Well if I stop buying fishing gear, at some point it’ll be financially worth it. I mean I’ve already “paid off” the license for this year. Yup… Ignore the brand new rod and reel I got for black Friday, it was on discount. Or the fact that I got a gold membership discount at the local tackle store because I spent enough money in a year.
But think of all the money you saved eating the fish you caught, and other lies we tell ourselves, available 2026
I mean, we did legitimately save a lot of money this summer. Catch of the day in an overpriced seaside vacation area is not cheap at all.
The rest of the year though…
Nothing empties a wallet faster than ‘I’m just trying it out.
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My hobby are maths and programming, both fairly cheap. Other than the cost of getting a computer of course (and maybe some maths textbooks if you feel the need)
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You can do maths and programming on a very cheap pc, don’t necessarily need an expensive PowerPC with i dunno which graphics card is currently the hype
My brother gifted me his old motorcycle. I know it is gona try and kill me. Spent more money on safety gear that what it would have cost to buy the bike. Then there is tires, $300 to 500 Chain and sprockets $250ish Then I need a adapter to fix the speedometer $200ish And then and then then… Not complaining but man this is either a hobby or a car that needs way more maintenance
For me it’s been mechanical keyboards as of late.
Maybe I should start stocking up on GMK sets - those seem to resell nicely.
My hobby is buying materials for projects and then not doing the projects.
Is this the more adult version of buying games on Steam and never playing them?
yes, but I do that too.
Ah, a fine hobby indeed! I have so many arduinos, pis, and various modules strewn about with little to show for it.
Piracy saves money if you’re already paying for subscriptions. Self hosting adds another way to save money.
Piracy saves money
Precisely. I don’t see torrenting wrong if you really can’t afford digital streaming or games. Netflix has made piracy less popular when it first came out, but with the proliferation of copy cat rival services, piracy became vogue again.
I prefer not to torrent games unless the game is owned by huge asshole companies like EA or Ubisoft. These big companies could absorb financial losses from torrenting because there are always idiots who will pay for their bog standard games. Small devs should be supported instead (also, small time filmmakers should be supported by paying to see their movies as well).
My friends think I am rich despite circumstances. But no, I just save money by torrenting. I use the money that I don’t buy essentials with, on learning new skills, socialising and developing hobbies. My rule of not buying new games until I clear a portion of my backlog is working on not going on impulse buying that my friends tend to do. A couple of my friends are pretty frivolous and complain when they don’t have savings. A lot of younger folks still think that the environment that allowed boomers to spend money and enjoy their youths, buy a house, get married and then raise a family with couple of kids still applies. Now, we have to sacrifice one over the other and this is what I have been telling people in my generation.
I pay for games on steam because if it’s bad, I can get a refund.
How does one pirate porcelain, a wheel, and oxblood glaze?
5 finger discount
Not very easy to slip either one of these into your pocket:
This is less of a ADHD episode and more of a business venture that requires a small business loan. I say buy it and expense it on your taxes as equipment.
But I can’t pirate salt water aquarium fish and corals.
yet
No fishing pole?
i thought you wrote “self hosting ads” which would be an interesting choice
Yeah, imagine the situation of “I don’t want anyone else’s ads, I’ll host my own and look at them by myself”.
Probably helped of the common misspelling of “ads” as “adds”.
“Turn your hobby into a business!”, they said. “It’ll be fun!”, they said.
For over a year I’ve tried to sell jewelry I made mostly because the proper materials cost so much, but there isn’t any-fucking-where where you can sell crafts without being a professional for a fair price that covers all materials and gives tiny compensation for the time and work.
You may have already looked into it and I’m not sure what the farmer’s market scene is where you are but I often see small scale makers selling wares at mine!
Hmm… Well I could look into markets, but I’m not sure how hard it’s going to be to get a table.
Another idea could be to see if local small businesses would be willing to sell your wares! I’ve seen stuff like handmade earrings and trinkets for sale at the register at small coffee shops in my town, plenty of other businesses also have paintings and photographs by local artists on the walls for sale. I have no insight on those agreements are made but I’d imagine they would ask for a commission.
I got into self hosting a while back
EOL enterprise equipment can be very thrifty. But if you ever need something specialty that isn’t available in the second hand market, good luck.
hold on I need to self host amethyst beads and brass wire
And watch that electricity bill, adding a bunch of hardware to play around with and your utility company suddenly thinks there must be an additional person living there…
I used to run a grow room in my basement, with about 4kw of equipment, so running my systems all hooked up through a 2kw PSU is actually a step back in cost. lol
Warhammer 40k has entered the chat.
Cries in synthesizers.
At least there are a bunch of great budget options these days. Still not cheap though.
I love synthesizers. Found my salvation in Bitwig Studio and now I don’t even eye up VSTs. (I’ll await my downvotes!)
I have not tried Bitwig yet. Reaper is my jam.
IMHO Bitwig is a modular synthesis and sound design environment that also contains a full DAW. There’s possibly nothing else quite like it around - I’m not certain, but I’ve looked and not found anything. Notes are events and can be processed or generated in all manner of crazy ways… or just played. Audio can be piped all over the place and processed almost however you want. I think of the stock devices like basic building blocks, like Lego or Minecraft. Once you understand the pattern you can build anything. There are so many ways to work in Bitwig! It’s almost like Ableton but equally it’s almost an unlimited modular synthesizer. It’s very playable too, a real digital instrument. I could probably spend the rest of my life with it and not run out of things to try. It steers away from trying to be a virtual instrument rack like Reason with pretend jack leads, and seems to me to be both incredibly powerful and still very intuitive. It’s the best music making software I’ve come across in 35 years of using music software!
Hmm. I’ll have to check it out. Not sure I’m willing to give up my current workflow.
Oof, expensive hobby. Though if you get a Buchla, you can pretend you’re in the cockpit of a starship
Pew pew!
My modular synth is sitting next to me just begging me to pour more money into its gaping holes
Haha! I refuse to even look at modular. Well. I did once or twice, and got frightened off pretty quickly. So much coolness. So much money.
I live in Canada, do you know how much the standard video game costs here now? Like $90.
Guy never heard of foreign currencies.
Guy doesn’t understand that foreign currencies aren’t foreign to those living in those other countries.
Why can’t Canadianites just use rubles like we’ve adopted the US of R.
What’s the exchange of Rubles to Trump Bux?
Not as good as rubles to robux, but only because robux are a more stable currency with demonstrable value.
Add two more shovels and you have home ownership
I’d love to just fall into enough money to:
- Retire
- Pay off my house
- Hire a maid
Then hobbies begin. Options:
- Tabletop games, buy book, gear and host games
- woodworking, furniture
- Backyard forging
- leather working
- make a video game
Pssh, only if you aren’t turning all your hobbies into side-hustles.
What are you afraid of, besides completely burning out and probably still losing money anyway?
