Spending $ on hobbies

Just curious: Where do you play that it costs you 0$. Do you have your own court?

Completely unused neighborhood courts here are very common. So much so that the two closest to me have decided to unlock the courts and make them public. Honestly I wish I could play tennis and wish I had a good friend who could play as well.

Thats pretty cool!

It’s very cool. The closest one also built out part of the neighborhood as a public park and it has become quite popular. The park is right across from the courts, so more people see then and it has increased their use.

Just curious, where do you play that costs money? I’m in NE Ohio and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tennis court that wasn’t free to use. Maybe there are some on private lands that I don’t know about but every park around me has a court with the gates open. Those are almost never occupied. Maybe it’s more popular where you guys live.

For me, as I age, a lot of spending comes down to whether the cost of whatever I’m buying is worth the loss of my free time.

Ultimately, earning money is generally time spent doing something that I do not want to do. So for vacations, hobbies, etc., what it really boils down to is, do I want to lose 40 hours of my life now or in the future (when you inflation adjust the spending) shuffling forms and paperwork at work (for example) in order to do that thing for a little while?

I currently live in Germany and used to live in South Africa. The tennis courts around me always cost money to use, usually at a club of some sort. Perhaps the US has a bigger tennis lobby that financed those courts…

I spend very little on gaming, not necessarily because of th expense but because of the massive time suck it is.

You all seem like a sensible and frugal bunch, which I am usually also in most matters, but I do spend money on bicycles without major regrets. It’s my one major hobby besides film that I’ve been at for over 20 years and I just ponied up over 5000 bucks for a new bike, which is completely unbelievable to most normal people. I should mention that I normally keep my bikes for a long time and that the current purchase is by far the most expensive one I ever made.

I haven’t spent a dime on phones, computers or audio equipment in the past four years.

We also do this. I think there’s a couple of reasons. One is the mentality of “well, we have to eat anyways, so how much extra does it really cost to eat at a nicer restaurant?” This falls apart under any real scrutiny, because a replacement level meal is possible for < $10 per person even without cooking, but it contributes to the ability to defray the cost in your mind.

The other part would be that (while I despise the term “foodie”) my wife and I do treat restaurants as both food and entertainment. Eating is a thing that we very much enjoy, to the extent that it could probably be assigned “hobby” dollars, in the same way that buying kitchen doohickeys is kind of for cooking, but is also mostly a hobby thing.

Interesting topic! I’m a pretty strict budget person, not just on hobbies but in all areas. I always include gaming and “misc” budget categories because I know I’m gonna want to spend on that stuff, so if I don’t include it I’ll just bust the budget eventually. :)

I’ve found that in the video gaming world, there are two simple rules that keep my expenditures way down: 1) Wait at least two years past release to buy anything. 2) Never buy hardware unless there’s something you’re sure you’ll spend significant time playing on it. I occasionally break rule #1 when friends are playing something, but it’s pretty rare.

In the physical games world, I coordinate buying board games with my game group. We each have 5-10 that we rotate through, and when something new looks interesting we tend to talk about it until one person says “I like that idea enough that I’ll buy it.” Oh, and I got out of collectible card games years ago, except for the occasional sealed event. That’s a money sink of epic proportions that I do not miss.

Cycling is probably my most expensive hobby. I buy high end stuff which I don’t really need; I’m not a professional racer or anything, I just like it. My bike is not crazy expensive, depending on your definition. But counting gear, snacks, travel, probably $2k per year. Justifying it is easier due to the health-benefits argument and my wife and I both accept the others expenses in money and time in that regard.

Gaming I keep to a reasonable amount in my mind. I just bought the Occulus Rift which was a birthday splurge with money I found. But I’m running modern games at 1440p / VR with a 2011-era i3-2120 and a GTX 960. Though, part of the reason I’m in the PC upgrade threads is that I’m due for an upgrade.

I know several people into either mountain or road biking. Trust me, I find that cost quote very believable. I have a friend who dropped over that on his third mountain bike just to have one dedicated to downhill biking. That doesn’t count a hybrid and a road bike as well.

@BellaConfusione give your home insurance company a call to make sure your bikes are properly covered. They added them to my policy for free and the terms (theft, damage, deductible) seemed generous, though maybe that means I was already paying more than I could be :).

He did ask why I needed such high-end gear and he was satisfied with my answer “because I like it”.

@Scott123 Cheap as I am, I didn’t have home insurance until last week, but I made absolutely sure it covers my bikes when i put my pen to paper. Added only about 20€ per year, so it was no brainer really.

@Skipper I’d absolutely also own a downhill bike if I lived close enough to a proper mountain with lift access, but given my location, i’m perfectly happy having a trail bike that is a little too much for my local trails but not out of its depth on proper downhill tracks. Of course it’s a lot of money, but if you actually use the bikes regularly it’s fine in my mind - they also have decent resale value if you take care of them.
The only other one I ride regularly is the gravel bike/commuter, it’s probably time to get rid of the BMX as i haven’t ridden that in years. If i get anything else, it’ll be an e-bike to commute to work.

We live about 45 min to 90 min from several downhill spots during the summer. Said friend also had a six month stint for work in Boulder, CO and he took that bike specifically. I’m sure he uses the hell out of it, as well as the full helmet he uses when on it. You’re right, the costs for all that does add up, but man what a hobby.

I use You Need a Budget and specifically budget dollars toward all my expenses, hobbies, holidays, and rainy day expenses that may or may not come up in the future. I think their method is pretty great although they now charge a yearly fee if you don’t have the old Steam version.

As it relates to my hobbies, I budget for race tickets, games, magazines, etc. All the things I know I enjoy doing. I occasionally go over on something one week and make up for it somewhere else on the next. I definitely know where my money is going and I’m comfortable with it for the most part. I have three kids too… and they definitely require a budget from me, but that’s why I use YNAB. I can keep it all where I can see it.

Now if I need a new PC like Brian, I’ll typically turn that into a payment instead of a one-off expense since Dell (and others) offer 0% interest on PCs $799 and up provided you have a Preferred account with them. I pay it within a year and all is well.

Oh… and like many of us, I already have too many games than I could ever play in my lifetime, so I try to limit it to things I really want to play that minute or that I really want in my collection of retro games.

I have a loose budget, centered around some debt, necessities, rainy day savings and growing my accounts in general. When I made less I had a very tight budget, now I kind of wing it, and I wing it very well due to the habits drawn from leaner years.

I am building a new PC this year. I’ve been buying parts since June. There is some risk piecing it out that way, but I am not paying retail… for anything.

Yep, not married, no kids, I buy whatever I want.

I am very cheap, though.

As we all eventually get older, free time seems more of a bottleneck than money spent on games, so I try not to spend too much time over-analyzing this. My position is fairly simple: Although I am fortunate to have a good job, affording me the opportunity to buy what I think I may like, I have to balance this urge by keeping in mind that my disposable time to enjoy the games is limited, as is the amount of space on my bookshelves to store them.

Given that I am not a collector of games, I really want to be able to play all (or most) of the games on which I spend money. A few years ago, I invested 15 minutes of my time to make a very simple Excel spreadesheet to give me a better idea of how much money I was spending on board games. I don’t call it a budget in a strict sense, but it gives me a number. The last few years I have kept my game spending under $300 bucks a year, which equates to maybe 4 new games a year, shipping inclusive, direct from my favorite publisher.

It’s not a rigid method, but it keeps my annual spending reasonable. It works for me.

I do like the 0% interest for X months deals. I almost always try and use those for anything over a few hundred bucks. Then I set up an automatic payment from my bank to guarantee that I never miss a payment.