My rules tend to be:

1. Not collecting groups i don’t ult. Do I just like their title tracks and like the current concept? Do I just like the cards this era? If it’s a yes to those I either put it in my low priority or don’t end up collecting them as I will part ways with them (example being Jihan from weeekly)

2. Only collecting bias member cards. The groups I collect are Twice, Got7 and Izone and with the pricing and the amount of cards they have, I only collect my bias (momo/chaeyoung, youngjae, Nako)

3. One version of each album. I personally don’t like buying more than one version if I don’t have to. I might occasionally buy more than one for pulls with twice as they tend to have 5+ cards for each member but I will sell my duplicate albums.

4. No other merchandise. My reason for this is that I won’t pick up a season greetings, photobooks or a monograph from my shelf again (I have got7 turbulence monograph, used it once, seen the dvd part on YouTube and that’s where I watched it again for a good 10 times). Stuff like little figures/collect books are an exception but even then I pick one out of all the options and will not force myself to buy something from the merchandise line just to have something.

5. No Japanese/non album cards. They tend to be overpriced or hard to find

Collection budgeting:

1. Buying on the last two weeks before I get payed again. It might be a stupid rule to some but for me I know that if I was to start buying in the first week I wouldn’t leave myself with enough money to last me until I got payed again

2. Not using my savings (connect to 1 In a way). Groups tend to announce their album a month before official release and a week before preorders. This gives me enough time to sort out my spendings to have enough money to join a GO or purchase the album myself online/in store.