Looking back over the past 50 years or so I hink I have always had hobbies of one kind or another. I figure they probably averaged out at about 10 to 12% of my income. I usually dropped a hobby eventually because the cost started exceeding my passion. In almost all cases I would continue to dabble in them but almost always just using the same stuff I had collected while I was active. It seems like between 5 and 10 years was a typical run where the passion ran high. I don’t really have any regrets but at the same time I could use some of the money I spent.
What are your thoughts on a reasonable amount to spend on hobbies?
As we speak I am working outside dimantling my bow making shop where I spent the past 20 years making primitive archery bows.
My hobbies are cheap. Video games, audio and video entertainment, etc. are much cheaper than they were 20 years ago.
I’m considering buying a used motorcycle. When amortized and factoring in resale value, over the course of several years it is probably less than 1% of my annual income but I’m still wary.
I’ve spent a couple grand collecting vintage GI Joe toys. They are not about to lose their value though and since there is only a finite amount of them there is only so much i could spend. As long as you are not neglecting other things I don’t see why you shouldn’t spend whatever you want on things you enjoy.
I knit and I garden. These are the hobbies that end up costing me the most. I do feel justified in some of what I spend because as a result of my hobbies, I have tangible items I can use or eat. Of course, no one really needs socks made from $25/skein handspun yarn, and when you take into consideration building planter beds and getting good soil, etc., I’m certainly not coming out ahead financially on these two endeavors. But the joy is there and that’s what hobbies are for.
In any hobby, there can be a lot of cost creep. I started out birdwatching, and I though this is great, ten bucks for a field guide and fifty for binoculars, and I’m all set to spend a few hours of free time driving country roads and checking off each species that I see. After a decade or two, it got to the point I was driving a thousand miles to see a rare straggler reported in a garbage dump or a sewage treatment plant somewhere in Nebraska.
I had birding friends who were on a hotline, and when a new accidental Eurasian species turned up in the Pribilof Islands, they’d run to the phone and charter a plane to go and see it before it got its bearings and flew back to Siberia. That’s when it starts to be an expensive hobby.
Good example of what I was talking about, I just bought a set of new binocs, mostly for watching local hawks and the odd birds that have been showing up in So Cal the last few years.
I’ve started getting into minor home improvement projects as a hobby. My weekly trips to Lowes result in a high value for my house. So it doesn’t cost, it pays? Right?
My hobby seems to be starting hobbies that have lots of expensive gear to buy.
Yes, I agree with that 10% figure. I say this as I consider the $1k Phill Jones Bass amp I bought two months back, or the Carvin fretless bass that I bought used at the music store last month when I played it and it felt like butter under my fingers.
Two years ago I was seriously into studio photography, and have the gear to prove it.
Fifteen years ago it was woodworking.
There’s something pleasing about quality hobby gear in that it usually lasts longer than hight tech stuff–the bass guitar will still sound good twenty years from now, while my tech gear will be long gone.
You can look up a web site called " primitive archer index". Several thousand members now and lots of guys posting pics. It will give you a very good insight into the hobby, extremely addicting!
This may be a dull answer, but I think it’s reasonable to spend 5-10% of your budget on recreation. So as long as your hobby-related spending plus your other recreational spending stays within that range, I wouldn’t consider it a problem unless you’re in a desperate financial situation.
Occasionally I realize that in my stash of hobby supplies I have items I never found a use for or haven’t used in years and I wish I had saved my money instead. But no one item costs very much, and since it comes out of my recreation budget it’s not like I would have been doing anything much more serious with the money otherwise.
Travel is probably the only “hobby” I still pursue, and it hasn’t really gotten all that expensive. This summer I’m flying around the world for about $1,500, with exotic stops of my choice,and in a month I’ll probably spend around $1,000 for all other expenses besides plane fare. I can live cheaper on the road than I can at home.
Last year I sold a couple oil paintings for $300. With the cost of paints, brushes, canvases, medium, gesso, frames, fees to enter a show or to mail a painting to the buyer—I might have made 35 dollars. Still, I like painting so I keep it up. I just don’t kid myself that I’ll ever make a living off it.
Well my main hobby is playing the bass guitar and as with any musical hobby you can really spend a lot of cheddar. The benefit though is that once the equipment is purchased it will last for many years if not for the majority of your life if well maintained.
For instance my electric bass is worth over a grand and my amp and speakers also were over a grand. Occasionally I’ll add other things that are somewhat expensive, I bought an acoustic bass a while back, I bought loop stations and effects pedals but these are much cheaper than my main equipment. But after buying my basic equipment that’s all I really need, the only other things are trivial like cables, strings, etc. So my hobby was kind of expensive for me initially but now that I have those things I’ll be hopefully using them for years to come.
But if you were just a fool with money to burn you could be spending tens of thousands on musical equipment and I’ve seen some people that do just that and seem to spend more time buying instruments than actually playing them.
My most expensive hobby, hands down, was flying. I spent a LOT of money on that during the 10 years I was active, and if I still had that income I’d probably still be flying.
Other than that… various yarn/thread things like knitting, crocheting, weaving; reading, some computer gaming, gardening; art; music - for the latter an instrument can sure set you back some but if you’re smart about buying one it will last a lifetime (or longer)
I spend almost nothing on hobbies right now due to my financial situation. I’d say that as long as the bills are paid and you have a reasonable reserve funds/retirement savings going on have fun. Spend what you can afford, avoid doing hobbies on credit.
Horse riding is moderately expensive. Would be at least 10% of my income. Cost of the actual horse is not the largest part of it. Tack can be expensive, though that is a one off for me. I do, however, know people who must have the latest and most fashionable. For instance, in Australia - saddles cost $500 to $5000; horses for an amateur with no pretensions to high level competition can cost $500 to $5000; for high level competition, the sky is the limit.
Day to day things are also a cost - food (bale of hay, lasts 2 weeks currently $140 dollars due to drought and end of summer), shoeing (80-120 each 4-6 weeks) or trimming (40-60 every 4 weeks), vet (yearly probably $400 of maintenance, not counting emergencies), lessons (70ish +), entries to competitions (60ish +).
Also need to factor in either the capital costs of: somewhere to live that is suitable to keep a horse, or pay for keeping it at a commercial place; and a vehicle suitable to transport the horse. Wow, I am scaring myself!
I know of several cases where people were tickled pink because they got a " free horse". As you say the cost of the horse or the dog or the race car are the smallest part of the investment.
My rule of thumb is that I won’t spend more per hour on recreation than I earn per hour working. That’s just an upper limit, though, and most of my recreation comes in at significantly cheaper than that (books, computer games, the SDMB, etc.).
