hobbyfamilyTurns out PC’s are a cheap hobby.
Many hobbies are cheap if you choose wisely out of your possible interests; and then go with cheap, good enough options rather than getting swept up in online echo chambers (where nothing less than top tier is acceptable).
Yeah but they don’t pull the dopamine like the expensive ones do
Motorcycles: Excuse me
Sports cars: Hold my beer
Planes:
lmao, what? Ground floor for building a usable gaming PC is $1,000. A lot more if you want to play new games with decent graphics.
And those games cost money too.
Realistically you’re spending $5,000 on a nice PC, monitors, speakers, accessories, and a collection of games. You’re going to need upgrades and additional games over time so even more money.
Compared to other “adult hobbies” such as cars even the highest end PC costs peanuts.
That’s only if you are in the subset of PC enjoyers who like state of the art equipment, expensive accessories and expensive recent games.
I consider myself a PC nerd but 5K is more than I spent in the last 10 years on the hobby. I’ve built my main rig for <1K, own a few raspberries and my home server is an old work laptop. It absolutely doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby.
A relatively cheap PC with Factorio and you are set. You won’t spend much on food either, so win-win.
5k? I don’t believe it. When in get home I’ll total up my setup and compare notes
EDIT- So I bought some stuff at different prices than you’d get today (cough GPU) so I will list a few prices for.
PC Hardware
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Intel i5 10400 - $180
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RAM 16GB DDR4 - $40
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Mobo - $180
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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (Used on ebay) - $215, New is about $450
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AverMedia HD2 Capture Card - $150 (now $99)
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PCIE Wifi Adapter (Amazon) - $20
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250Gb SSD (system and files, gift) - $80
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2Tb HDD (Games, tried to save on budget) - $80
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PSU - $120
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Total Spent - $985
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Total Value - $1300
Peripherals
- 40" TV - $200 new at time, got on clearance for $100. Now ~$130-150
- 24" gaming monitor (used) - $200 retail discontinued, paid $120 used, $100 on ebay now
- 4 Hard Drive dock (gift) - $100
- RGB keyboard pad (gift) - $40
- keyboard base - $120
- White switches - $40
- Custom etsy keys - $40
- Logitech mouse - $80
- USB Hub (Ebay) - $37
- Stream Deck (Ebay) - $80
- Microphone (Used Ebay) - $70, new is $140
- Headphones -$100
Total Spent - $787 (927 if free was included)
All in - I’m at about $2k and can run Space Marine 2 and Warzone.
I don’t buy it either. My PC + an upgrade 3 years later (with a Ryzen 5800X and a used RTX 3090!) cost me about €2,000. If you want to push it, you add the TV (€1,000) because it serves as a monitor and the whole home cinema setup because the computer is hooked to it (probably about €1,000 as well).
That’s 4k and I’m stretching it. Buy a good monitor for €300, monitoring speakers or headphones for €250 and you’re already set for a high end experience.
As for games… C’mon, y’all know we sail the high seas.
I can see how it would get to 5K including games over a long enough period of time but realistically most hobbies accrue cost over time.
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my current hobby has so far cost me about $5k over 10 years
Honestly, 500 bucks a year is not that much to spend on a hobby as long as you’re enjoying yourself.
trudat
Do we just guess what that hobby is?
I don’t mean this to come across as rude, but why would you make this comment and not mention the hobby; without it the comment is pretty useless.
i dink around with welding. clear?
Crystal.
I could have guessed until the end of time and welding probably wouldn’t have been a guess.
That’s a cool hobby. I know if I had a welder I wouldn’t be able to just not weld random things.
its a serious addiction. very hard to leave it alone sometimes.
As long as it’s not detrimental to other areas of your life, I don’t see that as a bad thing.
a few blisters is a small price to pay for the satisfaction
It’s detrimental to isolated pieces of metal.
You will be assimilated.
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.
Gunpla gives me great joy, until I look at my bank account.
We are not a waste of money!
Me with 30+ Libreboot desktops/laptops.
I do some cross stitching and it hasn’t been bad. Even using kits instead of doing custom ones. I’ve got like $120 CAD worth of large kits and, at the rate I’m going, they’ll probably last me a decade or maybe my daughter will inherit some of them.
I’m well into year 2 of working on the current one.
My bike is my pride and joy but good god she is also a money sink.
Do you mean bicycle or motorcycle? What do you find yourself spending most of your bike money on? Most of my bicycle maintenance is for brake pads and the occasional replacement chain; not as many replacing tire tubes after getting nicer tires. Although I haven’t been able to enjoy mine lately after putting on weight and 4 seats I’ve tried still make my butt numb after 20 minutes.
I ride downhill mtb. Most of my money is spent on replacing broken parts from crashes and maintenance. Can’t have things failing when you’re flying down a mountain.
Horses, recreational vehicles, motorhomes, boats, sports cars… I’ll just settle with my watercolors. I will however splurge on Daniel Smith paints.
Paint for whatever reason needs this sliding scale of ‘archival’ which I don’t understand why student grade has to exist. it should all be archival and to be affordable. I suppose it comes down to pigment and binder but you could probably mix your own to maybe make it affordable.gum Arabic can be as cheap as less than 20$ a bottle
#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?
The boobs on that dude on the left.
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!
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.
Never get into Modular Synthesizers.
