Personally, I'm kind of straggling to get by. I'm nearing on the edge of spending too much to manage and really should be looking out more for my future so I can raise my income to more comfortably support my tastes and my hobbies. Getting into this hobby started for me as a detour after finally upgrading my PC build for some video and audio editing optimization (lucky me, the last thing I upgraded was the keyboard. I went for the Rapoo KX. Well, that introduced me to this hobby. XP). Long story short, I've put off my endeavors there and have been super absorbed by this hobby. It does disgust me at times.
My form of damage control is realizing what I want and what I do not want. There was a time early in when I had the FOMO pretty bad, where I wanted a Mira just because of what it represented despite disliking TKL boards and knowing they weren't my type, where I wanted to buy every key cap set coming out. I remember being so upset I missed out on hwood's big Gateron switch buy, and now look, they are readily available. FOMO is the most dangerous aspect of this hobby. It preys upon the impulsive nature of one's personality. Even if you think you have good self-control, it is incredibly easy to get sucked into this vortex of plastic, steel, and aluminum, just wanting to buy all that you can. This is coming from someone who's typically very good with spending and who does not often buy things. This past year, since last March, I've spent over $1.5k on things that are completely irrelevant to anything but this hobby. Keyboards. If you have an ounce of a collector's mentality, a passion for rare or hard to find things, an ounce of materialism, this hobby will find it and clamp down on it until you figure out how to break away. Or maybe you just go on feeding it; maybe you can afford to do such things.
After a while, I realized that it was getting out of hand. I saw myself getting into group buys that weren't even relevant to what I cared for in a keyboard. I saw myself seeing something that seemed exotic or unique, and immediately I would plan on how to get it, how I'd manage my cash to afford it. After a while, I realized it was enough.
I ultimately decided that my favorite form factor and layout is 75%, and that is all I'll go for, particularly only Octagon revisions, and nothing else. I started to piece together what I wanted in this hobby, what I needed to fulfill my curiosities and what I truly desired out of all this. I tried to shake off wanting to be show off and doing this for vanity and tried to look more into practicality and personal expression. Reddit contributed to the vain aspect as well, since posting and commenting on /r/MK was really my first experience with social media. I usually stray away from it for various reasons, but I got bit by seeing everyone else. All that karma bullsh-t, everyone trying to be flashy or clever or witty just to be seen. I realized all that was meaningless in the end.
That allows me to sidestep a lot of buys without regret since I've rationalized the situation. Trying to just go for what I truly thought I'd like while staying somewhat reasonable. I've also realized that I enjoy Alps far more than Cherry MX (which is still nice, but uninteresting to me in comparison), which creates a huge clearing for me, away from the way more prevalent and expensive side of the hobby. The only vintages I am concerned with are Alps boards, so that cuts away the uber expensive Cherry vintage boards, and the (admittedly cool) Model F & M boards.
The only layout that is not optimal for me that I've been lax about has been 60%, but the Infinity was so I could have an Alps "custom," and the Duck Eagle build, which is my endgame 60% to stave things off until I get things straightened up again, represents a lot of qualities I want in my ideal portable keyboard, one that will also save me from finding reasons to buy/build more keyboards. The planned hotswapping is very important not just for the sake of being a neat idea, but to combat the compulsion to keep buying boards just because I have a surplus in switches. Ultimately, I'd say the 75% is my ideal layout for a daily driver while 60% is great for portability despite having a slight compromise in functionality.
The only things I can see pulling me toward more spending are the Octagon v2, and Alps key cap group buys.
I think I've at least managed to narrow down things a bit. I still want to grab Alps switch varieties of every type for my Eagle so that I can swap things out when I get bored of one flavor or another.
The main thing is that I do have a goal and have set limits. I'm just glad I'm not drooling over every new IC, GB, or classified that comes up anymore. I've realized personal goals are more important than going for something rare or flashy. Going for things that are borne from personal creative ideas and not just wanting to be a bigshot with rare boards definitely helps. It's easy to get lost in the vanity and materialism of this hobby.
I'm still trying to learn to temper myself and let certain things go, budgeting myself out. For example, if a board I really would like comes up for sale, but isn't so exceedingly uncommon that it possibly won't come up again, then I'll pass on it, knowing that I'll have another chance to get it some other time. Yeah, I'll be feeling the burn to my obsessive side for not grabbing it, but I'll have relief in knowing that I'm also helping to cut back on those obsessive compulsive tendencies.
I think the worst moments I've ever had in this hobby were literally pacing back and forth considering what I should buy, and literally mulling over it for hours on end to convince myself it was fine. I was dealing with a **** ton of cognitive dissonance and that was really horrible. It's true that this hobby can pull out tendencies that are dangerously close to substance abuse.