Wow, that's a pricey lobster! Are you a big Fire Emblem and Fate/stay night fan in real life? Could you tell us a bit about your background?

Indeed. The funny part is he got a rate up not so long after and I ended up getting nothing but lobsters even though I wanted some one else, haha.

I'd say for both FE and Fate I'm a fan but not on the hardcore side of things.

I got into Fire Emblem pretty recently with the release of Fates and I loved it, so I'm slowly making my way through Shadows of Valentia now as a follow up to the three Fates games. Otherwise, FEH's been a good alleyway for getting to know some of the other franchises and their characters/backgrounds, though of course it's no substitute for playing the actual games themselves.

Fate-wise I started watching the franchise with the original F/SN from Studio Deen and got interested in Fate and TYPE-MOON stuff from that. I dabbled in the original VN for a bit after that (though I haven't found the time to go through it in its entirety) and I've watched all the TV + Movie iterations of Fate since then aside from the newest Heaven's Feel movie, which I hope to catch shortly after its BD releases in a little bit. Interestingly enough, I actually ended up more invested in another TYPE-MOON franchise in Kara no Kyoukai more than anything.

Background-wise, I'm just your typical late 20's guy with a Master's living in New York City who grew up in the 90's catching Saturday morning cartoons as my introduction to anime and other related stuff. I'd rather not go into too much details about my actual profession, but the closest equivalent would be it's education-related.

I hope you get a chance to go see Heavens Feel. We've had several staff members at GamePress attend already and I've heard good things! Our other most recent interview was with a software developer who said they had disposable income to cover their mobile game spending. Are you in a similar situation? How do you feel about your spending?

Yeah, I was planning to see it in theaters, but it was during the same week as Anime NYC and a few other things last I remember, so I didn't end up going. If anything I'll pick up the BD and watch it then.

As for spending/income, I don't necessarily earn that much compared to people with a Masters working in other fields, but I do fortunately have enough disposable income to cover what I've spent so far on FEH and FGO. I spent more than expected during the earlier months of FEH as I got into the habit of spending on mobile gaming for the first time, but I balanced it out by working a little extra here and there and/or by selling some things I bought a while back, so I feel that I'm relatively comfortable in terms of balancing out my spending here compared to what I planned to and wanted to spend at this point. I did sell a few things I did quite like, but it's fine given the lessons learnt and the financial balance it gave after.

When you get down to it, it's all about understanding how much money you have available and may earn over the next year (not counting non-work based opportunities that are not guarantees or may not pan out), how much you'd be willing to spend that's reasonable and wouldn't require you to sacrifice daily necessities, and how much you want to save for a rainy day and for the future in general. Toward that end, I have a spreadsheet setup that details everything from how much money I have currently, how much approximate post-tax earnings I would have over the course of the next few months, and a list of literally everything I spend, plan to spend, or already spent on a month-to-month basis. I then set it up so there's a part that automatically calculates how much disposable income I have left to spend for the year (I allocate about 10% of my post-tax earnings as my general limit), and the spreadsheet turns a bright red if it gets close to it to serve as a reminder that I either should start thinking more carefully about which banner to roll or not to roll, and/or to consider looking for some additional opportunities/work to earn money or something of the sort. This in particular has helped me avoid rolling on many of the last few months of banners for FEH.

Aside from that, I think the big thing for me is I also spend a lot of time looking over ways to maximize the amount of stuff I can get with the money I have.

Having an eye on the iTunes Deals Twitter and buying iTunes cards almost exclusively from Costco in particular saves a lot of money, and I think that's really something that's undervalued by a lot of people. With $20 off a $200 iTunes card on a daily basis and up to as much as $35 off a $200 card when there's the occasional manufacturer's discount, the savings really add up when you know you're going to spend whale level amounts of money, and you get more bang for your buck while you're at it. For that post I linked you for FEH previously, buying cards this way saved me gave me $3500 worth of orbs for $600 less than it should've cost.

I then follow up by looking over ways to invest the rest of the money I have into high-yield savings accounts or CD's, and with interest rates slowly going up, their impact isn't insignificant, though of course you'd have to be in a situation where you have the financial flexibility to save a decent amount of your earnings in the first place. For instance, a Capital One 360 Money Market account gives something like 1.3% interest if you have 10000 put in (it drops slightly if you have less, but there's no minimum balance). It doesn't sound like much, but it gives you another $130 in your pocket every year for every 10K you manage to save up, and there's generally many of these kind of investment options available if your circumstances permit you to hold on to a portion of your income on an annual basis.

Also just to add on to my previous, it doesn't hurt to have a credit card whose points system gives you extra money for spending on stuff like iTunes or Costco either, as you can convert those into bill credits or other iTunes cards to further cut the margins.