Cubing on a budget. Should I have double equipment?

Can any cubing guru (*cough* Tesiqurasa *cough*) offer some advice here?

I understand that I can cube upwards through normal, rare, epic to unique - and that I can never cube downwards to a level below.

But, as a mage, I might cube my staff and find I get 3 rows of STR or other not so worthwhile stuff.

If I am well funded, then I would just have to keep cubing until I am satisfied with the result. If I am on a limited budget, that is not so easy.

So, I was thinking of keeping two sets of all equipment (or maybe just two the equipment I am currently cubing).

For instance, I currently have 9% INT on my staff and I wouldn't like to lose it. Perhaps I could get another and cube that until the monthly budget is spent or until it is better than the current staff.

Is that the way to go? If I leapfrog two equips I can't find myself in the situation where I cubed, ran out of budget and have bad stats until next month.


Advice, please?

or you can just cube whatever doesn't have good stats on it and cube your good gear when you get a lot at once.

Never cube something you are using until you find a better weapon or a weapon that you plan on cubing.

I always cube things till they have equal or better items. Most of my equipment is evenly cubed, never try to focus on a single item at a time unless you have a LARGE amount to spend at once.

Long story short, leapfrogging is the best way to go early on. Eventually you'll have to dish out serious cubes to get multiple useful lines, but that method should at least get you to at least Epic 6%int on everything.

After that, pour everything into your weapon (if you are a mage, an E(s)5-8). I got insanely lucky and managed 12% magic ignore 15% magic/def within 9 cubes, but everything else took much much more.