A lot of my friends fall into a similar trap, especially my magician friends. When there’s a thing you like, and it isn’t something that can go off like alfredo sauce, there’s an impulse to stock up. The truth is that there comes a point when having stuff becomes a burden. I once had a fifteen minute conversation with my mother about her throwing away a bag of useless, messy cables she didn’t need. “What if I need one of these?” she asked. I asked her if she already had most of these. She did. I told her that getting replacements was cheap and easy. She agreed. Then I asked her if she wanted this giant bag of crap out of her house. She did. It went. She doesn’t miss it.

With magicians, it’s similar, but more complicated. If a magician likes some special edition deck of cards and goes to the shop to buy a gross of that deck, it’s a bit nuts, but if he or she is a pro, it’s at least a tax write-off.