Last time I shot this gun I was by myself with no help, couldn't do a video, but we'll get around to it.
I've been buying cannons for a long time so it kind of spreads out the pain of paying for them. When I find a cannon I want and don't have the money I get a loan and buy it, then sell off other toys I don't need anymore to pay it back. I've done that about a dozen times that I can remember. I keep about eight credit cards sitting there doing nothing except waiting for a nice cannon to come up for sale. I've also bought many "seller-financed" cannons, where the seller gave me a year or more with no interest to pay them off, and I'd send them a check every month. I bought probably 7 or 8 very nice cannons on those terms from the late Val Forgett, president of Navy Arms Inc., over many years. When someone had a cannon I wanted for sale, I'd always ask them if they'd let me do a time payment thing, even if I had the whole amount, since another nice piece might come up the next day.
I drive a truck until it turns into dust (10 years and 250K miles on the present one.) I don't like putting money into things that depreciate. I don't pay for cable TV, what little TV I watch is a fuzzy, snowy picture that comes in on rabbit-ears. I like to think the money I save on stuff like that pays for the black powder I burn up.
I'm doing more and more trading of one cannon for another too. Some people who have nice cannons won't even think of selling them, or don't need any money, or both, but if you come up with something they've gotta have, that's all it takes. In the past two years, I did trades to get a Navy 3" breechloading rifle (350 lb. model) , a French 8-pounder Gribeauval gun tube ca. 1793, and another Navy 3" breechloading rifle (500 lb. model). I've put out videos about the first two, but just got the larger Navy gun recently, have not shot it yet.
If you work at it, you can make a hobby somewhat self-supporting.