For example, I’m sure the average joe doesn’t know just how expensive calligraphy pens can be, or how deep the rabbit hole goes on video game speedruns.
Telescopes
Telescopes don’t really get too crazy until one wants to get into astrophotography (assuming we want an APO at that point, not before). At that point staying in the four digits is an accomplishment in itself…
But I did learn something when I bought a binoviewer for my telescope, I had to buy double the eyepieces and that was a bit hit that I didn’t fully think out
Did you expect telescopes to be cheap or did you expect astronomy to be easy?
Coffee, particularly espresso.
Meh, the coffee machinery is more of a show-off between people who can afford it.
You can get very decent espresso with a $150 portafilter. It’s the beans that make the difference. And even while good beans cost some money, they are totally affordable to normies.
Also the grinder is important, probably more so than the machine.
But even then it’s important to have a grinder, not some random scrambler. Is totally affordable.
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Again, for the grinder you can, but don’t need to get poor. You should omit blenders that just cut the beans randomly down, but as soon as you get one with a proper grinder it’ll be fine.
I know what you’re saying, as I was following /r/coffee for q long time I’m doing it with my described setup for about 250€ total. And I am totally satisfied with my 2-3 espresso and espresso derivatives a day.
When going out even in high priced restaurants and coffee bars the espresso I get are mostly just en par. I get a wow effect elsewhere, but only rarely.
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Magic: the gathering.
There’s several different styles of play known as “formats”.
The Cheapest being “Standard”. Which is the latest 3-5 sets released. The deck of 75 card deck can cost upwards of £500.
Then the most popular format, modern, which is the last 20ish years of release. The average deck there can be upwards of £1,500.
Then there’s legacy and vintage where decks are in the high 4 figures and some even in the 5 figures.
I quit playing in 1996. It wasn’t too rare to have a $2000 to $3000 deck even back then. And that’s when every card store had a Black Lotus for sale without having to notify their insurance company.
I always felt like Modern was cheaper in the long run than Standard. Spending hundreds of dollars every few months on a new set didn’t speak to me. Whereas I could buy a few cards here and there to upgrade me modern decks.
I’d assume a lot of people sell/trade as the next set rotation is coming around no? I’m not sure how card economy works in magic but in yugioh today’s meta is tomorrow’s budget, surely there’s people that want to buy in play in non rotating formats
Isn’t “pauper” cheaper than standard?
Also don’t forget that when the meta changes that expensive deck’s value can change (usually for the worse)
My roommate is big into magic, but he refuses to spend a lot of money on it. He makes counterfeit cards of whatever he wants and gets a deck custom printed for $40. He’s also part of a discord group that makes cool fake cards or changes artwork on existing ones.
They’re not allowed to have the official back but since he uses sleeves no one can tell. He’s really up front about it and talks about how he couldn’t get into the hobby or make the decks he likes if he had to pay for real cards.
There’s nothing wrong with proxying. It only becomes an issue if you’re playing in a tournament, or your opponent insist on using real cardboard since they probably spent a lot and so everyone should as well.
Absolutely based.
Don’t forget commander, which a lot of places claim is now the most popular format. Pre-constructed commander decks can cost as little as $20-40 and competitive commander decks can easily go into the thousands.
The game also has a very high skill ceiling. I think that’s one of the main reasons why magic has such a broad age range to its player base. There’s plenty of weird lines of play, from strange card / rule interactions to weird deck themes no one else would think of.
Aquariums. It’s shocking how much money you can spend on fish and how easily you can kill them all if you don’t know what you’re doing. Even worse, if you’re really into it, you can’t have just one aquarium.
We had one for years. I cleaned it one day just like I had done a hundred times before. The next day the water turned cloudy and all our fish died. Sold the tank and cabinet a few days later. Having an aquarium is a 2nd job.
As much as I’d love to have a nice live coral aquarium to look at in my living room, fuck everything about taking care of one.
We had all the fish die in our aquarium once when I was a kid. Was random and unexplainable at first. Then I found out someone had run a powerful ozone machine to combat mold in the house and no one thought about the fish tank.
Maybe not as expensive as the others, but crochet/knitting/sewing all start off fairly cheap, and then the next thing you know you’re offering to service old men behind a Joann’s fabric because you need this particular fabric and you need an entire bolt of it, and it’s the one fabric in the entire fucking store that isn’t on their amazing buy one get 73 free sale for the week.
Yep! Especially buying like ethically sourced yarn and stuff. It’s why I buy acrylic yarn because buying yarn from local dyers is difficult as.
Same boat. I’m poor as fuck. I hate that I make so many decisions to buy things I know aren’t the option ethically, and that applies so hard to yarn. Really anything in the textiles industry. I try not to buy animal fiber at all unless it’s thrifted.
I just started crocheting this week 🥲
Its so good. I’d recommend you get cotton yarn. It tends to fray less than acrylic and easier to get your hook in and see stitches. Also, amigurumi for making toys is really cool.
There’s so many options for amigurumi I don’t know where to start! I just need to pick something and go with it haha
It’s a wonderful habit! Don’t listen to me. Haha. Fiber crafts are seriously awesome. I’m a total novice at crochet, an intermediate knitter (Portuguese style), and I sew half way well. It’s so much fun, and so worth it. … Just read your coupons carefully.
After one project I’m already feeling that about the coupons 🙃 But it’s really fun and I enjoy it a lot! I can’t wait to dive deeper into it
The problem is not the price of the yarn, the problem is that none of us have self control and will hoard thousands of dolars in yarn in a closet and not use it because “it’s too pretty I need the perfect project for it”.
…and then we go out and buy more yarn
I do not appreciate you spying on me and posting about it. Rude.
Nothing like spending $100 and 80 hours on a pair of socks for yourself because they don’t sell the ones you want.
Those are gorgeous though. I don’t have the skill to do anything like that yet. I’m mainly stuck on sleep masks and warshrags. Haha. That cabling looks amazing
Do you have a link to this pattern? I like the heel here and I don’t love the one I currently use.
Pattern? No, I never use patterns. The heal is a standard “afterthought heal”. You can find instructions on YouTube and other sites. It is my favorite heal and the easiest to darn when the time comes.
When doing socks I do a test swatch to figure out my stitches per in for rows and columns. Then the rest is all math. Once I finished the first I just started cabling the top of the foot. When I got to the ankle I started cabling all the way around. I kept going until they were as high as I wanted them.
When I learned to knit my instructor was pissed by the end of the fist days lessons because I had knitted several things with no patterns. “How do you know what to do?” “Math.”
Thank you so much for the name of it! I’m a beginner and only knit the same socks over and over again. I have been experimenting with different sock patterns without a guide, but not the heel construction.
Wow, these look amazing! Great job :)
Those are gorgeous!!
I feel like there’s a collision of fetishes here about to start paying for your yarn habit.
Improv theater. Most theaters, even in smaller areas, require 3 or 4 classes before you can audition for a team. The classes usually run around $200-$300 a pop. Once you’re on a team, you’re required to pay for a coach and sometimes a practice venue. Smaller markets are easier to get onto a team than bigger markets, but there’s generally a lower ceiling. Those that are really serious usually move to New York, Chicago, or LA for a chance to do it professionally, which very few people get to do.
Was Bojack Horseman telling the truth about improv??
This sounds like a cult. Just pay a few hundred dollars and you too could be the next Tina fey.
Or a pyramid scheme
Model trains. Sure, you can have a lot of fun with a 100 dollar toy train, but those brass engines are very shiny and very expensive.
Seen a couple basement setups in my time though tbh never saw an especially impressive one. Most tend to just emulate rural routes and small towns. Always thought more fanastic scenery (Surely there has to be at least one person out there who does D&D figure stuff and trains.) would be great, but I suppose that it would detract from the star of the show.
Surpringly not, no model train manufacturer does fantasy stuff. Best you can get is custom stuff.
Probably more well known but with the whole ‘live edge’ fad from a couple years ago now, some people don’t realize you can spend upwards of 20-30k on a single piece of some types of raw lumber.
I feel like woodworking is one of those traditional “this hobby is expensive” things, but I was shocked by just how hard it is to do some things (like hollow out a bowl-shaped divot in a piece of wood) without the proper tools. And the proper tool is sometimes a single hook knife that’s $89 dollars.
You can get 8 foot of pine from any hardware store for $10, but if you want to do anything other than cross cut that pine to different lengths, you’re going to need to drop some cash.
Of course, the skill ceiling for woodworking is enormous.
Woodworking can get crazy expensive, but like most hobbies, you can get into it gradually for relatively low cost. I started with a cordless drill and a circular saw, then gradually bought used tools and restored them. If I were to buy everything new in my shop, it would easily be $15-20k, but I’ve spent maybe $2k over 5 years. The most I’ve spent on any one tool was a $400 miter saw a few months ago on sale, almost everything else has been stuff that’s older than me or inexpensive tools that work just as well as pricier options.
Good hardwood is fucking expensive though. I found a local mill where I can get cherry for $4/bdft or walnut for $5.50/bdft (bdft = board foot, volumetric measurement equivalent to 12"x12"x1"). Somewhere like Woodcraft charges $15-18/bdft for walnut, which is $60+ for a 6" wide, 8ft long, 1" thick board.
ETA: It does annoy me when every woodworking video comment section is bombarded with complaints about how expensive tools are. Yes, Sawstop and Powermatic are obscenely expensive. A DeWalt job site table saw is more than enough for most hobbyists starting out. So is a used saw you can get for $100 or less. It’s very easy to blow through $20k outfitting a shop, but it’s also very easy to outfit a shop with old, quality tools for a fraction of that price. This is what I’ve spent over five years
- 6" Jet jointer from 1973: $240
- 12" Parks planer from 1943-1986 (no idea on exact date): $200. Used a 13" Woodtek lunchbox planer for a few years before this. I got that for free because they don’t make linkage gears for it anymore, and I was able to 3D print replacements.
- DeWalt job site table saw, new in 2018: $325
- Wen drill press, new in 2019: $70
- Wen scroll saw, new in 2019: $60
- harbor freight miter saw, used: $80 (fuck this thing, would never cut square no matter how much I tried to tune it)
- DeWalt compound sliding miter saw, new 2023: $400
- Harbor freight lathe, new 2020: $150-200 (don’t remember exactly)
- shaper from 1978 + $2k in tooling: $40 at auction
- 7-10 various hand planes, all used from eBay or marketplace: $80
- knockoff 14" delta bandsaw from late 80s: $40
- harbor freight dust collector, new 2023 (gift): ~$250-300
- slow speed bench grinder, new 2021: $90
- various hand saws, 2016-2023: probably $100
- various chisels, new 2016-2023: ~$120
All in, $2,100 over 5 years. I sold ~$1,500 worth of random projects in that time, and gained a ton of enjoyment from it.
Even if you do go big and spend a lot of money on tools, as long as you have disposable income and you’re not forgoing your/your family’s basic needs, there’s nothing wrong with spending money on things you enjoy. It’s ok to enjoy things.
I hear you on lumber prices. Woodcraft near me ended up having a sale on some exotics around the holidays and I bought as much of it as I could afford. I justified it by making basically everyone I knew salt boxes as gifts.
Otherwise, it’s hard to get ahold of gorgeous lumber without having a huge bankroll.
It’s hard man. I was living in Alaska when I really got into woodworking, and I had one overpriced option for a really limited selection of hardwood. I managed to get some old maple flooring from a guy that was contracted to replace a basketball court, and got some old redwood from a water tower that was taken down, but otherwise I just used pine for everything for the first few years.
Best advice I can offer is to find a local mill. Facebook groups are good for finding local people that just do it on the side and/or don’t have a website. Ideally, find someone with a kiln, or be prepared to wait for months to years for it to dry. You can also find some good deals at auctions and sometimes on FB marketplace
The only wood I buy at Woodcraft nowadays is for small lathe projects when they have blanks on sale
I’ve never gone to a mill or even a lumberyard (only some speciality stores from time to time), but I think I’m going to take your advice and look around.
I tend to use the ol’ pine and plywood for most of my projects, but I want to get more into making furniture and getting a source now ain’t a bad idea.
They’re generally a great experience. It’s way different than Lowe’s/HD, and generally better selection for cheaper than places like Woodcraft or Rockler. There’s typically a wide range in widths/thicknesses, so have a rough idea of what you need and be ready to mentally adapt your build if they don’t have as many wide boards as you need. Some places will have a minimum purchase requirement, but the few I’ve gone to don’t. Typically, I spend $200-400 for a trip, which covers a few projects for me.
Added bonus of going to a mill instead of a distributor, sometimes they’ll have waste you can take for free/really cheap! Great for small projects or lathe stuff
There’s a YouTube channel I saw a while back where the guy films the process of cutting slabs. When you take into consideration the sheer size of trees that have to be used to make a slab, and then the size of the equipment that has to be used, and the weight, it’s easy to see how the cost of even a clean grained slab can be through the roof, not to mention something that has artistic or desirable figuring in the grain.
I imagine taxidermy is super difficult
The competition is indeed stiff.
huh, I always felt it was kinda dead.
Apparently fur-suits are ~$15,000. You could buy a car for that and still have enough money left over to drive for a year.
I just ordered a second one a couple months from a top-tier maker and it was pretty expensive.
The first one I got back in 2008 was $1450. I don’t think it’s possible to get a descent one for under $3000 these days
That’s about the most expensive fursuit you can buy, it goes much lower than that. Still low car money though
Modular synths, eurorack is where you find the most accessible modules than the other formats. Sometimes you go and spend 600€ in a module without batting an eye.
Also you have to count the case, patch cables, etc.
It gets expensive quickly if you can’t fight the GAS (gear acquisition syndrome)
Also it is a musical instrument so you need to practice many hours to play it affectively.
It is really cool, I do enjoy myself playing with my modular, but would love to have more time to spend with it.
From what I’ve seen, modulars tend to attract people that love to tinker but aren’t necessarily very musical. They spend 30k and years on their setup but when they actually play something it’s just space soup. There are exceptions of course, some respected producers do use them, but that’s just my casual observation.
Absolutely. I love audio design, synthesis and making music, but I have rarely released anything. It took a long time for me to realize and accept that I do this for my own entertainment and not to be a successful musician. Its just a hobby.
And there’s nothing wrong with that! Music has also always remained something I did for fun, I have a different creative field as my day job and I don’t want to do the same with music nu-hu.
Playing music has basically no skill ceiling.
And you can get by without a lot of equipment. Though a used audio interface and an old laptop at least is nice to have.
True. But also equally true if you do buy equipment and indulge in every temptation. There is absolutely egregiously expensive gear in all shapes and forms.
The last synth on my “really really want” list is hovering around $15k right now. I’ll probably never get one :(
Ah yeah the gear goblins are real I swear. They keep telling me I absolutely need a 6-string fretless to get good and I think they might actually be right you know, it just makes so much sense. Why waste time limiting myself to 4-strings. But they also think I’m too dumb and will have to get a 5 string before, I really need to take baby steps after all… Ahh well, it’s not like I needed that 5k anyway.
Oh you don’t need to tell me that 😔
Also no spending ceiling
Gear Acquisition Syndrome is very real.
Amateur astronomy, you can start with a modest Dobsonian then it get can very expensive very fast and you need to understand celestial coordinates, ccds, optics and such.
Camping. Whether it’s at a campsite, where a family might spend tens or hundreds of thousands on an RV and all the gadgets in it, or deep in the woods, where an ultralight backpacker might spend thousands of dollars upgrading perfectly good gear they already had because it could save a few ounces.
To be clear, camping is actually really accessible, and few people go THAT extreme with it. Just… no matter what budget you set for it, there are ways to spend it. :P
Racing drones.
It turns out when you crash your $500 drone into a brick wall at 50mph, shit breaks and you get to spend more money if you want to fly it into another wall
This has both, really. People also have no idea how hard it is to pilot the quick, expensive little bastards. You’re gonna spend a good chunk of time in the simulator before you can do anything with a real one. But hey, at least you can fix them, unlike DJI stuff where at the smallest little thing it’s bricked.
Oh definitely. DJI is good for photography and some types of video, but that’s about it. I’d avoid DJI for just about everything else.
