Friday, January 4, 2013

The Tale of the the Tape

Closing the book on 2012.

I spent 3759.23 on cd purchases during the course of the year, buying a total of 423 cds (average purchase price of 8.70). 

Compare this to 2011 when i spent 4207.18 on 498 cd purchases (average purchase price of 8.45).  

Ratio of used to new is something like 4 or 5 to 1.  There may have been one or two vinyl purchases in both years, but i'm too lazy to go back and check it out for sure.  And i might have bought an album or two worth of digital music, but that would be it.  never bought an itunes tune. 

Kinda funny how the average purchase price is pretty similar.  Completely incidental because other than the fact that i really hate to pay more than ten bucks for a new cd, i don't really have any hard and fast rules about buying (other than i always like to be cheap).    

Spent the most at the various cheapos in town.  $1854 and a little over 200 of the cd purchased (with the majority of those purchases coming from the lake street store).  there were probably a handful of new purchases (under 20) but the vast majority of those purchases were used.

Next most i spent was at the fetus, with $469 and 58 purchases.  I would have thought i'd bought a bunch of new stuff at the fetus, but looking back at the numbers, i really only bought 6 new cds there and the rest were all used. 

i guess all my new buying happened at best buy, $442 spent on 49 purchases.  obviously no used there.  and no used at target either, although other than my usual cities samplers, i think i only bought 3 new cds at target all year.

Half price books was next up with $398 in purchases on 42 purchases.  all used.  and yes, if you do the math you'll find that the average purchases price per cd is pretty damn high.  that's what you get for looking for out of print stuff i guess.  (9.02 average purchase price at best buy for new, versus 9.48 at half price) but i did find some cool stuff there even some holy grail items, so i can't belly ache too much.

Deaf Ear Records in La Crosse was the only other significant store.  I spent $187 on 25 buys.  again, all used and some pretty fun stuff (and there's always something really odd down there which makes it worth my semi annual pilgrimage.)

The remainder of purchases happened at the rock n roll sale in maple grove, treehouse records, discland in bloomington (other years, i've definitely bought more there), know name is south minneapolis, down in the valley (generally poor used selection and super high new prices, so usually not worth my while), one buy down at tune town in mankato, and a couple purchases from ebay and amazon each.

Sales wise, i had my very first profitable year!  Finally in the black!!!  sold 377 cds for a profit of 2228.59 on a gross of 6901.66 .  so basically, i spent 3437.81 to make 2228.59, better than a 50% return if my admittedly poor math is correct (the difference lies in amazon's cut).  not bad at all (average profit per item sold was 5.91) course, i'll have to pay taxes this year, so there is that.  but all in all i'm pretty happy with how it's gone.  didn't spend too much, made some nice money back on my hobby, found a lot of cool grail items and i listened to a ton of music.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Let This Feeling Last (Best Singles of 2012)

In no particular order (oh who am i kidding, smart dad is number with a bullet 1 ):

One Direction-What Makes You Beautiful
Poolside-Slow Down
Ellie Goulding-Anything Can Happen
Delta Spirit-California 
Twin Shadow-Five Seconds
Communist Daughter-Speed of Sound
Lord Huron-Time to Run (best use of windchimes in a song!)
Sun Kil Moon-Sunshine in Chicago
Gaslight Anthem-45
Magnetic Fields-Andrew in Drag
Django Django-Default  (Hail Bop is Pretty Awesome too, and i love that video)
Lumineers-Ho Hey
Sea  Wolf-Priscilla
Tanlines-All of Me

Shins-The Rifle's Spiral
Smart Dad