Do Over!!!

[Dolnikan]

Create a budget and 100% stick with it.  Honest.  No fingers crossed.

Then when I broke that budget on day one, I'd probably start a vicious cycle.

The trick is making another budget, which is just a tiny little bit more. And then you say way too many nice things online!

[Inkpaduta]

There may be a few smaller lines that I would redo.
But mainly I would try to do new periods and lines.
I would think seriously about just doing 15mm
and 6mm. However, the mere thought of a fire and losing
all my figures puts a deep fear in me. So much stuff I could
never replace.

[Dr. Zombie]

I have done this.

But I guess it is more of a cautionary tale really. When I went of to Uni i 1999 I sold of all my miniatures, terrain and paints - all of it. I threw away what I could not sell. I figured now as I started Uni it was time to be adult and responsible. And I was for a few years..

Then the itch came back and I started buying paints and miniatures I liked. Now I paint a few hundred miniatures a year for all sorts of periods and genres. My collection is bigger than it has ever been and I am in the process of recreating a lot of what I sold, a quarter of a century ago. At A LOT higher prices than I let i go for.

So really my advice would be never get rid of anything. You will end up regretting it. And it will only come back stronger anyways.

[Belligerentparrot]

I've also done this. I've virtually nothing from my high school years' engagement with the hobby. Got back into the hobby when I moved to the other side of the world and embraced a much less chaotic lifestyle 20 years ago.

I chose one project that captured my attention and just stuck to that. I've still purchased a lot more than perhaps I should have - the project is a bit like a tree that grows new branches and then needs pruning.

If I started again again, well, I wouldn't. I'd find a different hobby. A big part of the project I chose involved collecting unreleased GW miniatures. That was possible 20 years ago, but it isn't really possible now.

[Legionnaire]

Me, I have a very small collection, mainly wild west and now a small zombie apocalypse/ modern adventures. I have always kept my collection small, I've dabbled in horror/ sci-fi genre, mainly because of limited storage space but also if it doesn't see table time, it goes on ebay!

Last year, I rebooted my wild west collection, from 28mm to Heroic 28mm (32), with suitable MDF buildings. That is my sweet spot, I only collect that scale because buildings and scenery works with what I game.

Because I have a small collection, EVERYTHING is/ will soon be painted, no lead mountain laying around taking up space.

[Idle Doodler]

I pretty much did restart a few years ago, shortly after getting married and moving with my wife into our first, tiny one-bed flat. Wanted to keep the hobby going, but if I wanted to be gaming I needed to be be able to play in a small space and fit all the minis and scenery into a cupboard. Eventually moved into a bigger flat, but by that point I'd realised that 28mm was unnecessary for my needs (a largely solo gamer with a preference for continuous skirmish-based campaigns). Being able to fit an entire fantasy collection for 5 Leagues from the Borderlands into a biscuit tin is pretty handy wherever you live.

Minis are quicker to paint - I now easily have enough to produce two opposing forces for when someone wants to muscle in on the solo game - and scenery is less daunting to craft. The hobby budget now stretches to include other hobbies.

The only regret I have with losing 'access' to 28mm is that there are so many more kitbash-friendly plastic ranges available, but spare sprues are another significant space-taker-upper so I shall sit content with my little tins of magnetised mini minis.