Very thoughtful post Matt; I appreciate you bringing this up.

I've only just begun to wear kilts... less than a year... but I've wanted to since I was a boy. All I knew back then was that they were expensive and out of reach, and I didn't put the desire on the back burner, I literally took it off the stove and forgot about it.

I've only recently had the means to indulge my interest... the result of a special, one-off kind of situation. You might say I've been making up for lost time, although I've just about reached the end of my budget.

In my exuberance over my string of kilt and kit acquisitions, I've been all too happy to rush to the camera and get the posts on XMarks (no pics, it didn't happen!) and I've posted quite a string over the last few months.

It hadn't crossed my mind that this sort of display, coupled with many such on the forum, could be discouraging to those with limited budgets, but now that you've mentioned it, I see that it could.

How do we put that in balance? I think that XMarks has been a great resource for those with money to spend, looking to spend it well and at the same time there are lots of great DIY resources, and also many generous gift and trade transactions that have taken place through this forum as well which have certainly been a benefit to those with tight budgets.

Perhaps just communicating about it can help. I think so. And toward that end we have you to thank for bringing up this subject.