Hunting... The financial side.

[Montana]

am at a loss how people can afford thousands of dollars every year in just license and tag fees not counting travel to several states every year.

Thus my post Fun to read and good insight. In reading all of these I really think it highly depends on where you are in life... Married, not married, newly married, new family, kids out of the house, retired. It has actually encouraged me...
Hold on through this time... I feel I'm doing ok for this time in my life

 

[Zim]

Damn Zim, that's horrible. I think our decision is probably the best one we've made. When we got married, right out of school (actually, she was still in school), neither of us had a dime.. Everything we've built from from that day is ours. I like that.
When studies show that the vast majority of marital disagreement is about finance, we figured we'd just cut that part out. It's worked like a charm. I suggest it to all of my friends who are getting married. My brother listened, and it's worked great for them as well.
I suppose it's not for everyone, but we feel like even though we are married, we are still individuals, and part of being an individual means having your own dayum checking account.

I'm also with CC. A week or so long vacation with the wife, to a destination of her choosing, will go a long way come September.

I am left getting to write letters to my controlled sons who live 1,000 miles away now in Texas, while I still have support checks deducted from my pay. This is despite they both work 40+ hours/week. This is to my sons who don't even communicate with me any longer thanks to the unemployed trailer trash who never paid one bill in 20 years. What a great system we have.

Somehow I worked my tail off solo enough to buy my dream property 45 acres by age 40. All the while unilaterally supporting 3 sons. Could have retired at 45 had I not had that ugly ball & chain wrapped around my ankle. Judge stold everything from me to evade paying welfare.

Keep seperate accounts from day one, or get out immediately. The parasites will eat and eat and eat. Won't go away. Won't get a job. Nice knowing your money is being stolen by someone laying in bed all day eating chicken fried steaks and watching Jerry Springer 5 hours a day. While they tell your kids "momma's the greatest thing since sliced bread".

 

[hoshour]

My wife and I have been married 38 years and never had separate checking accounts. We each have an amount in the budget that is our's to spend as we want, no questions asked, but it is fairly small. We also split our income tax refund down the middle, after putting some in savings.

When we were much younger, we were badly in debt to credit cards but once we paid them off we swore - never again! Marriage and family are way more important than great gear, great trips or having the wife buy enough clothes for three closets or remodel another room.

I spend a lot less on hunting than some guys but I watch my costs and buy almost everything used. I can't see the point in buying things new when I can usually get them for anywhere from 25% - 50% off a year or so later. This year, I bought a 2011 Elite Archery Pulse for 1/2 price because someone got the bug to buy a new one a year after he bought this great bow. Makes me feel sorry for his wife, though maybe she does the same.

 

[trkytrack2]

The biggest cost to my hunting now is fuel. To be able to hunt elk where I now live in Colorado, it's over a 100 mile drive, one way, just to get to the foothills of the Rockies. Then depending on what area I want to hunt, it might be another 90 or up to 200 miles more before I'm into my area. I use to live on the Colorado northern front range and was able to hunt every weekend but now one trip is a really big deal. All the more saving and planning.

 

[Fink]

The biggest cost to my hunting now is fuel. To be able to hunt elk where I now live in Colorado, it's over a 100 mile drive, one way, just to get to the foothills of the Rockies. Then depending on what area I want to hunt, it might be another 90 or up to 200 miles more before I'm into my area. I use to live on the Colorado northern front range and was able to hunt every weekend but now one trip is a really big deal. All the more saving and planning.

Try coming from out east! Fuel is a huge expense when you're coming from 1,000+ miles away. At around $4 a gallon, you're looking at a minimum of $500 round trip, not to mention the 25-30 hours of drive time. It makes taking a separate trip to scout about impossible. You're almost forced to just tack days onto the front of your hunt, and do your scouting for several days before you start hunting.

The more I think about it, the more I'd like to live out West somewhere... But I don't think I could ever talk the wife into that.

 

[buckbull]

Try coming from out east! Fuel is a huge expense when you're coming from 1,000+ miles away. At around $4 a gallon, you're looking at a minimum of $500 round trip, not to mention the 25-30 hours of drive time. It makes taking a separate trip to scout about impossible. You're almost forced to just tack days onto the front of your hunt, and do your scouting for several days before you start hunting.

The more I think about it, the more I'd like to live out West somewhere... But I don't think I could ever talk the wife into that.

If I go out west for Elk or Mule deer I try to get out there 3 days prior to opening day to get a good campsite and scout. For antelope, I just get out a day before, we hunt private land and pay just a $100 tresspass fee. We also do not have a need to scout, we know where the goats are at. I've been trying to talk the wife into moving west for years. It will never happen, she is a big fan of the florida coastline. So we just stay in St. Louis where neither of us are happy .

 

[NDHunter]

My wife and I have separate accounts for our fun money. I have a budget for the year and then if I pick up some extra hours at work, I keep half and put the other half into savings. I really can't complain and am fairly happy with our system.

 

[xtreme]

This works in Nebraska, go middle of the season, the crowd is gone. Sure some of the good deer got killed but you have it to yourself now and the deer have come back from hiding. This might work elsewhere too.

 

[hoshour]

The biggest cost to my hunting now is fuel. To be able to hunt elk where I now live in Colorado, it's over a 100 mile drive, one way, just to get to the foothills of the Rockies. Then depending on what area I want to hunt, it might be another 90 or up to 200 miles more before I'm into my area. I use to live on the Colorado northern front range and was able to hunt every weekend but now one trip is a really big deal. All the more saving and planning.

Try buying fuel back and forth from North Carolina, not to mention motels and food!

It's cheaper to fly, but then I have not found any way once I get out there to rent a true 4WD vehicle to hunt with. The rental company will tell you 4WD and it ends up being all-wheel drive with low clearance. Even then, it's $100s to rent the vehicle on top of the air fare and another $150 to ship guns back and forth. Add in $350 or more for the tag and it really starts to add up, not even counting buying equipment. I can see why guys stick with guided hunts but, like a big kid, I just want to do it myself!

It would be so much easier if I knew people out west to hunt with. It's not just the cost and a local 4WD vehicle, but the scouting. When you are building points for good areas you can only hunt them once every few years and you can't scout from 1,500 miles away.

 

[dihardhunter]

This is a scary subject, but one - that working off a graduate student budget - I have paid a great deal of attention to over the past 5 or 6 years. I never buy anything new - unless it is marked down 70% or more. Sites like steepandcheap, theclymb, backcountry.com, can really save your butt if you are willing to buy off the wall colors in last year's models. Most things are going to be layers under a soft shell outer anyways, so the critters don't know you are wearing neon green or purple! I buy one bow every 4 or 5 years off Archerytalk.com...has to be the biggest single lot of used bows on earth. When I buy one piece of gear, I get rid of another. Buy a GoLite tent, sell Scent-Lok coveralls. Buy Summit treestand climber, sell back-up spotting scope. I've never leased ground and it's been 5 or 6 years since I've paid for a guided hunt, but frugality can't help with gas prices. I suppose 10,000 miles a year are blown on hunting related travels. That is BY FAR the biggest expense. Going with buddies helps cut down on that. Thankfully, I'm great buddies with a taxidermist and I helped him out one winter 10 years or so ago, so all that comes down to me at a near-cost discount. Like most of us here, all meat care and processing from skinning/quartering to making sausage and jerky is done by yours truly. To supplement an extreme frugal approach to equipment and supplies, I take several odd jobs every year that 100% of income goes towards...Adsense blog money, camera survey or 2 for wealthy landowners, 2 or 3 guiding trips, birthday/Christmas check from grandma, etc. Besides the gas cost, I try and usually a achieve net zero by the end of the year. Squeezed in a ton of gear purchases/upgrades and a 15 day OTC Colorado archery elk hunt plus all my east coast wanderings for that this year.

 

[Old Hunter]

I doubt anybody can come close to what I spend. I hunt elk and mule deer for a total of $300 a year.

It's all my freezer will hold.

 

[packer58]

Hell Old Hunter...........with all the money your saving / not spending on hunting you could easilly get another freezer

 

[Old Hunter]

It's more like it's all I can afford.