I have been playing since the 90s.

For decades, I would sell back my money cards to stay in the game for cheap. That stopped during the pandemic, though. I don't have that many chase cards, for how long I've been playing. I was very happy to see fetchlands finally come down.

Before the pandemic, my main venues were kitchen table, card club after school (often as the person in charge), and LGS events. I am still only a fringe competitive / budget player (97% of the time). I don't have the time or money to step that up.

I did a lot of deckbuilding and collecting during the pandemic. These days, I lean towards swapping in what I already have, rather than buying new things. I got into DnD, 40K (very time and resource consuming), all while making up my own game. My budget per card goes like this:

<$2: Sure, let's try a set.

$2-$5: Start with 1, and see how that works first. If it's good, then sure.

$5-$10: Take time to speculate it and try cheaper alternatives first. Watch for it to go down.

$10-$20: Definitely speculate. Possibly sell it back and use a more budget option. Playtest to find the point of diminishing returns on the number of copies, if no budget options exist.

$20+: playtest with a proxy. Speculate. Try alternative budget versions. If alternatives exist, sell it off. If it usually sits in a sideboard, sell it off. If you find yourself tossing it back on mulligans, sell it off.

That being said, I am kind of adverse to buying any new cards right now. I am effectively out of rotating formats. Also, one of the LGS's around stopped buying (as of summer2023- they may have started again). I have not been checking if things went up over $20 to sell back much lately. (I did a quick check and found one thing ...). I've also stopped using cards online (unless it's unavoidable). I've also stopped adding new aps to my phone.