The Pledge eight years on.

The Pledge was started back in 2005 by mweaver on The Miniatures Page. The rules weren't hard and fast and each participant tweaked them to meet their own goals. I didn't count the lead pile in the beginning and I don't carry over from the previous year. For me the rules were paint more miniatures than I bought. An Excel sheet was created and the The Pledge began.

2015. It went well for the first few months. Painting was well ahead of the purchases made then a bargain came along on some John Jenkins Warring States Chinese eliminating any progress made and putting me deep in the red. Life got in the way of painting for the remainder of the year and I fell behind.  -178.

2016. Most of the year was spent in other activities but I managed to keep purchases under control. +28

2017. I didn't shy away from buying and started a GNW project. Motivated by various games we were playing I managed to paint a fair number of figures. +127

2018. Purchases kept low but painting out put was not out standing either still a good year. +53

2019. Several impulse purchases plus figures needed for various projects lead to a high figure count but concentrating on painting still kept me in the black. +27

2020. The Empress Vietnam range was too good to resist. As gaming was suspended I focused on what was bought and a few other random projects. +78

2021. Another new project started. ACW is a fairly easy period to paint so this went quickly. Purchases were about average but I was aggressive with painting giving me my best totals ever. +179

2022. The "No new projects" mantra was muffled once again. 29 figures bought in February and nothing else until I started with Mark's Little Soldiers. 177 figures bought in the last four months of the year. Painting output was very good though so the year ends well. +122

I find keeping track of things like this helps in two ways. I motivates me to paint when I need it, if only a figure or two at a time or just painting the boots on a group of 12 fig

ures. Also I can look back through the year(s) and see what I've done. 

The Pledge has often been criticized as a program that encourages not buying miniatures but as can be seen from the chart above my numbers of purchases are fairly close to what's been painted. 

The averages are

bought 205 figures per year

painted 260 figures per year

+55 figures a year.

I've never counted the lead pile, I thought about it once but it was too overwhelming, nor what is painted, working on an inventory of what I have but can't decide on a format. The last few years I've tried to paint whatever has been purchased during that year but that only happens about 80% of the time.