3d ago

surely your hobby can't be that expensive

247 comments

Spending money on hobbies is fine, change my mind.
- no. we must spend money on bills then sit motionless until next shift.
  
  The only people deserving fun are the billionaires.
  
  Get into videogames, then you can do both
- ... so long as it does not materially impact your ability to provide basic necessities for your own wellbeing, food, water, shelter, some level of climate control, etc.
  ... and you are not directly, indirectly, or functionally spending other people's money on your hobbies.
- No. I agree with you
- Spending disposable money on hobbies is fine
- I'd say spending SOME money and time on your most fulfilling hobbies is damn near a necessity for a healthy existence.
  And yeah sure, plenty of people don't do that, and plenty of people literally cannot afford to do that here in my dear old US of A.
  But you know what else I see a lot of people doing in the US? Fighting mental illness and talking ever more openly about the need for revolution and violence.
- As long as "spending money" isn't the hobby and you actually use it otherwise it's a waste of resources.

there has to be a list of hobbies one can try that cost practically nothing:
Solving Rubik cubes (a high quality speedcube is about 20$)
Crocheting/stitching (needles and yarn after cheap)
Writing (free)
programming
... (please expand if you have any ideas)
- Crocheting/knitting is cheap to try out but once you really get into it (and start worrying about yarn quality and so on), the money pit opens. Ask me how I know.
  
  As someone who owns a spinning wheel, you can dye and spin yarn at home to make the money pit even wider and deeper!
  
  My wife has enlisted friends to help me sell her yarn stash if she dies before me. There's probably 10 large worth of high value dye lots sitting in bins around me. Her work includes a $200/month yarn shop stipend, and has for many years now.
  
  Yep. Often when I wear a new jumper or whatever around people who know I knit, I get asked ‘oh, that’s pretty, did you make it?’
  Lol no, that would have cost me like 5 times more. I couldn’t afford to make it myself.
  
  ok but that's in you for getting expensive yarn.
- Not no-cost but cooking, gotta feed yourself anyway might as well have fun with it
  
  Cooking is cost negative relative to eating out. You just need a decent kitchen and plenty of free time
- Drawing, pencil and paper for start and drawing tablets are not that expensive for starter ones and there's free open source drawing software.
- D&D costs $90 for the hard cover core book set and $0 for the pirated pdfs.
  Biking can have a high upfront cost, but I've been using the same bike for 20 years with tune-ups and replacements running in the low three figures over that time.
  I'm a big fan of podcasts, particularly ones that cover old movies. Criterion collection films are everywhere, they're dirt cheap, and they're classics for a reason.
  
  There are cheaper and better TTRPGs.
- Drawing (we should stop pretending one need expensive material do draw nice things, pencils and erasers are the only requirement, and a good sketch book can be found for less than 15 bucks)
  
  who even says that drawing is expensive? it's so obviously cheap thing to do. we did it so much as children. if it was expensive no kids would be allowed to draw
- Hiking? I mean, the world is just out there.
  Other outside activities that need minimal equipment come to mind. You ever played discgolf? Or went running? Or geocaching?
  But yeah, lots of activities aren't expensive. Draw something. Paint something. Sing! Or do some sports! Yoga only requires a mat if you do it naked.
  
  although the entry bar is theoretically non existent. practically? not really.
- Software development is free if you already have a computer
- "needles/yarn after cheap"
  That's a lie. My wife is into knitting and crochet, I've seen $300 purchases for yarn only, for just one dress. Not to mention $50-100 needles or swifts or yarn caking tools
  
  I got caught up on that too.
  I don't do anything with yarn, but will sometimes use fabric to make puppets and other toys with my kid.
  Even buying the cheapest fabric from the lowest priced outlets (cheaper than even the random alphabet soup brands on amazon) in bulk, it adds up so fast when you're actually creating things!
- Writing (free)
  Maybe if you only write in dirt with your finger. Orherwise you need writing implements and something to write on.
  Actually free things you can do:
  Walking/running
  Stare
  Singing
  Collecting rocks
  Stare
  Sleeping
  
  If you're reading this in a computer, then you already have what you need. otherwise, it's like you said, the cheapest thing on the list
  
  For walking/running you need proper shoes.
- IMO piracy and self hosting has great cost benefits.
  Sure it costs money to buy a mini computer and a hard drive, but after, you can spend a long time building that library and it won’t cost you a dime.
  And the computer and hard drive is more like an asset, you don’t really lose money when you buy it.
  And it kind of pays you back, eventually you get a little tired of building your library but then you can use said library and integrate it into your lifestyle while you get a new obsession.
  
  also, there's a high when you hoard data like a dragon
- There are plenty of hobbies where you can happily enjoy it and only ever spend little if anything.
  On the other hand, I've found it's pretty uncommon to find a hobby where you can't optionally fall down an expensive rabbit-hole of some kind, usually around any kind of equipment or tools you might need as part of some hobby.
  Thankfully for most hobbies that kind of thing is not required to enjoy it. You don't need a fancy guitar to enjoy playing; you can read books from the library, you don't need to collect your own; in most big enough cities (in Europe at least) you don't even need to own a bike to go for a cycle (though regularly using bike rental schemes might be a sign to try and get a bike, doesn't need to be fancy)
  
  all hobbies have a cost floor for entry and a cost ceiling. one is the actual cost, and the other one is a made up number based on the richest person who does that hobby.
- Entirely seriously, learn how to make a game in Godot.
  Its literally completely free, only costs you time, and assumes you have at least some kind of existing computer, doesn't need to be a monster rig.
  Alternatively: Find a video game you like.
  Make mods for it.
  Here's another one that's basically free:
  Becoming/Staying fit, gaining strength and agility.
  Make 'weights' out of milk jugs with water in them.
  Maybe get a resistance band or two, they're not that pricey.
  You can absolutely do a ton of stretches, calisthenics, and light to modetate muscle group workouts with basically just random shit lying around a typical home or apartment.
  You can find basic guides for these excercises often just freely available from reputable medical organizations.
  You can literally just go on a 20 minute walk, 3 times a week, and be in better physical shape than something like half of the US adult population.
  Back to computer shit:
  Blender is free.
  Learn 3D modelling, rigging, UV wrapping, how texturing works, how to make animations, etc.
  Same with Krita.
  Become artist. Draw stuff good.
  You can find probably literally millions of free tutorials for how to do basic and intermediate level concepts.
  Whsitling/Singing/Voice Acting.
  These are developable skills much more so than they are just... things you either can or cannot do, for some reason.
  You can teach yourself how to do these, again to a basic or intermediate level, for pretty much free.
  Same thing with at least some kinds of dancing.
  If you're feeling more EXTREME: Parkour and/or Urbex.
  Lockpicking.
  Go find the Lockpicking Lawyer on youtube.
  Pretty sure he can recommend you a not too pricey basic starter kit for learning the basics.
  ... I could go on, but my hands are tired from what I'm going to call 'autism posting', one of my totally free, personal hobbies that I often indulge in.
- music, cooking, public librarying (that's too complicated for one post)
- Ceramics is stupidly cheap to get into. All the tools can be replaced with your hands and a needle, finding workable clay in nature is stupidly easy if you know what to look for and even the garbage clay can be made usable. Most ceramic shops let you rent a shelf on the kiln for like $5. Your first ceramic statue is literally 2 hours of research and $5 away no matter where you are in the world.
  
  finding workable clay in nature is stupidly easy if you know what to look for
  Workable clay may be hundreds of kilometers away, depending on where you live.
  I mean, I'm in the Netherlands, i literally can't avoid the stuff, but not everyone lives in a giant river delta.
- Cooking is basically better than free.
  Yes, ingredients and equipment cost money, but the end result averages out to be cheaper than if you didn't know how to cook. And even if you take on more expensive ingredients or tools, you're probably offsetting even more expensive restaurant meals that you would've eaten.
- Papercraft is pretty cool. If you have some thick card stock paper, a printer, a knife, and some glue, you can find 3D designs online for almost anything. I made an IL2 Sturmovik.
- Any art or craft or sport is pretty much free when you weigh up the hours vs the outlay required.
  Except skiing and motorsports. That eats money.
  
  or boating, or equestrianism, or space travel.
  
  Skiing can be cheap if you just happen to be local to where you want to go. Used equipment can be cheap and last a long while and season tickets can be a good bargain on a per day basis at that point. I used to do that when I lived basically on a ski mountain.
  But then you catch the bug and then you have to plan out $2000+ trips just to be able to do that once after you move away.
- Birdwatching. You can buy a book and binoculars if you like. The app Merlin is somewhat free to ID Birdwatching calls. Birdseed can get expensive or just plant sunflowers.
  Wildflower identification. Best in early spring, Phone apps make this a little too easy. Seed collecting and propagation is my next goal. I also pull up invasive plants, mostly garlic mustard.
  Gardening. Seeds are cheap but if want to start indoors you'll need a light and possibly a heat mat. Start outdoors in a makeshift "greenhouse" using a clear plastic jug. Starter plants are cheap
- Well, strangling animals, golf and masturbating.
  
  Golf??
  
  all of those are non like the others
  
  Choking the chicken? It's two hobbies in one
- Reading (libraries)
- Digital art. Potentially expensive at first, but if you already have a working computer, tablet, or even a phone, all you need¹ is to buy a drawing tablet, which can have a screen or not², and the screenless ones are way cheaper!
  When it comes to software, I'd recommend Krita or ibisPaint (for phones) which are free (Krita is free and open-source - no ads, ibisPaint is free as in "it costs $0 but has ads"). There are lots of other software for digital art, and basically everything other than Adobe software (🤮) shouldn't be super expensive.
  ¹ You can use a mouse or a touchscreen instead if you can't buy a drawing tablet - they're not great to draw with but still viable for the hobby.
  ² You'd think a screenless tablet would be hard to get used to, but after some practice you get used to it.
  
  Tablets with a screen are harder to use for me since they make me cover part of my view with my hand.
- Disc golf can be really cheap so long as you just stick to the basics. Lots of free courses or courses that cost like $5 if they’re nice. Basically spent $50 once and then nothing past that. Found a some free discs too that didn’t have any owner identification on them :)

My hobby is buying materials for projects and then not doing the projects.
- Ah, a fine hobby indeed! I have so many arduinos, pis, and various modules strewn about with little to show for it.
- Is this the more adult version of buying games on Steam and never playing them?
  
  yes, but I do that too.

As an amateur radio operator, I can confirm this as factual. Over.

If you want to save money, don't get into bird photography as a hobby. Gear Acquisition Syndrome is fatal to your wallet.
- Oh no, the birb left a leg on the beach. Gotta buy a new lens to do better next time.
  
  Please no. I like my kidneys. The next lens up in quality is over $15,000.
- My ex decided to take up photography. She's now essentially semi-pro and it was a terrible financial decision for all involved.
  Christmas lists started to get reeeal aspirational. No, you are not getting a lense that's the financial equivalent of a decent used car for Christmas. Go shoot more gigs and weddings.
- Nope, if you can't do it adequately with a cell phone camera, it's gonna eat you alive.
- I'm not doing much photography now but I was way into it a decade ago. I did it professionally on the side, which helped justify some of my nice full-frame gear. It's nice when taking photos at a dimly lit wedding reception.
  Your mention of Gear Aquisition Syndrome followed by a picture of a motherfucking peregine falcon in flight still took my breath away for a second there!
  
  It's a Barn Swallow, not a Peregrine. Closer, faster horizontally, and smaller. I've got a few Peregrine photos, though none I'm particularly happy with yet.

MTG really fits the shoveling cash into a furnace thing
- What did Margorie Taylor Greene do again?
  
  Breathing #1. She should probably stop that.
- I consider myself lucky.
  When my friends were first trying to persuade me to get into MtG I went to a LGS to get a starter pack.
  A guy came in with a sports bag full of ‘his green swaps’ to see what price he could get for them.
  That was the point where I realised I’d dip my toe in the water but this wasn’t going to be a serious hobby for me.
- Unfortunately yes. I used to play many years ago, loved (and still love) the game format. But after the release of modern masters at the price they did, I knew things would never get better. Wizards and Hasbro are in on the card evaluation market. They could, at ANY time, squash it. They decided to foster it

Software development is cheap, if you already own a PC, which is the most expensive part if you go with open source tools.
- It's free until you start wasting money on hosting and domains, for websites that no one will ever visit.
  I don't want to know how much I would be paying, if I didn't have a home server with fiber internet.
- And here's me thinking software development is a career 😭 good for you though. How did you get into it as a hobby?
  
  Learned it in college, first hated it because Java + webapps + PHP, then I discovered system programming through game development.
- Until you get into embedded programming and electronics....

Yeah... I recently built my first drone.
- I wanted to kill a rat in my garden, so I borrowed my parents' air rifle. but the scope was too tiny to be any use at night, so I bought an air rifle with a bigger scope. but that rifle sucked and an internal part broke, so I bought a proper one. but I still have the crappy one and want to tinker with it, so I printed some replacement parts. but I want to make proper replacement parts that will withstand impact abuse, so I need to turn them on a lathe. but my lathe is just a wood lathe, so I designed and printed a four jaw chuck. but it's not any good for parts requiring more than one setup, so I bought a cheap real 3 jaw chuck. but it didn't come with the adapter plate to mount to my spindle, so I tried to buy one. but there doesn't seem to be any suitable adapter plate for sale that will fit both my chuck and my spindle (there's one that is close, but would require machining to make it fit - machining that I can't do without a lathe), so I decided I'll just drill mount holes through my existing faceplate. but that faceplate isn't true with the shaft, so if I want to mount my chuck on it and have it be useful then I need to turn it true. but I don't have carbide tools for metal lathing, so I needed to buy some. and I need to locate the holes that I need to drill to mount the chuck, so I drew up and am printing an template. and that's where I'm at right now, waiting for that to finish printing, so I can center punch the bolt holes.
  so that I can mount a chuck, to turn a replacement part for an air rifle that isn't even 'the good one', to shoot a rat that is digging in my garden and making holes in my yard that'll twist my ankle eventually
  hobbies huh.
  
  And the next thing you know you're shaving a yak for some reason
  
  There's a hole in the bucket, dear henry, dear henry.

"Turn your hobby into a business!", they said. "It'll be fun!", they said.
- For over a year I've tried to sell jewelry I made mostly because the proper materials cost so much, but there isn't any-fucking-where where you can sell crafts without being a professional for a fair price that covers all materials and gives tiny compensation for the time and work.
  
  You may have already looked into it and I'm not sure what the farmer's market scene is where you are but I often see small scale makers selling wares at mine!

Thankfully my hobby is video games so I really only have to buy something to play them on and then I can search for the One Piece if you catch my drift.
- Video games are a cheap hobby they said. So many options they said...
  
  Strongly dependent on you. I'm on the other side of the spectrum. I rarely buy full price games and only those with long playtime. Makes a very efficient €/h investment compared to other hobbies.
  If you buy every CoD, EA gane or whatever each year and another full price release every month you're financially screwed though.
  
  565
  Games played

Doing historical reenactment can be done in two ways:
spend an absolute fuckload of time on everything.
spend an absolute fuckload of money on everything.
The former is more historically accurate, but I completely understand not wanting to pick up flax farming as a side hobby.

Looks at ever growing pile of retro handhelds, tabletop miniatures and BDSM gear
Surely, it cannot.
- Got a 3d printer mainly for map elements, but the YouTube channel "tomb of 3d printed horrors" helped me get damn near resin quality from my pla guy. And I'm lucky I stopped with the r36s. Thing plays up to Dreamcast & some psp without a hiccup. Anything more advanced I got my steam deck for.
  
  I really like the form factor of handhelds. For some reason game companies have stopped making them alltogether, and deck pcs are too bulky for me to carry around.

Piracy saves money if you're already paying for subscriptions. Self hosting adds another way to save money.
- But I can't pirate salt water aquarium fish and corals.
  yet
  
  No fishing pole?
- i thought you wrote "self hosting ads" which would be an interesting choice
  
  Yeah, imagine the situation of "I don't want anyone else's ads, I'll host my own and look at them by myself".
  Probably helped of the common misspelling of "ads" as "adds".
- Piracy saves money
  Precisely. I don't see torrenting wrong if you really can't afford digital streaming or games. Netflix has made piracy less popular when it first came out, but with the proliferation of copy cat rival services, piracy became vogue again.
  I prefer not to torrent games unless the game is owned by huge asshole companies like EA or Ubisoft. These big companies could absorb financial losses from torrenting because there are always idiots who will pay for their bog standard games. Small devs should be supported instead (also, small time filmmakers should be supported by paying to see their movies as well).
  My friends think I am rich despite circumstances. But no, I just save money by torrenting. I use the money that I don't buy essentials with, on learning new skills, socialising and developing hobbies. My rule of not buying new games until I clear a portion of my backlog is working on not going on impulse buying that my friends tend to do. A couple of my friends are pretty frivolous and complain when they don't have savings. A lot of younger folks still think that the environment that allowed boomers to spend money and enjoy their youths, buy a house, get married and then raise a family with couple of kids still applies. Now, we have to sacrifice one over the other and this is what I have been telling people in my generation.
  
  I pay for games on steam because if it's bad, I can get a refund.
- How does one pirate porcelain, a wheel, and oxblood glaze?
  
  5 finger discount

I've been into calligraphy for years now - it's a wonderful hobby with anywhere between absolutely none (pseudocalligraphy with a pencil/bic) and a very low cost to entry (blackletter with a parallel pen) that I seriously encourage anyone to try out! Just be warned that it's a gateway drug to the fountain pen hobby, which uh.
...
...
quickly becomes a not-cheap hobby. Good god.
- What paper you use? I've tried Rhodia and quite like it
  
  I've found Rhodia is very inconsistent with their production quality (and I don't love waxed papers), but for flip notebooks/sketchbooks they're a solid choice.
  For calligraphy, Tomoe River is a classic (even after the whole sanzen drama its still great paper), but I also really love Iroful, Canson Imagine 200gsm, and any of the Strathmore Mixed Media papers. It depends on the ink I'm using and the effect I'm going for, really, but if I had to pick one Iroful is probably the best all-round calligraphy paper (better shading than TR but with less impressive sheening)

If you are looking for an endless money pit, take up the guitar.
- I think even that's getting cheaper over the last couple years. Mid range guitars are getting premium features & qc out of Philippines and Indonesia is pretty solid, modelers are making a big collection of amps and pedals unnecessary for chasing tones. As long as you're not a collector gathering signature serieses or looking at all the new releases giving yourself fomo it's not too bad.
  
  Oh, yeah, that's what gave me the bug. I bought a Monoprice strat copy for $99, including a padded gig bag and shipping, and I couldn't believe how nice it was. I still have it, still play it often.
  I got a Harley Benton Les Paul copy for $158 (with $85 shipping from Germany, ouch), and loved it. Then I visited Nashville, and went to the Gibson Garage, where they had the exact same guitar, with all Gibson branding, of course. Both guitars are a copy of a popular style/color from the early 70s, neither is an original model. Yet, while my copy was $158, the Gibson version was $6700! You could argue that the Gibson hardware makes a huge difference, but even if I replaced all the hardware with Gibson branded stuff, it would still be only about $1000. You could try to argue that the QC is better on the Gibson, but $6700 better? I don't think so, especially since my HB is perfect. I've had it a couple of years now, and I've never found any flaw in it at all. You could never rationalize that the Gibson copy is thousands of dollars better than my HB copy.
  I'm a big cheapskate. I love to find old beat up guitars, fix them, clean them, restring them, set them up, play them for a while, then sell them. Or keep them if I like it enough.
  It's fun, but the money pit is bottomless.
- I have had a guitar for a few years and I haven't spent a dime since buying it. Haven't even broken any strings yet, which I already have 3 packs of replacements for because I thought they broke more often so I bought 4 packs when I got the guitar.
  
  You definitely don't play enough, or your strings a gnarly and should be replaced anyway by now dude lol
  Edit: I change my strings every few months

Gaming is my hobby. I bought an Xbox Series S for $250 on sale 4 years ago. I buy a couple games on sale each year for usually less than $30. It's not a lot of money, but I also don't have a lot of money.

That's how expensive skydiving hobby is. Unless you're an instructor. Then you get paid to skydive.
- Same with motorcycling, unless you get paid $13/hr to be an MSF instructor.
  
  Motorcycling is cheaper than driving tho? I mean if you're driving like a $40,000 bike and then still paying for a car, sure.

Pssh, only if you aren't turning all your hobbies into side-hustles.
What are you afraid of, besides completely burning out and probably still losing money anyway?

I thought it said what having a hobby does to a MILF.

I live in Canada, do you know how much the standard video game costs here now? Like $90.
- Guy never heard of foreign currencies.
  
  Guy doesn’t understand that foreign currencies aren’t foreign to those living in those other countries.

My friends and me with magic the gathering

Warhammer 40k has entered the chat.

I barely spent any money on my hobbies this year. I'm not some kind of sucker!
I merely spent thousands of dollars on materials and tools to build the supporting infrastructure for them!
I also have some very expensive computer parts waiting to be assembled. But they aren't for any hobby of mine! They're for the kid so we can play stuff without him using a computer twice as old as he is. 😉
- How old is the kid, can they not be trusted to put it together themselves?
  
  He's already in 3rd grade and they haven't even covered ESD precautions yet!!
  Like I'm gonna let those grubby mitts touch an actual stick of ram or GPU in the year 2025, lol.

I got into self hosting a while back
EOL enterprise equipment can be very thrifty. But if you ever need something specialty that isn't available in the second hand market, good luck.
- And watch that electricity bill, adding a bunch of hardware to play around with and your utility company suddenly thinks there must be an additional person living there...
  
  I used to run a grow room in my basement, with about 4kw of equipment, so running my systems all hooked up through a 2kw PSU is actually a step back in cost. lol
- hold on I need to self host amethyst beads and brass wire

Choose a cheap hobby. I do art journaling - everything except the glue is free.

My hobby of flipping antic gold coins into ponds cost me pretty penny but it's so rewarding! Once I'm good at it I'll turn it into a side hustle and it'll have paid for itself in no time!

Need... that... new..... VPS!!!

That's why I won't start painting 40K minis, even if I'd love to. I wouldn't even want to play. Besides, I wouldn't have anyone to play with, anyway.
- Og dawn of war with unification is fucking awesome. It's not entirely like the tt game, but I personally think it's better.
  
  DoW is what got me to 40k in the first place! After all these years I'm still not interested in playing the TT. I just read the books and play the video games. But I imagine painting the minis would be therapeutic.

Cries in synthesizers.
At least there are a bunch of great budget options these days. Still not cheap though.
- I love synthesizers. Found my salvation in Bitwig Studio and now I don't even eye up VSTs. (I'll await my downvotes!)
  
  I have not tried Bitwig yet. Reaper is my jam.
- Oof, expensive hobby. Though if you get a Buchla, you can pretend you're in the cockpit of a starship
  
  Pew pew!
- My modular synth is sitting next to me just begging me to pour more money into its gaping holes
  
  Haha! I refuse to even look at modular. Well. I did once or twice, and got frightened off pretty quickly. So much coolness. So much money.

I have below beginner level astrophotography gear, and I've still spent over $500 on it. A proper tracking mount costs somewhere in the ballpark of $1,000, and that's just the mount. Granted I'm happy with the OTAs I have, so I'm probably not buying a new scope for a while
- yeah, $500 is tough to get into astro with.
  plenty for general photography, but astro can get gear heavy fast. astro landscapes are becoming more accessible as more fast lenses get cheaper, but the kind of astro that needs a tracker is just pricy.
  
  Yeah, I really thought I could just put some elbow grease into a Canon EOS 300D and a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ and make it work... at least I know that I'm into this hobby, and I know what upgrades I need to make
  Once I'm making significantly more than minimum wage, this hobby is going to pop off

It only feels that way because corporations and their billionaire leaders keep eroding our ability to afford anything beyond basic requirements and decreasing the amount that they pay for labor. Working 40 hours a week should give you enough money to survive and have a couple of hobbies, at a minimum.

Craft beer for me.

Conlanging is a very cheap hobby. Quoth Tolkien in A Secret Vice
It is incidentally one of the attractions of this hobby that it needs so little apparatus!

My hobby is burning other people's money.
- ...Joker? What are you doing on Lemmy?
  EDIT: Nwm, he only burned his own share.

......watch collecting, photography, motorcycling, hifi equipment & vintage synths, 😭😭😭

Hobbies be like: !piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ( free :P )

Quite literally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid
- These guys seem awesome. They deleted their backlog in like 1992 or '93 and said they wouldn't release an album until world peace was declared.
  They didn't really keep that promise, but their next release was "K Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It)" in 1993, released exclusively in Israel and Palestine after the peace deal between Israel and the PLO.

Not in America! My hobby is my second job

I play Star Citizen. My wife has no idea the cost. I have no regrets.

Between photography, motorcycles, and tools (woodworking/metalworking/automotive) this does seem accurate for me - I have ended up spending a fair chunk of money between these over the years. The tools do mean I can do stuff myself though rather than paying someone else so they at least are less of a money pit.
Every now and then I think paragliding would be an interesting thing to try but I have to tell myself another expensive hobby is hard to justify when I'd like to actually own a place to live some day.
- Every now and then I think paragliding would be an interesting thing to try but I have to tell myself another expensive hobby is hard to justify when I’d like to actually own a place to live some day.
  What do you mean? You will simply live in your paraglider! You'll be like one of those birds that stays aloft for months at a time. There you will be, a child of the sky. No need for land. No need for rent. Just a literal leaf on the wind.
  You can't take the sky from me...

Nothing empties a wallet faster than ‘I’m just trying it out.

Have you considered flying a black flag?
- I love that band, but their albums cost $$$

i mean, my hobbies have major upfront expenses but are cheap afters. bideo games: console expensive, library games free. musical instruments expensive, reeds/springs cheap, music cheap/free. smoker expensive, food only a little more expensive. just gotta choose well.
- My major hobby is like this mostly. Backpacking. Upfront cost for gear, but once you have it the only real recurring cost is food and gas to get to a spot. Sure sometimes you have to replace gear, but if you take care of it you can go for years with no gear costs except maybe shoes.

Do Thinkpads count?

My hobby are maths and programming, both fairly cheap. Other than the cost of getting a computer of course (and maybe some maths textbooks if you feel the need)

My hobby costs nothing after that initial ten years and a total of $10k investment in classes & equipment. Now with my own gear I can do it anytime, anywhere in favorable weather plus expending a shit-ton of physical exertion.
- sex swing, huh? Yeah I remember my first one too
  
  Outdoors??
- ...the suspense is killing me! What is it?
  
  suspense
  It does indeed involve being suspended in the sky. Aerial Silks.

Well if I stop buying fishing gear, at some point it'll be financially worth it. I mean I've already "paid off" the license for this year. Yup... Ignore the brand new rod and reel I got for black Friday, it was on discount. Or the fact that I got a gold membership discount at the local tackle store because I spent enough money in a year.
- But think of all the money you saved eating the fish you caught, and other lies we tell ourselves, available 2026
  
  I mean, we did legitimately save a lot of money this summer. Catch of the day in an overpriced seaside vacation area is not cheap at all.
  The rest of the year though...

If that was warhammer they would be shovelling gold bricks

Yooo no man that depends on the hobby completely! Taket it from adhd guy that can optimize hobby skips, you know if a hobby got ya, you can overcome anything and use mostly duct tape, and know to not go for top shelf material the first year. Else, shopping is probably actually your hobby. And that's not a bad hobby you just gotta start shopping for others and hijack on their signal substances. Many people hate shopping, find the right pers

Coffee beans take up 12% of my grocery budget :(
It's delicious though.

That's what happened to me and buying some old books. I'm kinda baffled how I manage to buy the same shit ten times cheaper all time while everyone else removed the prices are insane. Like come on - these old books - you have a dozen ways to chip away the price by literally describing the yellowness of the paper.

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