The $500 challenge.

I've decided, based on my finances, serious gaming backlog and a discussion that I heard on Gamers With Jobs to give something a try:
For the next year (that is from Oct 1 this year, to Sep 30 next year), I am going to budget myself $500 for gaming.  It sounds like a lot, but it's about 10 bucks a week.  And I'll be interested to see what I end up trying in terms of new genres, purchasing methods and outlets that I had not considered before.


That's five hundred Australian by the way.  So that's 4 full priced retail games.  Guess what my plan won't be.


Exclusions from this budget are:
XBox Live Subscription
Replacement hardware - in the unfortunate event of a console or PC dying, then a replacement will not count towards this.


Perhaps in a future challenge I'll try to include both those too.


So, from my starting $500, I've got:
MS Points to the value of $16.50
From that I picked up the two expansions to Toy Soldiers, a XBLA title that I adore.


Remaining:
$483.50