I will buy a Ubiquiti edge router to move away from the consumer grade network gear, turned into just one more $500 server to complete my homelab cluster. Oh who am I kidding the homelab is never “complete”.
Gaming consoles and all of the parts for fixing and modding them. Got an OG Xbox that crashed, so I bought new caps, then I needed a soldering iron, then I got an Xbox 360 so I needed a modchip and a flasher as well as a 4TB harddrive and then I got a FAT PS3 with broken SMD caps so I needed a preheater and a hot air station and then I needed to get all of these controllers which are worn out so I needed potentiometers, thumbsticks…
I do play my PS2, PS3, Xbox, 360, One etc. all the time (they don’t just sit in my room to look pretty) but yeah, I 've probably sunk thousands of euros into maintaining them. 😅
I use the equipment to repair other things I get for free or very cheap, so it’s not just a money sink…or at least that’s how I rationalize my hobby. Repaired a Nikon camera with it…then I bought lenses…just another rabbithole!
3D printing. Purchased a cheap 3D printer to save money printing things instead of buying things. 5 printer print farm later, no idea why I’m doing this to myself.
I started gaming back in 90’s and here it was just buy a game and you got i all. Then I got to pc gaming and watercooling, in the 00-10, And then something happend in these Decades becous what I used to pay fore a full pc with high end components and watercooling is the damn price fore the RAM.
Guitar. Pedals, amps, cables, picks, more picks, straps, strings, mics, stands, clamps, etc all add up. Oh, and of course you’re always enticed to upgrade, but you can’t get rid of the one you’ve grown to love, so now you have n+1 guitars.
To be clear, you can do amazing things with a Fender Bullet, but it’s a slippery slope for sure.
I’m not sure it can get worse than bird watching. Completely free to start. Then you are like “man I wish I could see that bird over there” so you buy some binoculars. Then you think “dang this bird is moving too fast I still can’t identify it, maybe I should try photographing it”. Two months later you’ve spent 10k because bird photography is apparently the most intense kind of photography. Turns out photographing very tiny things that move very fast from very far away is very difficult and the lenses you need start at thousands of dollars and go up to tens of thousands of dollars. That isn’t including the camera body, which you probably want very fast autofocus on, along with bird eye tracking, which hardly comes on any cameras at all.
That sounds like bird photography is the problem. Bird watching is still pretty cheap. Just enjoy the experience of watching birds in the moment; you don’t have to capture it for later.
Oh sorry I guess I didn’t really expand on that. Part of why I like bird watching is that all (almost all) of the apps to identify birds are free. But then you have to actually be able to input parameters and stuff. So then you need to be able to pick out small details in a split second at a very long range. Even then, sometimes it’s not possible without help from others. So bird photography helps with the identification (and scientific study) of the birds.
Came to say this. I enjoy hunting and outdoor activities so I have a multitude of gear. What I use depends on where I am going, who is going with me, and what activities we plan on doing. Such as:
30ft Toy Hauler Camper
UTV and flatbed trailer
Truck bed Tent
Tents of various sizes and various types of climates
Sleeping bags for various climates
Hiking/Hunting clothes and shoes for various climates
Binos and Spotting scopes of various styles
Backpacks… So many backpacks
Rifles of various calibers for hunting different game and environments and various fishing poles
Oh boy, I’m not the worst but I’m pretty bad when it comes to “rabbit holes”
Vinyl records and hifi audio, photography (especially film), mechanical keyboards, cigars, old german cars. I just recently got into music production and modular synthesis. Someone needs to stop me.
It looks like there’s no better time than now to be getting into production though tbh. You can get cheap equipment now that perfectly recreates the effects of stuff that would literally burn a £5000 hole in your wallet before.
I started with cheap pre group coffee from the supermarket for less than £3 a bag and a chemex I picked up for £20. I now have four grinders, a bunch of pour over gear and an espresso machine (marax), worth several thousand. Plus a £80 a month fresh coffee bean habit.
That moment when your hobbies are most of the comments. Running, biking, camping, computers and photography (haven’t spent any money on this yet so we good) :/
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