Whats a hobby/craft that you wouldn't expect that has an incredibly high ceiling either monetarily or in sheer skill?
For example, I'm sure the average joe doesn't know just how expensive calligraphy pens can be, or how deep the rabbit hole goes on video game speedruns.
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Maybe it is well known, but home brewing. You start out with a couple of buckets and a stockpot, next thing you know you're spec-ing out a 10hL brewery with your mates. There is always "just one more" thing that you need to buy to make the perfect beer.
At least with brewing beer, it’s offset by the price of beer. It costs about half the cost of a commercial corny keg to brew 5 gallons.
If you’re disciplined and brew frequently (and drink unhealthy amounts of beer,) you can pretty easily break even or save money. I calculated something like 10 brews to break even on my set up and didn’t buy anything extra until after 10 brews. You can get great deals on used stuff too since people frequently get sober and drop out of the hobby and liquidate all their equipment. This is the dark side of the hobby.
Kinda dorky but I have a spread sheet tracking all of my brewing expenses. I also calculate how much that beer would have cost of I bought it and subtract my brewing expenses from it. The goal is to keep that number from being negative. Right now I’m pretty close to 0 because I upgraded my temperature control abilities to brew lagers.
It costs about half the cost of a commercial corny keg to brew 5 gallons.
PSA: This is only true if you value your labor at $0.
Also only true if you were going to spend that money on that keg anyway.
Similar to "I saved 50% on these leggings!" That's only true if you were already going to buy the leggings anyway.
If it was a purely cost saving venture, that would be a fair point. But it’s a hobby, I don’t view it that way. The process is fun and once you get past just making kits, the creative aspect is pretty rewarding.
If I’m going to look at literally any of my hobbies in terms of whether it’s worth my time, there’s very few things that are worth doing. Should I not brew beer or build furniture or make bread because in my day job I get paid more than it would cost to just buy things? What would I fill my time with?
Only if you're trying to sell it, otherwise you just are paying your time to enjoy something you like doing
Do you think you drink more to keep that number from going negative?
At first, definitely but I learned some restraint in order to not die. I have a lot of beer drinking friends and family though which helps.
You sound like you were far more restrained than I. I still went out to sessions at the assorted local craft places to see what was new (this was in the early 00s) while brewing an ever increasing amount. I has massive crates of bottles I was giving out and eventually keykegs. Finally I gave up and got a job at an actual brewery. No regrets, but also, so many regrets.
I priced a 220v hookup in my garage so I can boil water faster... so tempting, but so expensive.