A 7€ MTG Starter Set.
And now I’m stuck.
I remember when the game started in the '90s, booster packs were like a buck. I can’t afford to stay in standard and most popular formats I enjoy won’t let me use cards I like.
Horses, recreational vehicles, motorhomes, boats, sports cars… I’ll just settle with my watercolors. I will however splurge on Daniel Smith paints.
Paint for whatever reason needs this sliding scale of ‘archival’ which I don’t understand why student grade has to exist. it should all be archival and to be affordable. I suppose it comes down to pigment and binder but you could probably mix your own to maybe make it affordable.gum Arabic can be as cheap as less than 20$ a bottle
A lot of expensive hobbies don’t have to be expensive. I’m a musician, and I have spent thousands of dollars on musical equipment but realistically, if I weren’t going to play out, or record high quality songs, you can get away with just a $200-$300 guitar (you might even be able to go lower. Cheap guitars are crazy good these days), a used amp, a tuner, and a cable. With that alone you have a lifetime of entertainment and challange, and the most expensive long-term cost is your strings. It’s honestly a steal in term of cost to entertainment ratio.
Now. That said. The real challenge is not falling into GAS (Gear Aquisition Syndrome), which is a real challange. And if you become even mildly capable on guitar you’re probably gonna wanna play live and record too, so, easier said than done, but it doesn’t have to be expensive.
I totally feel the GAS issue, (lol that sounds bad). In high school and college I totally got away with a budget setup like you described: cheap guitar, used amp, laptop, a couple of effects pedals, some cables and I was in solid shape. I recorded A LOT! Hell, some of my best work was done with that budget setup. Audio quality wasn’t the best but it didn’t matter to me, just for fun.
As soon as I got out of college and had more than two nickels to rub together, my gear setup had gotten out of hand. Multiple guitars, amps, midi controllers, mixing boards, usb interfaces, studio monitors, full pedal boards, multiple mics, electric drum kit, cables cables cables. Just insane, thousands of dollars. I still do plenty of recording and playing but not nearly as much as my budget days. Some truth to less is more I guess. I have so many toys I don’t know what to do with my hands.
The upside to having more gear is I can host karaoke at parties, jam sessions can be recorded live in very high quality rather than relying on cheap hand recorders, and my own records are much higher quality. Plus, lots of toys, so I can never be bored.
I will say though, I much prefer a minimal setup. It keeps everything tight. It’s very hard to avoid all the novelty of having new toys to play with. But it’s true, playing guitar can be a very cheap hobby!
I got a couple Rubik’s cubes for my kids a few years ago for nostalgia and they didn’t want anything to do with them once they realized it wasn’t easy to fix.
I tried to encourage them to keep plugging at it but they said “how am I supposed to do this if you can’t?” I realized they had a point so I downloaded an illustrated book that takes you step by step through the beginner method, and after a couple of hours I solved it!
I felt like I had climbed Everest and the first thing my kids did was scramble it again as soon as I showed them. That was the beginning of me getting into cubing as a hobby, and I have to say it’s one of the LEAST expensive hobbies I’ve ever been a part of!
Like with any hobby there are entry-level cubes and then enthusiast cubes that are more feature-rich and expensive. But the Delta between the two is surprisingly small. The cube that I use the most is one that has won world records and it was about $20 I think?
I have bought several variations of the 3X3 and other form factors. I have also bought a few as gifts as well as a Bluetooth connected cube with an accompanying robot and I don’t think I’ve spent more than $300-$350 total for the lifetime of the hobby.
That said you could easily be competitive with a world class cube, a timer, a mat, and some “Cube Lube” for maintenance all for about $60-$80 no prob. It’s about the only hobby I have my wife fully endorses, lol.
I was reading your post and I briefly thought you were trying to say it IS expensive, not that it is not. And I was like is this guy on crack, cubing is cheap as chips.
Anywho, glad to see I was wrong. I learned cubing at the same time as my buddies kids did, and while I never got faster than I think a minute and a half? They are well under a minute now, it’s crazy.
I still cube occasionally, but mostly just to fidget while watching TV 🤷♂️ Also so I don’t forget how to do it.
Yeah, it’s cheap. Sorry for the lack of clarity and brevity. Lol.
I couldn’t get any faster than about a minute and a half using the beginner method so I decided to try learning CFOP. At first I got way slower because there are more algorithms to remember but I saw how some others have modified it a bit to make it simpler and practiced when I could (i.e. watching TV like you lol) and now I can solve it in about a minute.
That’s clearly not competitive in any way but I’m really just competing against myself so I’m happy with any Improvement. That’s light years better than where I started and to people that don’t know there are 11-year-olds online doing it in 8 seconds, my one minute is pretty impressive! 😂 Happy cubing, my friend!
The boobs on that dude on the left.
Never get into actual warhammer, only videogames.
Or go for the cheaper alternatives. Or just buy a 3D printer, so you can have beautiful, unpainted armies that’ll never see any action, just like 70% of all GW models!
Having a hobby in a price gouging capitalist hellscape.
Never get into Modular Synthesizers.
Gunpla gives me great joy, until I look at my bank account.
Gaming used to not be like that, but now a good GPU alone costs 800 to 2500 bucks. Sure you get away with cheaper components but at what cost, you got to be patient gamer to enjoy this endeavor.
Bought a 4070 super for 600. They have come down a lot
The Main Reason I became an Indie Gamer.
It’s not that I can’t afford it, it’s just that it isn’t worth it for me.
my gpu is 8 years old, and it runs everything perfectly. I’ve never had any issues with high quality shaders in Minecraft, and i have a million mods in Teardown and i don’t really see it lag unless im testing my PCs limits lol
i really really don’t think you need to spend nearly that much money to enjoy video games
You just should play different games.
For example ping pong runs on integrated gpus.
My 15 years old i5 750 upgraded with a 1060 can play almost anything. You could literally play great free games for the next 10 years on it without spending a dime. Maybe some gamers are doing too much? There’s no need to upgrade your pc every years to get 2 more fps…
#expensivehobbyautism it gets us all at one point.
I got some 35mm film cause I was playing with the idea of film based astrophotography on my 3d printed telescope and wanted to test out a few different types of film… And since the local places are charging $16+ per roll, was going to develop them myself.
Am I doing this right?
Yes, this checks out.
Can be true but like all things it depends. In the 6 years I’ve been into 3d printing I’ve observed that lots of people compulsively mod their machines. I just print stuff. Filament is cheap and I use free online software to do designs. The repair parts I’ve made have actually paid for the machine by being able to keep broken stuff instead of replacing them. But I’m cheap. I think people who are determined to spend money will find a hobby to spend it on.
As someone who learned subtractive machining (milling, turning etc) I find additive machining very interesting. My friend bought a cheap printer recently and I’m excited to try it out.
Warning: it’s addictive. But on the plus side: It’s addictive!!
I downloaded FreeCAD yesterday and started designing a GPU holder
I haven’t tried FreeCAD but have heard good things about it. Have fun!
Never understood the obsessive tinkerers, all that work to have something worse than a Bambu P1S. To each their own ig, I just see my printer as a means to an end I don’t want to mess with it. I want to mess with the stuff I build with it
a printer is a means to a means to a means to a better printer
TBH the 5 years I spent tinkering with my Ender 3 were a lot of fun. Overcoming the little problems and getting the settings right was always satisfying. But at some point enough was enough. My A1 is like a little robot wizard - I hand it a file, it conjures me an object and plays a little song when it’s ready. I’m loving it!
I also started with an Ender 3 and it taught me a lot but I am glad to have a little wizard machine now
We are not a waste of money!
I do some cross stitching and it hasn’t been bad. Even using kits instead of doing custom ones. I’ve got like $120 CAD worth of large kits and, at the rate I’m going, they’ll probably last me a decade or maybe my daughter will inherit some of them.
I’m well into year 2 of working on the current one.
My bike is my pride and joy but good god she is also a money sink.
Do you mean bicycle or motorcycle? What do you find yourself spending most of your bike money on? Most of my bicycle maintenance is for brake pads and the occasional replacement chain; not as many replacing tire tubes after getting nicer tires. Although I haven’t been able to enjoy mine lately after putting on weight and 4 seats I’ve tried still make my butt numb after 20 minutes.
I ride downhill mtb. Most of my money is spent on replacing broken parts from crashes and maintenance. Can’t have things failing when you’re flying down a mountain.
