Before this year I would say, on average, that I bought around 100 cd's every year. Once pay day came I would usually buy about 8-10 cd's, depending on what caught my attention or not. This year I splashed out and bought a fancy new stereo (Mrs. Kid got a new sitting room so I had to have my piece too) that came with a record player and so I've started to buy lots of old music on vinyl as well as new stuff and I reckon I've spent around €2,000 on music this year alone!

I'm sure there are those out there who buy even more music than me so I'm wondering how much it ends up costing youl; or is it just me that ends up making packed lunches towards the end of the month for the sake of music?

€21.99 per month for an Emusic subscription (90 downloads) and I try to limit additional music related spending after that to €30 a month, which seems modest, but I have trouble getting the time to listen to even that amount of new stuff properly. I got my amp and speakers for free a few years ago and it still works great.

I have other expensive hobbies to suck my cash though...

i've cut down on the amount of albums that I buy. i only actually buy on average about 3 or 4 cds every month. I do download a good bit more than that. if i was to actually buy the amount that I download, I'd be bankrupt. i have to admit that I only really buy stuff that I know I'm going to enjoy. I very rarely take a chance on unknown stuff these days.
i still spend quite a bit going to gigs. i normally go to about 2 or 3 gigs every month and most of them would be in whelans or crawdaddy, smaller places where it's about 20 euros a gig. the only big gig i made it to this year was metallica.
i did spend 700 quid on an electric piano a few weeks ago. i also spent 70 euros on some home recording software.

I don't download, so that saves me a bit I'd imagine.

I never even considered what I spend on musical equipment! Thankfully though I tend to use ebay etc quite a bit for that sort of thing, and I get passes for gigs regularly enough through here so that cuts down a great deal on that expenses....still have to pay for beer/taxi's that sort of thing though...I'll have to rework my total! bugger!

say 'no' kids.....;-)

Do cluas give out passes to gigs?

If you submit a sample review and are willing to publish a review of the gig you've received the pass to within 12 hours, then yes.

keynotes[at]cluas[dot]com if you want more info.

sound, thanks, I think I'll give that a go in the next while

I spend very little on CDs - I have two fantastic public libraries near me which have the latest new albums within weeks of release. In this way I got to hear this year's albums by Vampire Weekend, MGMT, dEUS, The Notwist, Portishead, Fujiya & Miyagi, Santogold, Black Kids, Foals, Hot Chip, My Brightest Diamond. I also get to investigate older stuff and lots of genres (and try to educate myself in world, jazz, classical and other stuff).

I also get enough review copies to keep me busy. I trawl MySpace pages to check out acts and I can listen to their tunes there. I've also been looking up old videos and TOTP clips on YouTube. And anyway, music is mostly a radio-listening experience for me - nothing beats the thrill of hearing a brilliant new song on the radio.

In short, I don't really feel the need to OWN the music I like; as long as it's in my head I can call it up anytime.

Concert-wise, I'm also blessed by location - there's a great venue called La Flèche d'Or where lots of US and UK (and some Irish) bands play, and admission is free. Ticket prices are generally €5 or €10 cheaper than Dublin too.

La Fleche D'or. Where is that?

Here

cheers