definitely be a part of my collection!

Having serious camera issues so I had to use my jack-leg cell phone camera.

My birthday is tomorrw and this was given to me yesterday evening by my wife. Been so busy trying to maintain my collection that I have not been able to keep up with Frontier. I actually have no idea what it is. Will do some research on it.

My lastest acquitions in the 1/60v2 line. Max VF-1S and TV VF-1A will be delivered on Monday. Having serious camera issues so I had to use my jack-leg cell phone camera.

My birthday is tomorrw and the third pic was given to me yesterday evening by my wife. Been so busy trying to maintain my collection that I have not been able to keep up with Frontier. I actually have no idea what it is. Will do some research on it.

I'm assuming this is a model and not a perfect transformation toy? If it's the latter, I'm all over it.

I'm just saying that most of the responses were telling you to simply be patient and do nothing, but that wasn't the advice you were looking for. But, they were only trying to be helpful, and I thought they were being helpful. We've all been in your position at one time or another including myself, and I imagine most people that responded were speaking from experience. But, as Macross fans buying stuff from overseas, we can all relate to the fact that you were getting frustrated regardless of the advice to be patient.

I've got to the point where I don't even pay attention anymore. I just note that it got shipped and I forget about it. Then I am pleasantly surprised when I get my stuff. Everything I've ever ordered from Japan or Hong Kong has always arrived eventually. Sometimes it's in 3 days, and sometimes it takes 6 weeks.

My point in my last post is that patience is still the best advice any of us can give. That is unless one of you guys out there actually works for the Post Office.

Agreed 100%. I'm still learning the process of buying overseas. I've been at this for almost a year and a half now and have accepted the inevitable: EMS doesn't mean shiggity when customs is involved so your best bet is to be patient.

After what happened with the 1/48 TV Max, I fully expected to wait at least two weeks before I got anxious about my latest shipments. I'm just blown away that they were delivered in three days. It's kind of like I expected the worst in having to wait so anything before the expected wait would have been good.

Hindsight being 20/20 most were saying be patient and I certainly see what the guys were saying from their past experiences. I'll pay the advice forward when the next noob gets anxious and asks about their shipments being held up by customs.

So, I guess everyone's non-helpful advice of being patient was the right thing to do in the end.

Not sure where "non-helpful" advice came from, but check this post. EMS is EMS I thought. Seeing how my last two purchases have made it it to me in an exceptional timeframe only further substantiates my frustrations with Customs from the original post.

To rehash what happened, me and 5 other members here did a group buy on the 1/48 TV Max.

All five were shipped EMS on the same day.

Everyone's tracked the same; showed inbound into customs for 2-3 days after making it to the states.

Suddenly everyone's showed up at their door, but tracking still showed inbound into customs for everyone.

For me, tracking showed this for almost a week after the others had received theirs.

I believe that was a valid reason to be concerned and somewhat perturbed by customs. Given the fact of how things panned out, be patient was the last thing I wanted to hear; let alone from those who were not eagerly awaiting the 1/48 TV Max.

In the end I got what I had expected, just not when I expected to receive it.

My adventures with EMS took a surreal turn today. I have called TNT a few times this week for updates but nothing. They pretty much blamed customs.

However today I chatted to a person who works in the mailroom of my uni. Told him about my misery with my latest EMS shipment. He says he could fix it if I get him the track and trace number. Seems there works TNT staff on campus as well as the uni is a major client. He calls on of those guys has a talk and gives em my track and trace number...

A few minutes later a call back, package is pulled from the que and on send to the uni with the daily shipment. Guy says "you owe me lunch"...

In the afternoon the package was delivered to my office. No VAT, no handeling fee. Another lesson learned in the ways of the world.

Good for you Bri! Just goes to show: it aint what you know, but who you know!

Here's a pic of the Yamato VE-1 Elintseeker v2.0.

I was hoping to get in a 1/48 scale, but that dream was over, now have to settle for this 1/60.

Reference to this and others: http://ngeekhiong.blogspot.com/search?q=ve-1

OMG! That is just beautiful in fighter mode! I will definitely be shooting to get three of these to display in each mode! A first for me.

I had another package that was shipped from HLJ on Wednesday that is already inboud out of Customs. I will probably have it on Monday. This package went to Chicago too. I think I will continue to have items delivered to my work address EMS since it seems to be three day turn around and makes it through Customs without any problems.

Yeah, no kidding. Isamu test pilot sounds like a real "pass the buck" kind of guy.

Isamu test pilot ordered it, he has to pay for it right away. The third party is irrelevant. They may as well not even exist.

A wise man once told me when I was about 12 years old “A Ma is only as good as his word”. I can sleep at night knowing I did the right thing.

Good advice here. One thing I have always stuck by is "Always keep your side of the street clean." This helps me sleep at night when I know I've done everything I can do to make something right.

I don't know. I was just impressed to see a package make it to me from Japan in three days. The only other time I have seen this happen was when I purchased my LV1 over a year ago. I paid about $50 to have it shipped and at the time I was clueless to what shipping times from overseas was. This go around my shipping was only $68. Seeing that my original reason for creating this post was because of the issue I had with customs I fully expected to have to wait a while. It was a pleasant surprise. This was the first time I have had a package arrive in Chicago instead of San Francisco though.

Why does Model Graphix always tease us with these customs and decals =( but a 1/48 Ozuma or Alto with Armour would be massive

If this is a transforming toy and not a model in 1/48 scale, I am all over it. Especially if that armor is made for it!

Unbelievable! Over-Drive sent me an email informing me that things were slowly being re-stocked after Golden Week on Monday and that my 1/60's would ship out the next day EMS.

The item shipped from Japan on Tuesday, was in Chicago on Wednesday, and it was in my office today! Hell, I wasn't expecting the package until next week some time at the earliest!

That, my friend, is service at its best! How is it that some things can get mailed quicker from overseas and not get caught in customs and others do? Besides that, I've had stuff shipped within the states not make it to me this quick.

I will be using Over-Drive for all my future purchases. I just tracked this item and it still shows that is at the mail unit.

Label/Receipt Number: EJ00 5253 298J P

Associated Label/Receipt:

Detailed Results:

Arrival at Unit, May 14, 2009, 9:26 am, LITTLE ROCK, AR 72202

Processed, May 14, 2009, 8:30 am, LITTLE ROCK, AR 72231

Inbound Out of Customs, May 13, 2009, 10:35 am

Inbound Into Customs

Inbound International Arrival, May 13, 2009, 10:25 am, ISC CHICAGO IL (USPS)

Foreign International Dispatch, May 13, 2009, 6:41 am, TOKYO INT, JAPAN

Origin Post is Preparing Shipment

Foreign Acceptance, May 12, 2009, 6:31 pm, JAPAN

Ok, I'll sound like a complete idiot... what are "Pink Peckers and Double Nuts"? There should be a glossary of notable terms in Macross ;-)

Not sure about the Pink Peckers, but the Double Nuts is the name given to one of the re-paints of the YF-19 that is about to be released. Someone gave the technicals on it and it had something to do with the call number on the plane having a double zero in it.

I just finished fixing up my Max's

Oh, you dirty bird!

Nice!