Kenner, the name of a defunct toy company and the name we use to describe the Blythes of the year 1972. Now a show of hands, how many people want a Kenner? It’s probably many people in the Blythe community. Myself? Well, I didn’t really “get” it until I saw a Kenner in person and then heard that soft little pip that they have. Then I realized how badly screwed I was in terms of not getting a Kenner, it just turned into want mode.

Photo by me/chelleshocks, Kenners belong to Rebecca/Squirrel Junkie.

So I decided to start saving up for a Kenner. My Kenner funds come from tax credit cheques that I get from the Canadian federal government for a) not making a whole lot of money and b) being a poor student and also from all of the overtime that I’m earning from my full-time summer job. But that is just one method of saving for a pricey doll. I do it this way because I don’t budget for having overtime because I never know when there’s not going to be surplus of work available to me, and I don’t budget for my tax credit cheques because I don’t remember when they come (even though there is technically a schedule). So money that I don’t take into account when budgeting for school and other life’s expenses equals dolly funds.

Some other methods for saving up for a Kenner or another expensive Blythe or just something else that you want:

• Craft and then sell. Take a set amount of money to invest into supplies and then craft something to sell. Always invest some of the money you make into more craft supplies but then save a portion for your fund. Bonus points if you’re making something awesome for Blythe.
• Sell your old textbooks. My sister can’t be the only person who’s holding onto textbooks since she graduated from university 9 years ago! It was money spent and then just kind of stayed there. It’s like having cash hanging out on the shelf, just collecting dust. She recently sold many of her textbooks (all older editions, newer ones have since been published) and earned some money to put towards her furniture fund (she really needs to get a couch).
• Start couponing (just don’t go crazy) and whatever money you save and would have otherwise had spent gets saved. Please don’t go out and buy a bunch of things that you don’t need, you’re not saving money by doing that. But just go and use coupons on things that you would need and then set aside the money you’ve saved for that Kenner (or Darling Diva, or Art Attack, or Parco…)
• Closet clean out! Do your dolls never wear those dresses anymore? Maybe no one in your dolly family actually wears pants. And those shoes, does anyone wear those boots? If you have a lot of doll clothes that are still in good condition that you no longer want/need/use, it’d be a good idea to do a closet clean out. That way you’d be freeing up space (not necessarily for more doll clothes or shoes!) and getting some of the money that you’d already spent in the dolly community back for your next big purchase!

What are your favourite methods of saving for a new doll or more sundries? Please share below in the comments about how you save for a new doll!

A new fun feature on BlytheLife.com is something I’d like to call Freebie Friday Five. It may not be a weekly occurrence (and may also not always happen on a Friday…), but from time to time I will showcase 5 fantastic and free things related to Blythe that I’d like to share with you! If you have any suggestions at all for what I should do a little showcase on and share with everyone on BlytheLife.com, please email me!

1. With the crackdown on people breaking the Terms of Service on Flickr, people in the doll community are looking for new places to host photos for things like sales and auctions. There’s a lot of free sites available out there that you can host your pics there, free of charge. My favourite is Photobucket (but I’ve blogged about this here before!).
2. Check out daily postings of 365 dolls over on Flickr! Due to the nature of the challenge (taking daily photos), there’s always something new going on in the 365 group! So be sure to check out some photos and maybe hit fave or comment on some if you like them.
3. Read a blog or two! Some fun Blythe-related ones that I love and think you should read too are Blythe Blog (written by April), Mademoiselle Blythe (written by Fanny) and We Play With Dolls (written by several bloggers in Australia). They are all fantastic inspirations with cute blogs to boot!
4. Impromptu fashion show with your dolls and their clothes! Has it been a while since someone’s gotten a change of clothes? Maybe it’s been a long time since you had taken their photo? Today’s the day to change all of that! Giving a doll a little bit of attention helps revive your love for her, plus it’s probably nice to give a girl a change of clothes from an outfit they’d been wearing for a month (or longer!).
5. Do a meme! Tag someone, fill out a little survey, do something fun today that’s prompted by someone else. To get you started, there’s a great website called The Daily Meme.

There’s a little website out there called Blythe Got Swag. It’s a brand new (just started in June) and it’s all dedicated to the fun fashions of our favourite doll: Blythe.

Ran by Maya (also known as kittenvomit on Flickr), the site’s premise is to showcase the outfit that dolls are wearing right now. You can make submissions of your own photos and include information about who designed the clothes that your little fashionista is wearing as well as include links to the shops and to your own sites.

Blythe Got Swag reminds me a lot of those fashion websites dedicated to clothes for people where they showcase their own outfits for the day and mention where they got things and who designed them. It’s pretty neat to see a Blythe equivalent out there! So go ahead and send in a submission of your doll in your favourite (or perhaps funniest) outfit! Be sure to include where you got the cute clothes!

The Blythe Shopping Directory is a blog written by Lucy (also known as lucy_goosey) and it’s such a great shopping resource! Lucy writes about shops (mostly selling clothing) that are geared towards Blythe. If you’ve never shopped somewhere or don’t really know how great or poor the quality of something is, she talks about it!

Lucy’s post go from focusing on one particular shop that she’s shopped from to highlighting several shops that sell knitwear. She spotlights shops she loves, shops she hasn’t had the chance to shop from (yet) and her favourites that are currently available in store. I think one of the fun things about the Blythe Shopping Directory is that Lucy will talk about well-known designers as well as people who are just starting out or those without very large fanbases. She reviews products as well as blogging about her favourite stores.

What I absolutely love about the Blythe Shopping Directory is that I’ve discovered so many new-to-me Blythe clothing shops since I started reading it! Lucy even highlights shops that will be vending at events like BlytheCon (UK or otherwise).

Blythe Shopping Directory does take submissions! So if you notice that your favourite shop is missing from her site or if you want to submit a post about a shop that you love and talk about the things that you’ve bought, Lucy will publish guest submissions. After all, it’d be quite the feat for her to buy something from everyone’s shop (and a lot of money!).

I’ve been asked multiple times before why I never really talk about budgeting when it comes to the Blythe On A Budget series. There’s a really simple answer for this: I’m not an accountant (or a debt collector) and nor do I play one on television. My way of budgeting is a lot different than most other people. For starters, I only work 4 months out of the year (full time studies plus the commuting aspect of being a full time student does not lend itself well to a part-time job in my area).

How I justify my doll purchases is I look at my total savings account amount, minus the amounts needed for all tuition money needed still (up to May), minus an appropriate amount for textbooks (I budget $100 textbook money per class – I usually do not use all of this but have gone over once or twice, unfortunately), minus an appropriate amount of money for entertainment, food, miscellaneous purchases (I look at the number of birthdays that I’m likely to buy/craft gifts for; if it’s November/December I budget more for the holiday shopping). And then at the end of all my minusing, I see how much I have left over.

I always try to shop smart when it comes to Blythe. I look for good deals on dolls and also on good deals on the shipping. A lot of the time, most people are fairly sensible about what they charge for shipping (and handling!) fees, but sometimes people are slightly outrageous (for instance, if it costs them ~$20 to ship a doll to me in Canada and then tack on an excessive $30 on top of that, I’d be more than a little choked over that). I also have my boyfriend screen potential doll candidates for me. I’ll send him photos, talk to him about it. Sometimes he’ll gently remind me that I already have other dolls that look exactly like the one I’m wanting to buy (they’re never actually identical, different molds and all, but he does point out huge similarities, especially in hair colour). But he knows me well enough that I won’t ask him if he likes a doll unless I’ve already figured out if I can afford to get her, I just need to figure out if I want her badly enough to buy her. Sometimes I do, sometimes I’ll buy her. Sometimes I realize, after thinking about her and talking about her that I don’t really  need to get her.

What you should do is look at your total take-home pay in a month (or a year, or whatever length of time you want to look at). And start minusing from that the amounts of money that you need to spend every week/month/year. So you minus things like rent, an average amount for food, (necessary) entertainment, transportation, clothes, gifts, etc. You take away all of that and then see how much money you have left over. But since you’re all so much more responsible than I am (right…?!), you’ll also remember to minus an amount to go into a retirement fund (I’ll get to that, once I’m ‘really’ working). Once you take away from your take-home pay all the amounts of money that you need to spend, you’ll figure out the amount of money that you have to spend on more fun things.

If you have $50 left over for fun things, you don’t need to spend all of it every month. Say you really want to get a new doll, but $50 isn’t going to get you that Goldie of your dreams. But saving $50 for a few months will. It’s all about what you do with the money that you can spend.

Start a separate (as long as it’s free) savings account and have that $50 (or whatever amount) of money deposited into that fun account every month. When you’ve got that special purchase in mind, you’ll have the money there without needing to do some mental math of how much leftover fun money you have from the previous months.

Blythe is meant to be a fun hobby. It’s not fun to completely blow your monthly budget out of proportion because you decided to buy 5 Kenners in one month and now your electricity’s going to be shut off and you have nothing in your pantry except for a jar of peanut butter which may or may not be expired (ew). It is not the end of the world if you do not get that doll right now. There will always be another doll. There will always be another cute dolly-designer dress. And it’s okay to say no to buying a doll just because you cannot cut into the amount of money that you need for food. Having a new doll is nice, but being able to eat is just as nice and far more important.

Just remember to have fun. It’s a lot easier to be happy about the dolls and dolly things that you have if you can afford them without taking away money from something that’s more important in your life.