Product Love, Budget Scrapbooking, and Man Alive this Hobby is Expensive!!!!

I'm having a little bit of a freak-out at this moment because of one little idea.  I got the idea from Paperclipping Roundtable.  I both love and hate Paperclipping Roundtable at this moment.  In Episode 108, the unsinkable Molly McCarthy suggests calculating the price of your last five pages...and, like a good listener, I did just that...God help me!!!  I should have known better - the episode number adds up to nine (inside joke).

Layout #1 - "Hard Reality" = $24.21

Layout #2 - "My Sweet Rewards" = $30.64
Please note: I've now learned scrapbooking is a very expensive reward.

Layout #3 - "'Zine Love"= $22.51

Layout #4 - "Just a Temporary Fix" = $27.02

Layout #5 - "Love this Girl" = $26.31
I don't have a picture of my most recent layout purposely - mostly because it's really personal - so I'll just tell you the calculated price - $26.31.

I would go through the list of products but I'm fairly disgusted right now and just the slightest bit lazy.  Why you might ask?  The total price on all five layouts is $126.31.  With each 12 x 12 American Crafts album holding approximately 20 page protectors - or 40 scrapbook pages - I've roughly figured that each album is costing $1000.  With approximately 5 albums and at least 40 loose pages - I've put approximately $6000 into this hobby since 2007.  This doesn't even account for all the other product sitting nicely in my house unopened or uncounted.

Before you have a nervous breakdown, or better yet before I have a nervous breakdown, remember this one thing - products only get counted once.  So each page where there is new product gets the full price added into the total.  If the product is used in subsequent pages, the amount is not added.  I thought this would bring down the overall price but found it cost just as much per page on average despite not having to count "old" product, which has led me to two important points...

• I'm not using my product wisely and spending way too much on crafting - a fact I already pretty much knew.
• I'm not sure I can afford this.  I have no children and my current legacy is an illiterate, badly behaved tuxedo cat.  Did I also mention she enjoys attacking paper?  So where to go from here?  

I love this hobby.  I love telling my stories - but it's time to get on a budget.  So for the next few weeks - I'll be sharing my finds on making my costs a lot smaller while telling my story.  Sort of explains the new trend towards artsy scrapbooking - I think it might be significantly cheaper.  We'll see.    So that's it for my product love for today.  The moral is pretty much that I love product WAY too much.  Here's hoping you have a great Monday and spend no time calculating the cost of each of your pages.  I don't advise it.  Hugs all around.  Until then...

P.S. I still love Paperclipping Roundtable with all my heart.  It's just got tiny cracks in it now. :)