How to save up for your first BJD Part 1: Planning

Note: This is the first part of the How to save up for your first BJD posts. This was supposed to be a single post, but when I realized the the post will look like a long walls of text, I decided to divide it into a few parts. :) Though this is still a loooong wall of text so, read at your own risk?

Oh BJDs. Pretty pretty BJDs. You fell in love. You want one. You absolutely and surely want to buy one when you suddenly saw the price tag.

From quickmeme.com  (loool sorry, had to use this meme XD)

But wait! Don't lose hope yet. Aside from asking for money from your parents, who would probably say you're too old for dolls/it's too expensive/they're scary (whut)/etc. etc., there's this thing called saving. Yep, saving! 

Some of you may say that saving hundreds of dollars is hard and that you will never be able to actually save up that much. This is not true! There are several ways for you to save enough money to bring that doll home. But first, let's write down some details that you will need to map out your saving plan.

• Which doll do you want to buy?
• Does the doll come with a face-up?
• Does the doll come with eyes/wigs/clothes/shoes?
• How much is the doll?
• Is the doll a Limited Edition? If yes, note the date when you can last buy the doll. If not, skip this step.
• How much is your monthly income (for students, your monthly allowance)? How much can you spare in a month?
• Do you have a savings account (or at least a different method of keeping money safely away)?

You have those things on paper? Good. Now do the following:

Once you determined the doll you want, go to the doll company website (or to a known doll dealer's website) to know more about him/her. Look at your doll's sale page.

Let's say you want Iplehouse's SID Soo:

Screencap from Iplehouse.net

The selling price says she's $590. But that's without shipping, face-up (some companies provide free face-ups, some don't), wigs, and clothes. How do you know how much you should save for? Lets pretend that you're already buying the doll.

Screencap from Iplehouse.net

You'll see here that if you choose a special skin color to Soo, add mobility thigh joints to her body and add a face-up, your total is now at $737.

Since Soo only comes with free eyes, you'll need to get her a wig, some clothes, and shoes. Add them to your shopping cart.

Your total is now at $847.

Now select your shipping company (I suggest getting EMS) and have the website calculate your shipping fee.

For the Philippines, shipping costs $33.20. This will vary depending on your location.

Are you still with me? Yes? Still breathing? Good. Now the cost will vary depending on company and what you want to get. In my case, Alice came with free face-up, eyes, and a wig, so I didn't bother getting those yet. I chose to buy her some extra wigs, some clothes and shoes from Taobao (a Chinese ebay). There are a lot of options, so I suggest doing a bit of research here and there. Remember that Google is your friend.

Now that you know how much you'll possibly spend on your doll, we can now move on to the actual saving part. Which will be tackled on my next post.


***

I told you this will be a long read. :D

Why bother discussing this in detail? Because based from what I see, a lot of aspiring BJD owners make the mistake of underestimating the value of a BJD and end up getting frustrated because they never seem to know how much they'll actually spend on one doll. That's why setting a target first is a good practice because you'll know from the very beginning that you'll most likely spend this much.

I'd also like to point out that I only used Iplehouse's website as an example since I recently bought from them and I find their shopping system neat and easy to use. Its also easier to describe the process if I only use one company as an example. Of course there are a lot of other companies, shops, options, etc. But as I mentioned earlier, you'll need to do your research. Google. Ask around. Leave me a message here and I'll gladly help you out.


Thanks for reading! If you have any corrections/clarifications/violent reactions, please feel free to message me.  :)