Name a hobby or activity you’ve noticed that at first seemed simple and straight-forward but in reality ended up being really complicated, expensive and/or incredibly time consuming?
I’ll point to reef aquariums. Just get some salt water, throw in your life forms, and don’t forget to feed them, right? Nope.
First, you have to let the tank “cycle” while empty. This can take up to six weeks. If you don’t do this, everything dies. When you do pick your life forms you must ensure compatibility, otherwise they kill/eat each other. Then you must diligently monitor ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, phosphates, calcium, salinity, temperature, acidity, alkalinity, dissolved solids, etc, or everything starts to die.
Plus, you must have the correct amount and color temperature of lighting as well as the correct flow patterns within the water. There’s so much more, as well. Get any of it wrong and everything starts dieing. I forgot to mention how expensive it is. A decent, mature reef tank the size of a coffee table will cost many, many thousands to establish and maintain.
And then I wanted to get into sailing! Sheesh! :rolleyes:
Cycling is a little more complex than most people think and a whole lot more expensive that most people think.
First, you have to decide between off-road or on-road. If off-road, you get to pick from cross country, all-mountain, downhill, trials, dirt jump, 4x, and several others that I’m sure I can’t remember right now. If on road, you get to choose from a race bike, track bike, touring bike, and several others that I’m sure I’m forgetting. On top of all that, you have several different styles and materials for frames, drivetrains, and wheels. Most people seem to think the bare minimum for a decent store bought starter bike is around $300. I’ve seen bikes selling for as high as $10,000.
I’m still working on making a semi-decent baguette. So far, while edible, none of them have quite come up to the quality of “bread” let alone a proper baguette.
It might just be a matter of my condo being too cold, but I’m not sure how one gets around that.
I think any hobby taken to “serious” level qualifies here. Thousands of dollars, thousands of hours of hard work, painstaking attention to detail to get things just right etc. Really, from collecting toys or building LEGOs to shooting a blowgun.
A tapered hand-held reamer used to finish the tuning peg holes on a violin peghead may cost $500. One can do nothing else but finish violin peghead holes with it. There are dozens of expensive specialty tools like the reamer one can buy to have the right tool for the job when building a violin or two in one’s garage.
A top-figure snakewood billet for knife handle making may fetch 200 dollars. A single high-end damascus knife blade $500 or more. A thou quickly spent on knife parts.
Knitting. Yarn, needles, done, right? Nope, I’ve seen tons of people sink some serious cash into really expensive wools, nice needles, the whole shebang. Sometimes I wish I could learn to knit, but then I think I’m better off just broke instead of being in debt.
Brewing beer. You can get started pretty reasonably, but then you start to realize all the neat stuff you can do if only you had X. So no I’ve got the lagering fridge, and the keg system. So now I want a still. Dammit!
Yeah, I agree. I knit, and people have said to me things like “wow, you must save so much money on clothing!”
Um, no. Most of my handknit sweaters cost quite a bit more in materials alone than any of my storebought ones. Even cheaper but decent yarns (like stuff from Knitpicks) end up costing you a fair amount for a garment.
Yeah, you CAN knit on the cheap, but you’ll be more limited in what you can use to make things.
Hear, hear. Also, don’t forget how seductive the supplies are - it’s not just that nice yarn for projects is expensive, it’s all the yarn you buy because it’s there, and it’s beautiful, and if you don’t buy it now you’ll probably never see it again. Same thing for nice needles, etc.
In general, fiber arts gets expensive once you move from the making of things due to necessity (potholders, dishcloths ) to making things that are intended to be beautiful (fancy sweaters, funky hats). Quilting is inexpensive when you use old blankets for filling and old sheets for the top and tie the whole mess together by hand. That changes when you start hunting for wonderful fabrics for the tops, good batting, a machine to do the quilting (or hand quilting - what you save in $ you more than spend in time).
And fiber hobbies just beg to be extended. You quilt - wouldn’t it be nice to dye your own fabric to match a special room, your niece’s favorite color, etc? You knit - hand-dyed yarn is really special, and hand-spun yarn is really something. I learned to knit 15+ years ago because I needed a vest that fit. Now I have bins of commercial and undyed yarn, dyeing supplies, wool and silk fiber, a spinning wheel, and a drum carder. It just keeps coming.
A lot of sewing arts get expensive once you really get going. Anybody can slap together a cross-stitch-in-a-bag from Michael’s, but I’d rather not, thanks. When I cross-stitch or embroider, I like to have quality fabric, usually linen, probably dyed–not always cheap. I can use DMC, and I do, but you can get such pretty hand-dyed floss! Better quality, too. And after I go to all the trouble to make it, I’ve got to frame it nicely, right? And while you’re at the needle shop, have a look at the new autumn patterns that just came in–look, I like that one!
And then suddenly you have eight projects threaded up and ready to go and a crate full of fabric and floss and no time to do any of it.
Running is really HARD! Seriously, you have to wake up in the morning and all!
And, I mean, you could run marathons with just a few pairs of (expensive) running shoes… but let’s face it, you’re going to buy that wrist-mounted GPS and heart rate monitor. You’re going to buy a pair of shorts that promises to change your life. You are totally going to buy the world’s dorkiest tights and allow people to see your ass jiggle on down the road. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of completely unnecessary dollars on running, and I CAN’T RUN FASTER THAN I CAN WALK.
I’m signing up for the Marine Corps Marathon today. I may order another pair of shorts in sick-stomached excitement.
Yes - the closer you get to the sheep, the cheaper the raw material gets. You can get a lovely fleece for $50, enough for two sweaters! That’s only $25 per sweater!
But you need to card the fleece - $60 for hand cards, or $300 for a drum carder (all figures ballparked). Then you need to spin it - $300 for a basic Ashford Kiwi, tack on another $20 worth of wood finishing supplies (because it came unfinished), another $30 for some extra bobbins and whatnot. Don’t forget the niddy noddy ($15), and if you’re doing a whole sweater’s worth you’ll want a ball winder and a swift ($60).
You’ll probably want to dye the wool. Let’s say $20 for enough dye and accompanying chemicals to dye that amount of wool.
Time to knit! I use circulars. I really like Addi Turbos ($18) but KnitPicks needles are nice, too ($8).
Most people don’t live in places where these things are readily available at a shop, so throw in shipping and handling, or better yet a trip to Maryland Sheep & Wool (let’s just not talk about that little trip down the financial rabbit hole).
But it’s only $25 per sweater!
(I could wrangle it down even further if I had my own fiber farm. . .)
I could fill a whole house with the stuff for hobbies I don’t have time for, by the way. At least the running stuff is small. I have a whole closet full of unfinished cross stitch projects. A garage full of woodworking stuff. A bookshelf of board games we never have the energy to play. It’s kind of depressing if you let yourself think about it, you know.
Reading. Particularly if you want things that aren’t likely to be in the local library. I’ve spent ~$300 on books in the last three weeks and could easily double that (yes, I read them all). Plus the cost of bookshelves to keep them on, a larger apartment to put the bookshelves in, etc.