Fellow men, how much do you allow yourself to spend on your hobbies? Despite working hard for my money and being very financially responsible, I feel a lot of guilt spending on myself. It’s like I have buyers remorse before I even buy the things I want. Maybe hearing other peoples perspective will allow me to change my own.
How much do you spend on your hobbies?
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Since you shitlords like to delete your posts, here’s an original copy of /u/Schlotmub’s post (if available):
Fellow men, how much do you allow yourself to spend on your hobbies? Despite working hard for my money and being very financially responsible, I feel a lot of guilt spending on myself. It’s like I have buyers remorse before I even buy the things I want. Maybe hearing other peoples perspective will allow me to change my own.
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One to three thousands a year.
But some of the stuff required for my hobbies might have a use elsewhere. As in, my gaming rig can also be used for CAD, a 3D printer is a useful tool,…
Gamer so decent PC once every ten years (around $2k) Console once every ten years or so ($500)
As for games 90 percent of the ones I buy i wait for a good sale if they retail for over $20. I might spend around $400 on games a year.
Accessories i buy as needed. Nothing crazy, quality controller, or headphones. Maybe $200 or so every few years.
You’re not spending money on a hobby. You’re investing in yourself. We need hobbies to help unwind. Take our minds off the grind we are on.
More than I should lol. I mountain bike and ice fish as my main hobbies. I have about $8k worth of bikes hanging in my garage and maybe $3k worth of ice fishing gear hanging around. Aside from the initial big purchases of the gear and bikes, I probably spend $3k+ a year on travel, lodging, parts, and upgrades on my gear.
pretty much all my disposable income other than beer money and investments goes towards hobbies in one way or another
call it investments rather than spending, and you will feel better..! because that’s what it is, investments!
Nice try wife
Some of my hobbies are relatively inexpensive. Mostly I like to do long distance running and weight lifting. You can only spend so much on those.
Hiking requires a bit more initial investment. My ultralight pack costs around 3 to 4 thousand dollars. I have a lot of local hikes so I don’t spend that much money on travel. I do take 1 to 2 trips a year out of state.
I am glad that I don’t like boating or flying my own airplane. Those are real money sinks. Classic cars look expensive also.
My hobby time is in deficit. No time.
She says, first fix this and that. So I’ve assumed fixing things is now my hobby. Wife’s are programmers.
I’m from The Netherlands. Everything under € 500 a month can be considered a hobby for me.
Budgeted, $300 a month, usually don’t even spend that though
Once I got set up, not much. Most of my hobbies are pretty much self sustaining.
Ice fishing and soft-water fishing is usually just bait. Most of my gear is useable in both seasons.
I have a gym membership, so that’s like $30 a month. That’s a big one, but it’s also for my health.
My dogs are also a big one, they eat a lot. But I feed them kibble and wild game to cut costs.
The most expensive one is the wife. I don’t recommend getting one of those as they will suck everything out of you, and not always in a good way. Hahahaha
Depends. Are you my wife? Cause if that’s the case “it was all free dear”
Far too much. Just my home gym alone accounts for thousands of dollars and I have quite a few other expensive hobbies besides that.
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That depends on how much time I’ve dedicated to the hobby. Guitar (10 years)? I’ll happily drop some money a good acoustic that I’ve wanted for a long time.
Climbing? I love it, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not even a year in. I managed to get a really good deal on some amazing shoes, but I wouldn’t have bought them at any other price.
This isn’t just for saving money either. I find that it’s really easy to overwhelm ourselves out of a hobby with upgrades and options. So maybe do it if you feel like it’ll really help the quality of that hobby.
I have a side gig that earns $100-$200 per week. It all goes into a seperate account that is designated for my hobby spending. If I dont have enough money in that account, I dont spend.
I also feel guilty spending my family’s money on my hobby.
Click my profile if you want to see what its spent on.
5% of my take-home income gets put into a account that is strictly used for hobby stuff, for me this is usually Music Gear, but also PC games and PC parts. If I get a bonus or come intro extra money I unusually add at least some of it to that account as well although I also have a travel account which I put money into as I like to travel a lot, this could be considered a hobby as well I guess.
The great thing about setting aside money to be spent on specific things like this is that you never have to feel guilty for spending the money because that is what you set it aside and budgeted for and you still get this child like sense of saving up for something rather than just blowing a pay cheque on stuff you don’t really need.
I invest 50% of my income every month and I am in a lucky situation where my total expenses including stuff like Gym memberships and what not is only 30% of my income so I have 20% to set aside to hobbies, travel, clothing and what I call Miscellaneous accounts.
Just books and a gym membership, the occasional video game, so honestly less than a $100 a month and it’s all out of my budget. She hikes with me so it’s a family investment and I built my own computer once, and she let that slide.
Bowlings 26 a week. Dance is free but I get dinner usually. That’s not including comp weekends though, travel, registration, food over the weekend. Probably looking at 500-700 all up per comp maybe there’s about 6 year I attend. I don’t need to figure the math out. That’ll just make me sad.
Brazilian jiu jitsu, $100 a month
idk….maybe 4-5k per year?
Doing the math in my head… a pc upgrade worth of around 2000€ every 3 – 4 years. I dont count the games, usually i buy them at least 50% of on sales. I have other hobbies but compared to gaming i dont spend much on them, unless im buying a new bike or gym equipment, which i dont unless the something is falling apart already 😅
1-2ks per year average, not dollar
$60-80 on gun parts/ammo a month. More like an investment though. Have a PC I need to upgrade but we’ll see when I have the money for a new GPU. Would like to build a new one
I’ve spent a few grand the passed year rebuilding a Ranger, that’s been painful and fun at the same time. It drives great now and got a new lease on life.
What’s a hobby? I wish I had one. I’ve been trying to find a hobby all my life. The best I have come up with is video games and that’s not all that satisfying, more of a time filler. I’m in rural Indiana and there’s not a lot going on here. I’m ok but hobbies are just another thing that I would be doing alone and I can do nothing alone now.
I don’t have a set amount but I spend within my means. I play disc golf and it’s cheap enough that I acquire way more discs than I need. But then I sell them on the secondary market so it’s not a total loss.
Currently nothing. I work as a substitute teacher and live with my parents while going to college. This lets me save up money but occasional expenses fuck me over
A key one being my car. This thing has taken about $5000 worth of repairs in the three years I’ve owned it, and I paid all of it out of pocket. In general it seems like every time I manage to save up some money I find a $1000 receipt sitting on my desk
Because of this I’ve had to put my PC build on hold
I collect comics and typically spend like 80ish a month on books I read.
Maybe $100-$200 a month. Some months more than others. Mine are fishing, golf, flying drones, trying new beers.
Comics: $50 per month
I love cycling and bass guitars. Drinking would be much cheaper 🤷♂️
No more money on my computer these days, she only works in cold weather and I don’t have the cash to fix the problems.
I have been slowly spending on electronics, learning as I go and developing a device to solve real world problems. It’s kind of like a hobby because it’s fun and challenging but I’m hoping it also leads to income.
So money wise, has been maybe $1200 so far. Maybe / probably more.
A stupid amount. I have a BBQ sickness. More grills and smokers than you could cook on in a lifetime. I get crap for it all the time but manage to make room and hide a few. I have one custom smoker worth more than a car. Crazy hobby as some of you know. I also give a few away as gifts to make room.
About $200/mo. Steaks/grilling, a game subscription, and a bottle of something for cocktail mixing.
Between all of my expensive hobbies, too much.
As long as my bills are paid, emergency fund is intact, and wife is happy; as much time and money as I can. All the success in the world isn’t worth your happiness and time on this planet.
$10,000 on camera gear goes quick. But not often. Lol
As much as i can afford
Too much. Current hobby is 3D printing but I’ve also sold what I’ve printed. So it kinda balances itself out.
I don’t count exactly once saving and investment goals are met, but probably quite a lot. Cars, diving, photography and travel will do that.
I recently bought a $3,000 gaming PC, but it’s rare that I splurge that hard on myself. I don’t have a limit on how much I spend on my hobbies. As long as I’m not dipping into my emergency fund or struggling financially to buy it, then I’ll buy it.
So far this year, a little over $800.
I upgrade my camera about every 5 years or so. I always sell off the old one to supplement the cost. Between that and lenses, I probably spend an average of about $800 a year tops.
(I only use free photo software [Gimp, Darktable, etc] as they are more than enough for me. )
I’m fortunate to have two that don’t cost much for the most part; writing and scale model building. The latter I can build from scrap materials, mostly inexpensive supplies, and the occasional item that costs about $25. Lucky to have a powerful imagination, I keep a “junk box” that I can dig into for spare parts. My models are 1/87 in scale, and one example is making buildings from dead electronics. The casing of an old modem, I turned it into an 80s video store. I made a town hall with plastic brick sheet, some junked solar fairy lights, a modem shell, balsa wood and the underside of a flatbed scanner as a ceiling. The only parts I “bought” for it were the roof sheeting and some white LEDs, everything else was built from junk salvage
Motorbike, safety gear, coms $26k and $2k service/rego/insurance.
I’m a hobby distiller so my main output is for reading materials and grains
Still 300
Grains around 150 for 55# sacks
Jars 16 per case of 12
Final distillate priceless since I built it not bought
Around 8-10k a year, fishing (no boat), rc cars, Pokémon cards and video games.
My hobbies are:
As you can imagine there is an initial upfront cost for all of these to purchase a radio, firearm, truck, or canoe. So I will readily acknowledge the barrier to entry. But… After that they are reasonable.
Radio is largely free but you will occasionally want to upgrade some equipment or join a club so I would say after the initial $250 Radio purchase you are looking at $100 to $200 a year.
Shooting is about $1 per bullet you shoot – on average. So $0.33 for 9mm, $0.77 to $1 for 5.56, and around $2.50 for 6.5 Creedmoor. plus some nominal cleaning supplies. I would say I spend about $300 a year here too.
Off Road driving just costs you the tank of gas you burn. So like $60 each time you go out. Maybe some land permits. I spend about $200 a year here too.
Canoing, also just the gas to get there and then maybe a permit for the river or parking. Lets call that $200 a year.
All in I have all four hobbies and I’m at less than $1,000 a year.
My wife and I do alot of mountain biking and skiing, and we’ve both been in photography for multiple decades. So those are gear-heavy activities, with a fairly substantial entry level cost. But once the cost is paid, the mantenance is pretty straightforward, and the expenses become more about travel/access.
For example, skiing. Downhill skis, poles, boots and bindings can run about 1400 for a new set. You probably already have a heavy winter jacket, that can be easily used on the slopes, so you just need helmet, visor, good gloves and ski pants. That can run another 350 bucks.
But once that’s said and done, the only maintenance required is waxing and edge sharpening, which is about 100. The big expense is lift tickets, which can run anywhere from 450 for a night pass to 1500 for unlimited, but you can get discounts and so pretty easily.
XC ski gear is even cheaper, and no tickets required unless you go somewhere where you need to pay for access.
MTB is my main sport, and that’s a bit of a money hog. But I do about 1500 miles riding trails per season, which is usually 30-34 weeks depending on weather. But you can do some of the maintenance yourself, and there’s alot of social groups around that could be worth checking out. The way I look at it is, its two wheel therapy, because when I’m on the trails I need to focus on the now and next so if my mind wanders, it can get really easy to go over the bars.
Huge history buff and honestly, practically nothing. I’ve downloaded hundreds of books off of libgen, borrowed hundreds more from libraries and have watched hundreds of hours of documentaries on youtube. It’s hard to explain just how good I feel when some odd little book on Cathars in southern France catches my eye or when I recognize the names of authors/historians when reading the back of a book with people praising it. I only occasionally go to museums and even then tickets usually aren’t too much.
Boxing, Shooting, Archery, Dancing, Music
A lot of these hobbies are expensive
I really enjoy junkyards, car parts, and taking cars apart, so I’ve turned that into a hobby. I go to junkyards and pull parts that I then sell on eBay, so I actually make money from it.
Not a ton because I don’t get to go very often, but easily a few thousand a year.
I have ADHD so I spend a little bit on a ton of different things. My most expensive hobby is cars but I am taking a break due to a health issue.
Fly fishing is my hobby. I spend quite a bit on it. It got shockingly my expensive once I started tying my own flies.
Not enough.
I am 47, I don’t know that I spend a ton of stuff or a ton of money for that matter on my hobbies. My husband and I enjoy going camping, and when we want to go camping I feel no guilt or shame with buying or renting cabin spots at a campground we like to go to. If we need to buy camping supplies, I feel no guilt or shame. There are very few things in life that I can say I love to do outside of just living my normal life but when it comes to spending something on something I absolutely love to do which is camping and hiking, I feel no shame, regret, or Buyers remorse. If you like something, it’s part of your life, and if it’s something you truly enjoy doing and you derive pleasure from it then unless it’s illegal, go for it. Every once in a while you need to do something for yourself.
As a cat enjoyer, I am putting my vet’s kids through college.
I’m almost 48, and my hobby is golf. I play probably 20-30 times during the year. About $75 per round probably about $2K on the year. I haven’t bought new clubs or anything in a while and I don’t spend much on equipment or clothes anymore.
But I do have two teenagers, and I spend a ton of money on their hobbies!
Too much.
Don’t get a rally car 🙁
Don’t have that much disposable income to spend any of it on a hobby
Lifting : My gym membership is really around 100 dollars a month but I feel this is an investment to my body . So maybe like 1.2
Golfing : Depends if I need to buy equipment. This year I decided to buy new clubs but that will last me atleast for 4-5 years. I expect to spend 2k?
Running : I dont plan on any races this year so I just bought new running sneakers which was roughly 150 and I will buy clothes whenever I see them on sale. Also signed up for a marathon for next year. So probably around 500
Yoga : I do yoga for free on sunday at the park hosted by the community. But also do yoga at home. I pay 6 dollars a month for apple fitness and its worth it because I do 2 hours worth of yoga on apple fitness a week. $72 dollars a year
Concerts + Music Festival + Listening to music : Im allowed to go to one (maybe 2) music festival a year which is roughly 1k-1.5k. Then maybe 12-15 concerts a year which is roughly another 1k. Then I like buying audio eqipment so I budget 500 dollars for that. So in total maybe 3k
Gardening : Buying dirt, seeds, starter plants and water. I think its probably 500-750 a year.
I have too many hobbies.
Most of what’s left after living expenses. I’m gonna live now when I’m still young, just shoot me when I’m too old to work.
Extremely difficult to calculate tbh. PC Gaming requires a big(-ish) up-front investment every couple of years (although I change my PC certainly not nearly as often as your average PC gamer), but is dirt cheap in between (50€ / year tops). Books are also not that expensive. I used to dump a lot of money in Magic the Gathering back in the day when I was playing actively…but then again, you also get a lot of value by collecting cards, so, tough to say. Overall, nowadays, it’s probably around 1000€ / year on average. Maybe even less.
I get the problem though. I often ponder whether or not I should by a game on a sale for 15€ or wait for an even bigger sale xD Same for books. It’s mostly about time now though. Any amount of money is “wasted” in a sense if you don’t get to enjoy what you bought, and my games and books backlog is so big that I’d probably be set for life if I don’t buy any, ever xD
I spend as much as i can while paying bills, the issue. I uave buyers remorse as well
100 month on gym. 100 month on weed. Have my trek and my Mt bike paid for. Everything else is family and bills
Gym: The gym membership costs about €600 per year, but $400 of that is paid by my employer of course. Very few other fees, I maybe buy gym clothes for €20 per year on average at most.
Videogames and computers: probably averages to $50 per month or so if we add up money spent on games and the cost of buying a new computer every 8 years or so.
Boardgames: I probably buy 3-5 board games per year. So maybe €35 per month on average there. And I usually go to at least one con where I have to pay for entry, so €60 per year there as well.
TTRPGs: I buy a new rule book every 2-5 years at most. Usually second hand. So low single digit costs per month.
BDSM: I visit events with entrt fees 2-3 times per year. And buy some material for crafting gear. Maybe €120 for events and €60 for materials per year or so.
So my total amount of money spent on hobbies per month is about:
So my total hobby costs is about €140 per month. Sounds about right.
15 for the gym, 10 for games, 1 for RPGs,…
i’m a car guy. other than vacations, it’s about all i spend money on. if i don’t have it i don’t spend it, however i have FAR more car projects than i will ever finish in my lifetime. and i just bought another non-running car this week.
i would guess i probably spend an average of $2000 a month on cars & parts.
I spend a lot but I just make sure my savings goals are being hit.
My car payment is around $1700 / month, but I enjoy cars and driving
I buy a new PC and such every few generations, probably spent around 10 – 11k on this so far this year.
I snowboard, gear needs to get upgraded and then passes probably around 2 – 3k / year
Travel, me and gf try to take a few trips a year. Probably 15k all in
Other than that, I mostly just play games and hang out at home.
edit: oh completely forgot about golf, probably 8k ish a year I’d guess
Not sure I have any. Are videos games hobbies? 🤨
I buy tons of games and barely play all of them.
I think I need an actual hobby honestly
I suppose about $1,500/year. Long-distance trail running is my hobby, so maybe 7-8 pairs of shoes, entry fees for a few races, and food.
(Scandinavian prices, things are pretty expensive here, using dollars)
Golf : membership 600, Greenfees 300, new clubs (per year) 100, petrol 300 diverse 100 = somethin like 1500
Gym, workout 500
Philosophy and the similar, books – 500
So maybe 2500 dollars per year
£30 a month for gym then also protein powders and pre workout so maybe £100. £5 for anime (share acc with sister) reddit and cat TikTok’s are free 😀
Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to give their personal inputs and insights on this topic! I’ve been at work while all the responses have come in and don’t have the time to get back to majority of the people who have commented, but there have been a lot of nice things said regarding how to look at investing into myself rather than just seeing for dollar signs spent.
As a single man with no kids, I allow about 10% of my salary maximum. But on average it tends to be closer to 5%
Start Warhammer 40k and allow your budget to run wild. This is the key to both misery and happiness.
about 2-3% of my income
Single guy with no kids. The answer is: as much as I have to or want to. My hobby is disc golf and I tore up my right knee 4 weeks ago and haven’t played. In that time I’ve bought 7 frisbees I don’t need. I just started playing last April and I’d say I’m in for about $1100. I also play video games but I really only spend about $100 or so per year
Depends on your income. I was on a forum where one of the guys collected those wrist watches that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
I average $30K a year on my (our) hobby. Own 3 horses.
I don’t really have a specific budget but I spend what I need when I need it. I do ensure I need and will use whatever the upgrade or thing is that I’m buying. Then I don’t feel guilty about it.
With that said I’m not buying a new bike every year or doing any kind of spending that in any way becomes a choice of some kind like “My kid needs braces but I wanted this new bike so too bad.” Family needs first, savings, making sure all is accounted for/covered, then I can spend on the hobby.