For the last six years I have just bought all the Red Sox Team sets rather than try to build them. At first I felt kind of weird about just buying them rather than building the team sets but I have come to really enjoy it. I buy the previous years sets right before spring training. I like it because when I get them all and binder them, it is like a refresher on the previous season right before the new season starts.
This is my haul this year. I didn't buy Heritage yet because High Numbers wasn't out when I bought them all and I haven't found a complete 2024 Finest team set yet. (I have Heritage on the way now and I'm about to just purchase the whole Finest team set separately on COMC to get the thing done.) I didn't buy that auto card on the middle right. It and a bunch of other Red Sox inserts were a freebie I got for buying multiple sets from someone.
Buying them outright really cuts down on my spending and it also cuts out on doubles. However every year I screw up and buy a set twice. You would think it would be hard to accidently buy a set twice but it isn't. When trying to get each set for the lowest amount possible, it is always cheaper to combine shipping. Without fail each year I end up with double team sets because I was trying to save shipping and ended up buying something twice. This year I told myself I was going to be more careful and I wasn't going to screw up, and I didn't, but here I am with double team sets. One of the first team sets I bought was Bowman's Best, only 4 cards and I gave $3.99 for it and combined shipping with some others. A couple days later I was ready to buy a few team sets from another person when I saw they had a Bowman's Best team set with the Refractors for 4.99 plus free shipping because I was buying multiple team sets. I knew I already bought the base team set but I figured it was worth it for the refractors and I would only end up with four base doubles, so I bought it again. A few days later my first Bowman's Best Team set came in the mail and low and behold the guy threw in the refractors for free.
So now I have two 2024 Bowman's Best team sets both with refractors. Anybody want to trade for it? I have multiple complete team sets from the last few years I can trade off too.
All the above are complete team sets I have to trade if anyone wants them. That one is a Montgomery 592 parallel set. Yeah, I can't believe I screwed up that many times too.