A crisis of faith.

So here's the thing...
I need to cut down my comic collection.
I don't HAVE to, and I suppose I don't really NEED to, but I should.
I am NOT getting married, I DON'T have a nuerotic bitch girlfriend forcing me to sell, I DON'T have a kid on the way or any of the usual crap that comes with people cutting down on their comic collection. Nor is this a knee-jerk reaction to a Marvel and DC publicity stunt. Let me try and explain.
I love my comics, I really do, maybe a little too much. No, really, it's gotten crazy and I'm trying to cage the beast, the problem is the beast has been free for too long.
But the question I ask myself is; Do I really need 3 copies of Kingdom Come or The Authority? Do I really need a full set of Preacher first prints when I have access to my Tpbs, not to mention my girlfriends copies of said Tpbs? Not to mention the the fact that I can always read shop stock.
What's doing it is that my weekly comic bill has reached the £50-£60 retail mark, obviously I get stuff wholesale, but still, we're talking £2,500 a year of stuff that could sell in the store. But I could live with that bill if it wasn't for the fact that so much of the stuff I buy is superfluous, I mean I have at least 5 Absolute edition HC's coming in the next six months, and all but one of them are stuff I already own in one format or another.
It's hardly like I'm talking about stopping comics, they are a huge part of my life and will always be, but christ I have 2 BOXES of Iron Man comics - that's not sane.
You may have noticed this is very much train of thought ranting, indeed at this point I have no idea if this is a ramble to myself or something that I intend to post on the site - after all, I don't want to come across really negative and put people off buying comics as that's a Gerald Ratner approach to business (you're all too young for that obscure reference).

I am more split over what to do with this than Spidey is in civil War (see, always the geek).

The other thing which is contributing to this is the sheer volume of variant covers I have dropped into the bad habit of buying again. No matter what I will always buy Spider-man variants as that is my mainstay superhero (most of the old breed of comic collectors have a mainstay, whether it be Daredevil, Superman or Batman, that they stay with through thick and thin, it's an oldskool way of thinking but one I have always loved. Bear in mind 10-20 years ago very few people followed creators), but I have to get out of the habit of buying HC reprints as well.
Those of you have seen my tattoo's know I love The Transformers (they're more than meets the eye you know), but this latest IDW run has really killed it for me. Thankfully they've calmed it with the variants now, but some of the comics I have 8 different variant covers for, ranging from £2.20 up to £100 in some cases. Very few comics in my collection are worth £100 to me except early Spidey's, and to be fair I'd rather have the cash than every cover of Prime looking pretty much the same as he always does.

More cases for the prosecution:
*I just bought the variant cover box set for Gen 13 Issue #1 (10 years old!!!! Shit) for the bargain price of £21 - but do I really need another 14 Gen 13 comics.
Fucking Michael Turner Civil War covers, I don't even like him anyway so why have I got them???
*I like Fables. I want to re-read Fables. I want to lend Fables to my comic buddies but I can't, because they are all buried in coffin boxes trapped behind a mountain of plastic robots in my toy room. If I sold the originals I could buy the tpbs, and probably have a bit left over.
*Street Fighter? Why the fuck do I buy Street Fighter? Sure, it's a well done title and a lot of fun, but I'm not really that big a fan of Street Fighter to warrant buying it every month.
*It's not like I am going to cut down on my reading, I have access to everything I want through the store, so why not buy the things I really want and get rid of the things I am NEVER going to re-read (like electric-era Superman for example).
*I can't move in my house anymore. I have 24 boxes in my toy room, 20 boxes in my attic, 8 boxes waiting to be sorted and another 3 boxes waiting to be read. It's long past the point where I've worried over the structural integrity of the house under the weight of all the comics. I've only been collecting 10 years, imagine what my house will be like in another ten if I don't do something about it now.

Cases for the defence:
*What if the comics rocket through the roof in price and I regret selling them? The Iron Man movie might make my 2 boxes of comics hot shit (yeah, right). What if HBO get a Preacher series and the first prints go through the roof? But it's not like I was buying the comics for speculative reasons was it? Well, no, but there has always been a part of me that has considered my comics a retirement plan, but over the years they have bcome more of a ball and chain than anything else.
*Get real man, no-one will want to buy your electric-era Superman comics, they were shite. Might as well keep them for all the money you'd get.
*eBay is a pain, takes ages and you have to pay a percentage.

Gah!!!

I don't know what to do, obviously it makes more reason to streamline than to keep going like I am. Hell, if I keep going like this I am going to end up resenting the comics I love.

Advice people, I need your two cents here.