The expense of it all

I wanted to start by asking, "Is it just me, or...." but that sounded too cliché. Though I want to ask the question. Is it just me, or is everything bloody expensive?

Sometimes when you look at something you can determine the price. If someone asks you how much a 2L bottle of milk is, you know it's about $3.00. I'm talking Australian dollars here. If someone asks you how much a medium sized car is? You can bet that it's going to be about $25,000 to $35,000.

Then there are times when you see the price of something you know, love and may have even owned at one time in your life which you look at and safely assume the price will be, say $60. Maybe $90 if you're pushing it, with inflation and all that. Only to see the price sitting at $290. A price which makes you stand back and think "Oh shit, scrap that idea"

I had an idea. It turns out I can't afford it.

I'll give you the background of it first. My nephew is obsessed with video games. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when my brother died, my sister in law spoilt him with whatever he wanted. Until then, his video gaming addiction was non-existant.

Between his Playstation, Game Boy, and a host of other small consoles and hand held gaming units, the poor boy is transfixed on the stuff.

When I identified this, I decided that I will never buy him anything related to video games. Last year he received a Playstation Portable for Christmas, and he asked me if I could get a memory stick for it. I said no.

The presents I have been buying him are LEGO. Meccano. Puzzles and so on. Meccano he didn't like. And he told me straight out why, "It's tool hard having to put together something with nuts and bolts."

I was dumfounded. Too hard? I remember building massive Meccano sets when I was half his age, and I was upset that I didn't have enough parts to engineer certain objects I wanted to make.

Anyway, so I figured if I'm going to buy him something he loves, it might as well be LEGO. He loves it so much I find him in his room building whatever his imagination lets him build rather than playing that stupid video game machine.

I have been keeping my promise to myself about never buying him video game material of any kind. And latest idea to have some fun together with him was to buy a slot car race track set.

This is where I'm getting right onto my topic for the day. I decided I'll start on Ebay and a few local hobby shops that have websites. My jaw slung open and I looked at the price of some of these sets. The basic set, which came with two cars, two controllers, a power pack and enough track to make a circle.... Not a figure 8 or anything exciting like that.... a circle. $90

Larger tracks were starting from about $285 and worked their way up to the $500 mark.

I recall getting a figure 8 track with two cars and two controllers for something like $20 when I was a kid. My brother and I played it each day after dinner. It was amazing. And while $20 back then was still a lot of money, I assumed that same track, which is still made today would have been around $100. Not so. Try $285.00

WHAT?

Now, before I go on. I want to say that I do spend a great deal of money on the LEGO I have bought my nephew, that we spent hours and some times days putting together. These aren't small sets. They're those big bastards for young adults like me who haven't finished growing up.

These kits retail from $70 and work their way up to nearly $200. Despite this, I knew LEGO and the like were always pricey. I know because I use to pester my family to buy me LEGO and I never got it because it was unaffordable for us. But that was okay, because the slot car track was just as fun, and much cheaper, and much more entertaining.

When I started to think about the cost of this slot car track, I started to wonder about everything else that's not cheap anymore. Or more specifically, things where I thought were cheap, but are really not that affordable at all.

I know it's all about inflation and relevance to income in the country you're in. Like when people from the UK say how cheap everything is here in Australia or in the US. Maybe so, but try living there or here, and see if it's really that cheap. It isn't.

Nothing is cheap any more. Bargains are rare. Everything is always on sale, despite being over inflated in price to begin with. An example of this is a certain large music shop in Australia. I know for a fact their prices are higher than retail because I use the same suppliers for my music school and the suppliers give me their price, retail price and this music shops price, then they tell me I can sell it for anything from RRP to Music Shop X's price.

While this is great for profit margins, it's still a rip off.

I wonder if the same is true for slot car track sets?

I have no doubt it's not only just for slot cars. I believe everything is over inflated. And it's spoiling the fun I could have with my nephew.