My son has just started model electric trains. We’ve spend a fortune and have a starter train, plywood table, some scenery, some track and tunnel to show for it.
He does love it though!
Motorcycles. Seems like every little chrome bauble or decoration is $50 or more, and if you’re looking for a seat that doesn’t put your ass to sleep, that’s often $400+ dollars. Many parts are in the $200+ range, and this is aftermarket stuff, not factory.
Paintball. There’s a lot of equipment to get; gloves, jackets, masks, paintballs, ammo holders, not to mention the paintball marker (gun) itself. The marker can be customized many different ways, different triggers, grips, barrels, gas systems, hoppers, etc. Then when you go to play, the field fee is usually $20 or more, and you will probably shoot a case of paintballs which is $30+.
It’s been a while since I’ve done it seriously, but I’ll add Bellydancing.
Sure, I first learned some moves from a book. And classes aren’t that expensive, especially if you consider that you should probably be doing some kind of exercise.
But after the third class, you want some kind of hip scarf or coin belt - $20-$30 for the cheapest, just for class ones. Then there’s the music - I easily have as many BD albums as I have non-BD albums. Add in zills, a sword, a cane, other props, because the teacher wants you to learn with these things. A veil can be made, but there are such pretty ones to buy. My teacher always had some basics for sale in class, just to make it easier on us, don’t ya know.
Then you have to have a performance ready costume - either you can make it yourself: fabric, patterns, beads, assorted sparkly things (and thank goodness I already had a sewing machine), or you can buy one. For a new professionally made costume, $400 is considered cheap. They can go up to a thousand dollars.
Classes are all well and good, but you really need to go to the seminars. You can do local ones for a day, but there are out-of-town ones that go for the weekend. Seminar fees, hotel room, meals. And vendors line the walls at these with more pretties to buy.
Beekeeping. Six hives is straight forward, right? And then all you have to do is harvest the honey once a year. Easy! 
Yea, that’s what I thought. :smack: I never realized how expensive it was to get into beekeeping. Between the hives, frames, bees, medication, suit, tools, honey extraction equipment, etc .etc. etc. I think I’ve spent close to four figures. I had no idea what I was getting into.
Shooting. Unless you’re shooting .22LR, the cost of ammo will just about kill you. And then there’s the cleaning, spare parts, etc.
Model building is really pretty straightforward. You buy the kit, you buy a hobby knife and some glue, and have at it.
But why is it that I’m always buying paint? I never have the color I need, it seems.
Well, yeah, but you’re not counting the longboard for small days, the gas money driving down the coast, the trips to Hawaii/Bali/New Zealand, or even the coast, once your job has moved and you have to go a long distance to go surf.
'Course compared to fly fishing, where you factor in fly bites and tetanus shots, it may still be a bargain. And really, the flies are just ammo, none of them ever come home at the end of the trip, I’m just taking them out to decorate the trees.
I’m going to add woodworking. Ivylad likes to do it, but the really good wood is expensive and the tools you must have to do all the finishing work adds up too. DIY used to show woodworking shows (Norm Abrams and some other guy, they don’t seem to air them anymore) and I swear Ivylad would spend most of the time flipping off the TV because he didn’t have a quarter of the equipment needed to make the really cool bowl or endtable or outdoor shed.
I’m starting to realize my knitting is not cost effective. I’ve spent about $130 on yarn making four area rugs, and I want to make three more at least. I can probably buy the area rug for cheaper in a store…but it’s not as fun.
Waddaya mean no worries! That stuff is contagious through the internet!!
I was just another schlub with my toy telecaster making shrieking cat noises in my basement till I started reading some of your posts. Now I’m salivating over SG '61 reissues and tube amp transformers like some kind of sick puppy. The only thing that keeps me from spending the mortgage cash on new equipment is reminding myself that:
- I Can’t play
- Mrs. BD would throw her finest hissy fit at me
Luckily my “big” hobby is sand sculpting. Couple of buckets, some shovels, a few cheap sculpting tools and you’re good.
Except that its 1000 miles to the nearest decent beach from my house.
I totally hear you - whatever you do, don’t start playing slide!
I’ve got two (at the moment)…the aforementioned and well-covered guitar collection (currently sitting at 7 and counting, plus amps, plus recording software…) and flying planes. I’m currently working on my instrument rating and sweet zombie jebus is this an expensive and time consuming (yet oh so worth it) endeavor. And thats just for the basics…I haven’t even thought (much) about fancy GPSs or headsets, etc…or the (inevitable I’m sure) desire to actually OWN the plane…
I love to embroider, and it was so cheap and easy when I could just raid Mom’s and Grandma’s supplies! Now I can’t afford to do much more than the stuff from Michael’s, and I still have about 20 finished projects that I’ve never been able to afford to frame.
Yes, but the bare minimum for a decent store bought starter bike is, in fact, $300. Actually, probably less. How does the existence of $10,000 bikes change that fact?
Oh, yes. I started scrapbooking at the end of last hockey season, when I made a scrapbook for my favorite player. This season I made another one for him and one for another player. I’m starting on mine for this season now.
Let’s start with paper. I have learned to keep a sharp eye out for sales; the Sunday paper is my friend. Basics solid color cardstock can be had for 4 sheets for a dollar on sale. I get some really nice textured cardstock when it is 50% off I rarely buy paper that is not on sale. Our jersey colors this season were blue and gold, so I have a lot of paper left over from buying stacks. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any packages of just solid dark blue.
Paper must be cut. I have a straight paper cutter and a circle paper cutter. I have 11 pairs of scissors - 1 large, 1 small, 1 tiny and 8 pairs with cut blades to embellish paper edges.
Then there are embellishments - things that go on the page to carry out a particular theme. Stickers start at $3 and go way up from there, and are very rarely on sale. Hockey stickers are not easy to find, even though this town has a professional team and both youth and adult leagues.
Lettering - cut out or rub on - starts at about $3 a pack. I can usually get two to three names out of a set. Then I end up with lots of random letters. It adds up fast, so…
I got a Cricut, which is a cutting machine. I got it on sale for $200, which was $100 off the regular price. The cartridges can sometimes be had for $59, but are usually $89. I always get them on sale. Then there are the sticky mats to put the paper on for cutting - two to a pack for $8 to $10. They do not last very long - and if you try to use one after the sticky has lost its stick, you waste paper.
Then there are the books themself, which I always get on sale - about $10 each. They usually come with about 10 page protectors, which is about a third of what I use per book. So there are extra pages to buy - and extension posts for the book.
Of course, there is the main reason for scrapbooking - the photos. I had a Kodak Easy Share which had done just fine for years. Not anymore; it is much too slow. So now I have a Nikon D60 with three lenses. I take anywhere from 250-400 pictures a game and end up with 150 or so usable ones. Thank goodness for Wally World photo lab - I can get 4x6 prints for $0.09 each.
Don’t forget the glues - different kinds for different uses. As with the paper, the glues must be acid free. So are the photo mounts.
Then there is storage - the paper must be stored carefully or it gets creased and becomes unusable. I got stackable storage cubes - some with drawers and some with shelves - on sale for $15 each. The carry case for my Cricut was $35. Then there are the various storage boxes.
It’s a fairly expensive hobby - but very rewarding. The guys really appreciate the scrapbooks - and I get to make something and give it away, so I don’t have to find a place to put it!
You agree that $300 is a good starter price, so what is the question? Like everything else in this thread, you can get started for a decent price and it quickly goes up from there.
This is what I came to say.
Costuming: If you’re lucky you can get pretty good linen for six bucks a yard. Six yards for a really swooshy dress is pretty good, right? And thread’s cheap, and you don’t need THAT good a sewing machine. You can churn out reasonably period stuff… just as soon as you get some patterns, which are remarkably dear.
But then linen just won’t do – you need wool, silk, trim, boning, twill tape. They don’t make cost-reasonable wools in interesting colors so you need to dye it or find someone who’ll do it, and enough dye is expensive. That silk upholstery fabric is beautifully embroidered and on sale at only twenty dollars a yard, a real steal. You only need eight yards – ten at the outside – to make that Elizabethan outfit.
And then there’s the books. The one you really need is three hundred dollars plus shipping from England and is not likely to go back into print. That other one is three thousand, since it’s not only out of print but its ownership is contested. You could probably go make copies at the university if you’re lucky enough to live nearby.
And then there’s camping, as above, of course. You need a pavilion and all its bits, a bed, table and chairs, something to hang all your clothes on, rugs for the floor, a fire pit, chests to carry all your stuff in… and, of course, something to carry all this in, as well. Hope you drive a pickup. With a trailer on the back, too. Oh, and are you going to war this year?
Great amounts of money costuming, of course, can be traded for great amounts of money spent getting armor and weapons. If you would like to do both and do them really well, it is helpful to be independently wealthy. I suppose some things really don’t change, eh?
One nice thing about living in Southern California is that there’s no need to worry about jackets, gloves, leggings, or any of the other running paraphernalia that folks in colder climates need to deal with. I was running in shorts and t-shirt right through winter. On a couple of the cooler days, i swapped my short-sleeved t-shirt for a long-sleeved one.
Actually, i find that i’m also just more inclined to run in this climate. I found, when we lived in the mid-Atlantic, that i would stop running altogether over the winter. It wasn’t so much my body that didn’t like the cold, but my respiratory system. Once the temperature got below about 34-36 degrees, i just found breathing in that cold air, deeply like you do when you run, to be terribly uncomfortable.
I have a tendency, sometimes, to leave it a bit too long before i buy a new pair of shoes. I can feel right now that my current pair need replacing, so i’ll get on that very soon. As for the rest, a couple of pairs of nylon running shorts ($15 each) and four running shirts ($20 each) have lasted me quite a while now.
Right, but in some hobbies the escalation is almost inevitable, whereas in others it can much more easily be limited, especially if you don’t have specialized needs related to performance or prestige.
As enipla notes, having a $6000 bike with all the lightest, most high-tech gadgetry helps his wife make the cut-off times in the races that she enters. But if your aim in taking up cycling is to get a bit fitter, and to broaden your transportation/sightseeing/whatever options a little bit, there’s absolutely no need to spring for all that stuff.
If your cycling habits don’t require you to arrive anywhere in the fastest time possible, there’s no need to have the lightest, most expensive equipment. Hell, if you want to get fit while seeing a bit of the area, one could even argue that a slightly heavier bike is more likely to help you achieve your goal.
I guess it might, in these circumstances, be worth defining more closely what the hobby actually is. In the case of enipla’s wife, i would define her hobby not as “cycling,” but as “racing.” While both might involve bicycles, they are really quite different hobbies.
No, you can buy a area rug for cheaper in a store. I doubt you’d be able to purchase a very similar (hand-knit made with quality wool) area rug for cheaper.
When people ask me why I knit socks or sweaters when I can buy them cheaper, it’s not just that I get a hobby and enjoyment out of the creation. I mean, my handmade wool socks in a really cool lace pattern? They are not the same at all as a sack of 6 pairs of cotton athletic socks. You can’t compare the two because they’re not the same thing. Now I can buy wool socks and look at that price? $15 for one pair. That’s the average cost of one pair of socks for me knitting them. Plus, my socks fit my feet exactly. None of this “womans 9-11 sock” size.
Same with sweaters. Are you comparing a wool (or wool/alpaca, or silk/wool, etc) hand knit sweater with a 100% polyester machine made sweater in the store, or are you comparing it against a (preferably not sweatshop/3rd world country) handmade 100% wool sweater from a smaller shop? Plus, again, my sweater fits me exactly. I can put waist shaping in, or bust darts, or widen the shoulders or alter the sleeve length.
I didn’t see this mentioned yet.
Weightlifting. Lift heavy things, get stronger. Right? In fact it can get exceedingly complex.
You need to know how much to lift, the proper way to lift it, how many times to lift it, how long to rest between lifts, and how often to lift. For example your pectoral muscle, you should do 2-3 exercises that target that muscle, about 3 sets of 8 repetitions for each exercise, resting 30-90 seconds between sets, and do this about once a week. Repeat for every muscle you want to exercise.
Once you got that down, you’re halfway there. You need to know what to eat, how many carbs, fats, and proteins your meal contains and in what proportion (usually 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat), how often to eat (every 2 hours), what to eat before and after exercising, what to eat when you get up and before you go to bed, what chemicals and ingredients are in everything you eat and how it affects your body, and you have to consistently do this for months to see any tangible benefit.
Lifting weights can pretty much take over your entire life. Pros will generally have vast knowledge on how the body works and be experts on nutrition.
Books: needed a larger house and lots of bookshelves for all our books. If we ever move again, we will need to go to a larger house, because we will have gotten more books since the last time we moved.
Stargazing: I’ve got to include that trip to Australia a few years ago that was partly to see southern hemisphere stars (and the moon being upside down), and the trip to China we’re taking this summer to see a total solar eclipse.
Have we covered gardening yet? :smack: