Well, where I live is in many ways a machinist desert as well. The big difference between me and many others is that I am not in a huge hurry to get or buy something, and so I simply wait until it comes along at a price I feel good with. I have all the necessities that I really need to make many things, and can also borrow rarely used tooling from friends. Yes, sometimes I will buy something just because it is cool and the price is unbelievably low, and I do not feel stupid for doing that, either. I only do that if I feel that I can sell it for well more than I paid for it, at any time. However, I am also not so much of a "collector", who gotta have at least one of everything, or everything from a certain historical time period or manufacturer. One thread I do NOT watch here on H-M is "What did you buy today?" More like "What did you make without it?" I do not feel that I need to buy stuff just for the joy of buying it, I would rather feel smug because I made it without the special tooling or materials purchase. It seems that many of us want to do a project because it gives us an excuse to buy more new and shiny tools and materials. I start nearly all of my projects from "what can I find around here to make something like that?" If nothing, I usually wait until I find something cheap or free. To me this "sport" is far more about the journey than the bling. There is always something else I can be working on until the right thing comes along.