Be a lint salesman your good at it! lol

If you put in the time to network, you can work into deals. Visit bars, pool halls, bowling alleys, laundromats - basically anywhere a pin might be. Once you find some busted pins, if you can be around enough, you can work a deal in many cases to buy them. Find two broken pins in a location, offer to fix one if they let you buy the other for $500 (or whatever is fair). Or offer to buy broken, dirty, badly maintained pins outright.

The trick is figuring out what's where in a 30-50 mile radius of your house. That takes time and determination - and more than just a walkthrough. Have a drink, play a game, strike up some conversation. Even if you find a location with pool tables and a broken arcade game, but no pins, that could mean there's some broken pins in the warehouse of that operator, so be around when they collect and make friends with them. You can get 2000 and up era pins for $1500 or less if you play your cards right. Even if they're not the ones you want, you can fix and flip to get some money for the pin you really want.

Why would you do layaway? You get zero earnings from layaway. Even if you put it in savings, at least it's insured and you EARN SOMETHING on the money while it's sitting in the savings acct until you have enough to buy what you want.

Start out small. Get a Meteor or a Space Shuttle then turn that into a Taxi. Turn the Taxi into a Whirlwind and so on. Many people have done things like this and you can too! Patience is a virtue.

My advice is to start w the classics from the early 80s. You can find them for 600-800. You don't want to blow your load on the first pump, if you know what I'm saying.

^^^^^^
This right here. Started doing this with breakfast sandwiches which were good and cheap at $3 but do it at home and that's a savings of $15/wk, $60/month, $720/year....
Thanks
Blake

Great advice! I bought my first computer with change I saved. I never used my change when I made a purchase,all change had to go in my 5 gallon spring water carboy.I like your idea about saving the ones too!

I always packed my lunch and my morning break, during my whole career.It drove me crazy, when the younger Carpenters, would buy their morning break and their lunch,from the lunch truck. Ten dollars a day,adds up to a ton of money by the end of the year. Most of them never listened to me, and just thought I was a cheap bastard.

But are you a cheap bastard with pinball machines?

There is so much good advice for the OP, save up to buy a game if you need to finance a pin I would say don't buy it. I also agree with if you want to buy a pin and don't have the money from what you are doing now then consider finding some extra work to save up for it. Others gave good advice sell the game you have now if you aren't into it find another fix it play it sell it work your way up to what you want. This takes time but is doable I know people that have worked their way up to new in box games by doing this, it takes time but can be done. I see nothing wrong with layaway if you can find someone that offers that, and then when you get it you have paid for it. This may take some time but it would be yours when it was paid for. If you do finance or layaway a pin find away to come up with the money quicker to pay it off, extra work or some of the money saving tips people have given you.

By the way I'm a cheap bastard with pins that are paid for with what I call crazy money (no new pins that wouldn't be what a cheap bastard buys), cars that are paid for (yes I had to finance my newer cars but make every effort to pay them off as soon as I can).

I've got 4 words for ya...

Almost new cowboy boots.

when i got into pinball I was broke as a joke. Working for like 10$ an hour full time. economy sucked and the games where a lot cheaper.

What i did was buy broken, beat up bally / stern / wms projects. They where affordable to me and it forced me to learn to fix as I had no money for replacement boards or even to pay to people to fix my broken boards. If I wanted to play, I had to fix and was determined.

This might be one of the worst threads i bothered to skim over. And post in.
Wtf.

My honest advise is, if you can't pay cash, don't buy a pinball machine. I know others do, but I wouldn't want to be in debt for something that's not a necessity. I still feel like I have zero budget when it comes to pinball. I think the trick is enjoying what you have. You've got an EM. Play the hell out of it and also start playing some games on route or at conventions.

The OP should also be aware that there are no broken pins just sitting around bars anymore waiting for you to come buy them.

As of last year, they have all been bought.

Even working pins in bars have signs on them NOT to call the operator inquiring about buying them, because operators get 20 calls a day from idiots thinking they are going to sell it to them for $1000.

"Heyyyyyy, I saw you have an old pinball machine at Harry's in Cinci. I was wondering if you......" Those get deleted instantly.

IMG_20180409_201612099 (resized).jpg

Game works in Newport KY needs to have a word with you. There’s a nest of broken games there.

You should offer to buy those "old pinball games" for $1000 each!

You haven’t seen them. At this point they are worth the boards and that’s it. So I’d say $1000 max. Just blows my mind that they even have them on the floor still. No way they are getting more than a handful of swipes a day at like 50 cents a swipe.

OP: Broke Man's Buying tips?

Find a broke man's hobby?

Belly button lint collecting hasn’t burst its bubble yet.

Nope. Bought two late model "bar pins" last year. Probably still get some more in the future. It doesn't happen OFTEN, but it still DOES happen. They ARE out there, but probably not in areas with high population density.

Hmmm...I just give my wife all my money. Lucky for me she is bigger cheap skate than me.

Yep... i started out with a smb(4years ago) that needed lots of work. I bought projects and fixed them up and sold or traded them for better stuff. Ive now owned most b/w pins ive wanted and have bought many pins nib. If i was to get out of the hobby and sell everything (including parts) id probably be up 10-15k from what i have in . Not bad for fixing up and playing with toys lol. Its been a fun 4 years thats for sure.

Fellow broke guy here. Just getting back into pinball almost 20 years after selling off my bargain machines. I had $15 tied up in 3 machines. You didn't misread that. Fifteen dollars. I was in the right place at the right time. Now they weren't STTNG special gold plated edition modded out led packed etc... But I played the crap out of them. And now i kinda miss it. So I just bought a Firepower that's in pretty tough shape for $150. It needs a whole cabinet, but I patched it up enough to get it playing, just waiting for my boards to come back. If I like it I'll build a whole new cabinet, probably out of furniture grade materials and finished like a piece of fine furniture so SWMBO might be more likely to let it in the house. If you have champagne tastes and a beer budget, find a beer you like. In fact, if I had $5000 extra laying around, I probably wouldn't spend it on a pinball. I'd put a clutch in my Alfa-Romeo, finish my MG, build a new kitchen, or any number of things that give me even more enjoyment than pinball (sacrelige on a pinball forum I know) if you have a place nearby where you can play high end titles and can keep an old EM or low end SS around to sharpen your flipper skills so your hard earned quarters will last longer on those other machines, I'd call that a win. And keep a few bucks free in case lightning does strike, like the guy who just posted here who bought 3 DMD era tables for $300! Or closer to home, when I bought my '55 Chevy at a yard sale for a third of its value. Right place, right time, you don't get to choose, leave that to the rich guys who can have what they want when they want it. Guys like us, we need patience, skills, a little luck and the wisdom to jump when the time comes!

Also... I'm planning on leaving the coin mechs operational in my machines to help fund the hobby. If I wanna play, I'd better find a quarter!

They also do throwaway:

patience buddy!! Take your time and save up!! Just save a few bucks a day and soon it will add up!! I’m glad we have a place like Uptown Pinball nearby so you have the opportunity to play some nice pins. At times it’s nice to go play and let the owner take care of the maintenance, we just get to enjoy the pinball! See ya there

Quickest way I can think of is sell enough blood, plasma, sperm. Get a cheap handgun. Then start knocking over liquor stores.

Be sure and wear a Pinside shirt so we can see on the news how you are doing.

LTG : )

Yep. Last year.

Meh. Hope springs eternal. Pretty sure I'll get a few more before they all dry up.

You never know.

James "King of Cranes" lost a few Crane games when a movie theater went out of business.

8 years latter, a new owner bought the theater, and called James to "Get these things out of my building!".

The new owner made him take his two cranes but also forced him to take a few pins and a photo booth.

We joked that the extra machines were interest on the cranes that were not earning.

Try using the pinside map (where to play)

Read all of waspinat0r 's threads and do the exact opposite of what he did.

Pin Babysitter! I have six pins and only own two. A friend that gave me the final push to buy a pin years ago moved out of the country due to a job opening for a few years. It was only suppose to be one year but it has sorta ballooned into a three year stint. He wanted someone that would take care of his pins while he was gone. He didn't like the idea of letting them sit in storage. I am known by friends and co-workers that I take very good care of everything I own or use. So he asked me if I would like to take his pins for awhile. So with that I told him, "Sure thing and I will make sure they are in better shape then when you left them". Been almost two years and he is not regretting it. Fixed things that didn't work as well as made some mods for him.

Gonzo, did you ever find anything?