I started music when I was like 7/8, my parents encouraged me to do so. And here we are, 20 years later, my dad told me cocaine would’ve probably been way cheaper.
What started out as picking up C64, Atari, and Nintendo games in the 80s and 90s has turned into a collection of thousands of games totalling tens of thousands of dollars…
I got into theater lighting in high school & college. Years after graduating and getting a “real” job I discovered a bunch of all volunteer community theaters in the towns around me. I started doing lighting design, and over time amassed a bunch of my own gear. I’ve also gotten a bit of a name for figuring out special effects. In my basement I have a dozen professional LED stage lights, strobe lights, a fog machine & hazer, and a bunch of bins of odds & ends used for various effects.
Started out with a cheap printer, mostly to supply my friends with miniatures and terrain. They loved the stuff I printed for them, so gave me money for my effort, which went into upgrading my printer and buying more supplies and buying a new printer so I could print better, bigger things for them.
Then, so enamored by what 3d printing could do, they bought their own 3d printers.
and now no one talks to me cause I no longer have any use and i’m stuck with a printer I havent even removed from the box and assembled for 3 years, and another printer that only stays around because every 2-3 months something comes up where I can design and print a part to fix something around the house.
I have been trying to get into 3D printing! It sounds so cool! Can’t you connect your printers to the cloud so that other can print using your setup? Maybe you can charge for their usage based on your costs.
Hey, there are some fun 3D printing projects you could get into if you look around. Sometimes it’s the perfect tool to launch into a new hobby! I’m working on a hydroponic tower currently, as well as some Mandalorian armor for Halloween.
Running. Not as expensive as a lot of the things posted about here, but my shoes cost ~$150 and I have replaced them a couple times a year. I’m planning to get in to trail running soon (as opposed to running circles in my neighborhood, so now I want to add a running vest and a GPS watch, which is not cheap.
Considering that in theory all you need to run is your body and an open space, I feel like I have spent a lot of money.
EDIT: I forgot the ~$140 bone conducting headphones I bought! I for sure feel safer with them than my old headphones though, since I have been doing almost all of my running till now on the road.
It costs a chunk to run, but saves a lot in health bills - even in countries where healthcare is universal. Heart disease is both a killer and something that can incapacitate you, and any potential weight loss benefits aside, running is fantastic for heart health (provided you do it properly and with the approval of your medical professionals). Not to mention it also has focus, mental health, and sleep quality benefits. Plus if you really get into it, you’ll soon be training for some disturbingly long race and be too busy to do much of anything - especially shopping for pointless things you don’t need.
I’d say that most people can get started with decent wicking workout clothes (thrift them if you can and go for gaudy neons if you live in a place that’s dark most of the year), and a pair of decent running shoes on sale. Wireless headphones and a running belt (or just going for pants with zippered pockets to hold your phone) are small upgrades that also make it better if you have a bit of extra budget. Run like this for like a year, and then slowly upgrade with gadgets like running watches, CamelBak backpacks if you start doing long distances and feel like you need it. Also consider investing in slightly better clothing based on what you determine your needs are - colder climate thermals, merino, running shoes for specific pronation, and rolling tools to help you stretch.
Running can be as cheap as less than ~$100 a year or as expensive as you want it to be. It’s cheaper than the gym, CrossFit, at home workout equipment, yoga classes, etc. Not to shit on those things at all, in fact cross training helps you build strength and avoid injury. But nobody should ever feel discouraged by running due to costs, it pays off in spades.
And for new runners, run s l o w. Slower than you want. So slow you feel you’re not doing much and practically walking. Slow and long runs are the ones that make a real difference in building stamina, cardio health, and even decreasing your race times. You’re also less likely to get injured and prematurely get winded by using up all your energy in a sprint. Also, walking is fine. Even experienced runners walk during certain moments - usually for me, I’m doing it to get a burp out or something.
Health is actually half the reason I started running. I’ve lost ~50lbs over a couple years and want to lose more.
And I want to agree on SLOW. When I first started I did C25K and I was running my little 1 minute increments at like a 15 minute mile pace, then walking in between increments. But eventually I got to where I could run that 15 minute mile pace for 30 minutes at a time, and then I started working on speed. I’m down to almost being able to run a 10K in 35 minutes in a hilly environment, or being able to run for ~45 minutes at a slower pace. I tried many times in my 20s to start running and I always got discouraged because I’d try C25K, but do the running parts at a ~9 minute mile pace and it was killing me. Realizing I needed to start slow got me where I wanted to be.
As a warning to anyone reading: don’t start running to lose weight. Running burns calories and can increase your calorie maintenance, but it will also make you very hungry. Weight loss is mainly about CICO, and you can’t really outrun the fork. Since running can be very natural to humans as a form of movement, it also burns very few calories for the effort. I feel like weight training is a more fair calorie spender for the effort.
But running and taking care of myself does make me pick healthier options. Running helps me sleep, so I’m less tired and as a result, less hungry and prone to wanting unhealthy snacks. Fried greasy foods aren’t great fuel for runs, so I’ll naturally pick things like oatmeal, bananas, veggies etc. But be warned, many runners also love a post run beer so YMMV.
As someone who dealt with shin splints for years, a good running shoe is definitely worth it. Once I found shoes that fit my feet properly I never had to deal with them again.
Pro-tip: I highly recommend Altra Torin shoes for anyone like me, who has wide feet but narrow ankles (or as my family calls them, tennis racket feet)
I’ve actually been looking at Altra’s at the suggestion of a Youtuber I like. I should probably just bite the bullet and grab them. I have a super wide toebox and a normal width heel, so shoes are always weird for me. Up until now I’ve just stuck with New Balance, I just have to order them online because a 13 4E is hard to find in store
Agreed, I use them when I’m doing chores around the house if my wife isn’t doing stuff in the same room as me. Sound quality obviously isn’t superb but it is good enough for me and way better than I would expect.
Bought a decent street bike to start on, learn the ropes for several years, had the occasional mishhap or two which I fixed by myself. Still, cost money to fix things right?
Upgraded to a proper sport bike and realized how much fun it is, also with a new level of danger involved. Still, I wasn’t an idiot into things right. Bought 100% proper gear, including a track suit, good helmet, gloves, etc. as any motorcyclist knows, you’ll eventually drop your bike, which I did. Again, fixing it yourself is certainly an option, but also again, it cost money.
Then, I made the mistake of going to my first track day. They will allow you to use your own motorcycle as long as you prep it correctly and have decent tires and safety gear. This was an absolute game changer, and I was hooked harder than a heroin addict with an unlimited bank account. Unfortunately, I am neither of those two categories, and track days only get more expensive the deeper you get into them. First of all, they are not cheap to begin with. A decent track day will set you back 300 to $500 just to get on the track. Then, to really get the most out of it, you should have true racing tires with tire warmers. Then there’s the matter of getting your bike to the track, race fuel, a place to hang out, etc etc etc. The list goes on and on.
Maybe it’s midlife crisis, but I’ve decided to get a motorcycle now that I’m pushing 50. Turns out, I can easily spend 3500€ for my gear and classes before even getting a bike!
Unless you have a dedicated track bike with an ECU map and engine modifications that requires race fuel, you don’t need it. 93 octane ethanol-free is just fine. It’s all about what the compression is in your engine; higher compression means that you need higher octane fuel, and higher octane fuel in a lower compression engine isn’t helping at all. (Most modern bikes also have anti-knock sensors that will retard the timing if your fuel is too poor for the engine.)
this is true outside of the motorsport too. Oh you want to use your bike to take trips or go motocamping? every single little things is gunna cost $50+
Playing music. Started on a shitty hand-me-down acoustic guitar. Got a better guitar. Got an electric. Got a better amp. Got a couple of pedals. Got a better amp. Got like 6 more amps, some cabs, 5 more guitars, a huge pedalboard, a cello, a keyboard, an audio interface, attenuators, mics, etc etc.
You gotta understand... I need all this stuff. There are subtle differences that you've never noticed before but will probably hear once I do an a/b comparison for you, and I absolutely must get an AC15 next to round out the collection instead of buckling down and recording something.
I spent a decade as a touring musician. My guitarist is still a tonechaser and has new shit every practice. New amps, New pedals, etc. He’s constantly trading and saving for new crap
I’m so happy I run my PBass into an OCD clone voiced for bass into a Mesa 400 with 2x15 and I’ve never wanted more.
Pc gaming. I started off with a refurbished HP omen, but now I’m wanting something more. I’m aiming for a custom built and that has led me to the discovery of companies like Digital Storm, System 76, and Falcon Northwest.
Torrenting and data hoarding are also hobbies of mine. Every so often I’ll buy an external hard drive once I max out the storage on a current one. One hard drive failed a while back and now I’m looking for data recovery companies, but their services are a bit pricey.
3D modelling. It's impossible to get into 3D modelling and not get eventually sucked into 3D Printing... Which as other people have explained on the thread, is it's own money sinker.
Just make a friend who is very into 3d printing and you can null out their costs of buying models! There are also makerspaces in some cities that have publicly accessible 3d printers (and other cool stuff like sticker machines, cnc machines, etc) and even some libraries have 3d printers available that you can access
Oooh right - I totally forgot about that expansion! I should finally unbox it and prepare it to be played just in case…
My board game group usually buys games more often than we have time to meet and play, so it just comes with this hobby I guess. A friend told me all the time about the stack of three games he had bought and never played and that we still need to play them and then informed me today, that he has just bought Council of Shadows…
The stack of shame of never-played games is real... Everyone ends up defaulting to the same selection of tried and true games of the group because nobody wants to learn a new thing when you can just get to playing immediately, it's very unfortunate
Gave up on buying and maintaining copics and just bought CSP. May have to switch to Krita at some point, but digital art is far more accessible than other mediums. Want a marker texture? The brushes for that are free, only real barrier is a graphics tabler.
You can buy a good screenless tablet from Huion for less than a hundred, and it’ll work with basically any laptop or desktop computer. Krita is free and has many of the same features as Procreate. =)
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