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Convincing the Committee

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To all,

You guys and gals are hilarious! There's comfort in knowing we all face the same problems out there. :wink:
Let me throw another wrench in the cogs. My committee is adding a new member on June 23rd. Is there anyway for me to aquire another muzzleloader before then, or do I have to wait until "Junior" is 5-years-old ? Good grief, I don't think I'll be able to wait that long...but I've heard a lot of horror stories. :shocked2:
 
Sometimes committee members can be convinced in necessary purchases and outings and at times no amount of calculated talking is going to work. In this case trickery and imagination is required.
Having all your guns look the same is a help here along with a safe that only you have the combination to.

As a last resort it is necessary to fire the existing committee member and to search for a new one who is easier to deal with. This action can be very expensive and can cause a loss of purchases accmulaed while under the reign of the first committee member. But, by adding an excellent committee member, it is worth it.

Maybe you can negotiate on how many and how much per year is acceptable and will not damage the budget.

They say honesty is the best policy, but I am not sure it is when it comes to acquisitions.

RDE
 
As long as Mrs Otter keeps getting little sparkly items from Zales, she doesn't care what I spend on guns. Once when she was there, the sales lady asked her what she was looking for and she replied "a nice gun." I oooh and aaah at her acquisitions and she does the same with mine.
 
Trench,

Financing, this can require thought and creativity when required.

The first committee member said my acqusitions were sufficient and it was time to cease them. She started monitoring dollars which required a strategy change. I started putting things into layaway and would sneek them into the house when she was gone grocery shopping. This worked fine until I screwed up and left a layaway ticket in my shirt pocket, busted. I only had one more payment to go, this really hurt.

Create a budget if you are salary. If you work by the hour and can make overtime, do so by all means. If your committee member is rational, offer to split the overtime money with her.

Years ago in Sports Afield on the back page, the writer was giving advice to newly married guys. His advice was to always have a nest egg of money hidden somewhere that only you know about. His thoughts were that you would always have money for needed purchases and if you come home and the locks are changed, you have the money for a motel.

RDE
 
And don't forget the legitimate selling off of unused centerfires approach...did it a few times...didn't spend any new money...just turned some spent money over
 
roundball said:
And don't forget the legitimate selling off of unused centerfires approach...did it a few times...didn't spend any new money...just turned some spent money over

Yeah, I've thought about that approach, too, but it goes against my "guns are meant to be bought, not sold" philosophy . . .
 
Sounds like you are planning for the day when the Ministry of Finance becomes the War Department. :haha:
 
Otter said:
roundball said:
And don't forget the legitimate selling off of unused centerfires approach...did it a few times...didn't spend any new money...just turned some spent money over

Yeah, I've thought about that approach, too, but it goes against my "guns are meant to be bought, not sold" philosophy . . .

I had that philosophy for years...until I checked the calendar and realized I was on my way towards 60 and had been exclusively hunting with Flintlocks for a few years by then.

It occurred to me that I had accumulated quite a few thousand bucks worth of fine rifles & big Leupold scopes over my lifetime and they were just laying oiled in their cases...and if I "checked out" tomorrow, my Wife would get ripped off trying to sell stuff that she knew nothing about and that I was no longer even using.

So I finally cut the cord with that philosophy, made a list of the few specifics I wanted to keep, been selling off 2-3 a year ever since, got more to go.

Example: I live my hunting life in woods with Flintlocks and 40-50 yard shots...so there is really no logic to hang on to a Remington 700/.264 Winchester Magnum & 3.5x10x50 Leupold scope to shoot deer 400 yards away when I no longer hunt like that...and can't see myself ever wanting to again anyway...the list goes on...at some point practicality has to creep in. :wink:
 
The War Department has been replaced with a nice lady.

It is said that each man should have two (2) things in his life:

1. A good wife.
2. A good dog.

I have both.

RDE
 
When my father retired after working for the same company for 34 years, he was paid an additional full year's salary as an early retirement bonus that he had not been told he would be paid. So, he decided to buy a NOT VERY EXPENSIVE Ruger Mark I, bull barrel,.22 target pistol. The gun he bought turned out to be a stainless steel bi-centennial model. I visited him shortly after his retirement, and he told both my brother and me to come down into the basement to see something. Now, Dad had not been shooting in years, unless we dragged him to the range. When he showed us the gun, we congratualated him, but he hushed and said that mom didn't know he bought it! I said to him, why would mother care one way or another if you bought the gun? You are 63 years old. You just retired. you have more money in the bank than the two of you ever dreamed of having. Why are you afraid of what mom will say? He couldn't answer, but we knew this was a product of the " game ". I told him that when I wanted to buy a gun, I bought a gun, and my wife didn't have Anything to say about it. I wasn't stealing grocery money to buy them, or failing to pay the mortgage payment. This was always discretionary spending, and she bought whatever she wanted, without my permission or approval, too.

NOW, it helped, of course that my wife also worked, and earned a good living on her own. But I could just never understand my dad being afraid of mother. Neither could my brother understand his relationship with mom. Frankly, if he had stood up to her years before they might have had a better marriage. He let her get away with murder.

I used to take my wife with me to gun shows, and she would shop for the guns she liked, and I would look for something I wanted.

Get the wife involved, even as a cheerleader, or a stand warmer, in your sport. Let her be there when you are successful in taking game, so she sees the joy in your face, and the glee in your eyes at your success. She will love you more for it. And spend the time accompanying her when she goes " hunting " bargains, or whatever. Be there when she finds something at a " steal " that she has always wanted. It will make you grow closer together, instead of being battling opponents. When both of you use some common sense about purchases, so that the family budget is not destroyed, or the family put out on the street, you won't have the problems some men suggest here.
 
Pork Chop said:
Take a tip from the Man In Black - buy it one piece at a time...
:rotf: :applause: Good one!
"I got a 1778, 79, 80, 81 rifle gun..."

In reality, for me, I have to promise to sell something else... like a modern gun... in order to replace it with another flintlock.
 
Almost works every time if you have a wife who is totally uninterested in firearms and can't tell one from the other.

That worked for me, until she started keeping track of the number of empty slots in the gun safe. One less empty slot meant resorting to plan A and fast.
 
The "Buy her a Rifle " thing backfired for me.
Years back I bought my wife a pair of custom Mauser Carbines in 7x57 and 6.5 Swede. I figgured if she didn't like them, I'd have 2 more carbines to use. Forget it, when I want to use one, she says"Use your own, you have plenty".
She doesn't shoot ML's... yet, but she's looking at that .50 Renegade I've been fooling around with. :nono:
 
rb,

had the same idea. so.. got a couple of tables at a gun show so i could unload a bunch of guns..

didn't work out that way.. came home with more guns and a bunch of money.. :shake: :(

tt.g
 
RB,

I can justify (well, mostly) hanging on to most of what I have in the safe. The ones I inherited from my Dad and father-in-law stay. The custom BPCR's and ML's stay. Most of the others are valued at $100 to $300 so wouldn't really generate much of a "nest egg" for additional purchases. I never went through the magnumitus and super opticitus that many do, so I have few high dollar guns to get rid of. Not pointing fingers at ANYONE (especially you, roundball), it's just that I never had the money in my early gun buying years to purchase the "best", so I didn't. I was able to buy some very good guns at quite reasonable prices. As I am approaching 60 (faster than I would like), I know that what you say is true . . . I will have to thin the herd, either by selling some of them or gifting them to those I feel deserve them.
 
xxgrampa said:
rb,

had the same idea. so.. got a couple of tables at a gun show so i could unload a bunch of guns..

didn't work out that way.. came home with more guns and a bunch of money.. :shake: :(

tt.g
:rotf:
 
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