I wanted to do this, and with last year's new year's resolution of keeping a budget, I have been able to track all my gaming purchases throughout the past year. I may try and keep it up-to-date this year with month-by-month purchases but in the meantime here is my 2008 tab!

January

• Used PS2 (From CAG) - $70
• Lunar Silver Star Story Complete (Ebay) - $56.50
• Wii Zapper - $16.34
• Elite Beat Agents - $9.76
• Tales of Abyss - $19.29
• Final Fantasy XII - $12.85

January Total: $184.74

January was an expensive month for several reasons. I was still recovering from a serious car accident in November, so I had quite a lot of idle time on my hands during my recovery. I had quickly finished up the previous November's gem in December (Mario Galaxy) and needed some new games to fill up my time. Thank goodness for RPGs!

February

• Smash Bros. Brawl Pre-order - $5

February Total: $5.00

After January's splurge comes the February lull. There wasn't really anything for me this month and I was still trying to catch up on some of my older PS2 game backlog.

March

• Super Smash Bros. Brawl - $44.99

March Total: $44.99

Ok, so March was boring too. I don't remember why I got a tax-free discount on Brawl, but maybe I had one of those random 10% off coupons. In either case, I did manage to score a $5 gift card at GameStop during the pre-order festivities.

April

• Mario Kart Wii - $49.49

April Total: $49.49

And thus the gift card comes in handy.

May

• No More Heroes - $24.77
• Okami - $19.23

May Total: $44.00

I don't remember exactly why, but I received a $10 gift card for Walmart.com for some pre-order mixup. Thus No More Heroes for a great price. Okami was just a great deal at BestBuy, couldn't pass it up for that price.

June

Nada.

July

• Radiata Stories - $14.70
• Orange Box - $30

July Total: $44.70

August

• Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - $39.23

August Total: $39.23

September

• Spore - $54.49
• Kirby Super Star Ultra - $27.24
• Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (Goozex 800 Points) - $0.00

September Total: $81.73

I don't usually like buying games at full price, but I had been waiting for Spore for a long time and several friends of mine assured me on how good the game was. Needless to say, the game stunk. Thankfully, I was able to quickly unload it to Goozex for a full 1000 points so no big loss.

October

• Wario Land: Shake It! - $33.00
• Final Fantasy IV DS - $19.07
• Wii Classic Controller - $13.07
• 6000 Wii Points - $8.73
• Kirby Canvas Curse (Goozex 450 Points) - $1
• Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Goozex 600 Points) - $1
• Odin Sphere (Goozex 500 points) - $1
• Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Goozex 250 Points) - $1

October Total: $77.87

October was a big month. I had a lot of incoming Goozex trades, not to mention the Toys-R-Us B2G1 free sale on all games. This allowed me to pick up a lot of Christmas presents on the cheap, then have some additional presents for myself without breaking the bank. What's listed here is what actually went towards me, not including presents I bought for others.

November

Nada.

December

• Pikmin 2 - ??
• Final Fantasy X - $3.41

December Total: $3.71

I stumbled into my blockbuster video to find an awesome sale which allowed me to pick up both FFX and Pikmin 2 (both complete and mint) for $3.41 after a giftcard I had saved up from last year's Christmas.

2008 Total: $575.46

Overall, I'm very happy with my 2008 total. I got to play a lot of great games, and only had to spend on average $47~ a month. That's cheaper than my cable bill, and 3x as much entertainment and value!

As a bonus, here's all the digital content I downloaded in the past year as well:

Digital Purchases (Wiiware/VC)

• Star Fox 64
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2
• Harvest Moon
• Lost Winds
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
• Dr. Mario Online Rx
• Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
• Mega Man 9
• Art Style: Orbient
• World of Goo
• Art Style: Cubello
• Secret of Mana
• Spaces Invaders Get Even
• Kirby's Dream Land 3

I'm not sure whats ahead for 2009, and these first couple of months may be much slower than last year's. Of course, I now have the advantage of having Goozex at my disposal so I imagine that the amount I spend will be even less than before. Here's to a great 2009!