Expensive Hobbies - How You Decide?

[Patrick Irish]

I was at Rockler today, buying their on sale shelf pin jig and centering bit and then drooled over the massive Jet bandsaws, EZ Track Saw, and Incra Master R Lift. It got me thinking how expensive my hobbies are at the ripe age of 33. I just send funds for a ($2,000 ) for a CZ Tactical Sport 40cal competition package. It's used but a deal. I thought to myself, "I better use that gun cuz that's a bandsaw and festool tracksaw right there." I'll decide once I get it if I'll use it enough. Love to have a sawstop or tracksaw system. My bosch 4100 is too small.

What are your pricey hobbies?

[Erik Loza]

Working on cars. I have my wife convinced that money spent on tools does not count the way money spent on parts does. "Well, I needed a bigger impact gun in order to pull the axle nuts. That way, we don't have to pay the shop to do it. See, I saved us all this money..."

If you want to spend A LOT of money in a hurry in the area of woodworking machinery, just buy a shaper. Then, you realize you need a power feeder, an aftermarket fence, and THEN comes the tooling.

Erik

[Justin Ludwig]

Disc golf. I've spent about $1000 over the past 20 years.

[julian abram]

I was at Rockler today, buying their on sale shelf pin jig and centering bit and then drooled over the massive Jet bandsaws, EZ Track Saw, and Incra Master R Lift. It got me thinking how expensive my hobbies are at the ripe age of 33. I just send funds for a ($2,000 ) for a CZ Tactical Sport 40cal competition package. It's used but a hell of a deal. I thought to myself, "damn, I better use that gun cuz that's a bandsaw and festool tracksaw right there." I'll decide once I get it if I'll use it enough. Love to have a sawstop or tracksaw system. My bosch 4100 is too small.

What are your pricey hobbies?

I do understand your dilemma, it's a life long balancing act trying to decide how to allocate your resources among hobbies. I'm nearly twice your age and have accumulated a fair size collection of guns. I get to thinking, "ok these guns are just mostly sleeping in the safe, I should sell some and buy better quality wood working tools that I will use and enjoy". Then a week latter I'll see a gun deal I can't resist, suddenly there is a new one sleeping in the safe. Decisions, decisions.
By the way, I thought CZ stopped making the Tactical Sport, you must have got a deal on a pre owned. Nice guns, I have a CZ 85B in 9 with a 22 slide. It's a fun shooter!

[Shawn Pixley]

What are your pricey hobbies?

Guitars, travel and books. They all can be pricey. I don't spend much on guitars anymore. I need to sell one to buy one.

[David Falkner]

It got me thinking how expensive my hobbies are at the ripe age of 33. What are your pricey hobbies?

I'm several years less than twice your age and we've spent about $6k to $7k on tools and shop upgrades over the last two years but we have a goal - I am in the process of making fixtures and tooling up for building acoustic guitars, something I've wanted to do for over 30 years. Fortunately, God has been great to us as a couple and financially, so we have the money to finance this (especially as frugal, er, cheap/tight as I am).

Now, I said all that to tell you this: I'm in Technology Sales and called on a new mud park not far from here, Muddy Bottoms near Springhill, LA. As I stood in the entrance talking to the manager I saw more $50k and up trucks with $10k toy haulers and ATV's in the tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes two ATV's on a toy hauler. The manager was laughing telling me, 'There's $150k, there's $125k, that rig is over $150k and none of those have sponsors!' I couldn't believe the amount of money being spent to go play in the mud. So I took a picture and sent it to my wife with the note - 'I'm glad we're just building guitars - woodworking is an inexpensive hobby!'

[Wade Lippman]

Ever put a kid though college? Who needs expensive hobbies.

[Rich Riddle]

Woodworking proves profitable for me since the money spent on tools never holds a candle to the cost of hiring someone to accomplish the same tasks. It does seem expensive when purchasing tools to say the least. Many other hobbies cost more with little benefit including things like cars, photography, travel, boats, recreational vehicles, etc.

[Phil Mueller]

When we had two in college, every semester I'd think there goes a handful of guns, fly rods, and woodworking tools. But hey, I'm happy to do it. After all, isn't hand planning for hours more enjoyable than a few passes through a joiner?

[Jim Matthews]

Everybody starts with the hardware.

It's the "New Yankee Workshop" trap.
I chatted with Norm once, briefly.

He didn't have nice tools until the sponsors
started giving them to him as 'props'.

You don't need lots of expensive tools.
You need training in the use of what you already have.

Put your credit card away until you take an introductory course.

[Anthony Whitesell]

When I first purchased my house, I looked at the big empty basement and said "Wow! Look at all the space for tools." Instead of running out and spending all my money on tools then not having any money for a tool when I need it. I decided not to buy any tools until I need them (or happen upon a really smoking hot deal...MicroSoft Bing Cashback helped with the bandsaw and jointer). I have the cash to buy (most) any tool if I need it. "Oh no, I don't have a 22mm socket to work on my car...off to Sears to get one." I do use or learn to use what tools I have to get a job done. But sometimes there is no substitute. When the bolt requires a 22mm socket, no other will do. When trying to make Lincoln logs, a convex bit is needed; no other will do.

I used to race karts competitively. That's expensive. Now I'm into woodworking, so much so I purchased a used sawmill. Woodworking is expensive. The next plan is to upgrade my tablesaw. I hate to get rid of my '52 Craftsman (I LOVE old iron) but it is a 9" saw with no blade guard (which would probably one of those in the way useless ones anyhow). But I figure the SawStop saw is cheaper than the doctor's bills. I just wish I could right it off as an insurance expense under preventative care.

[Jason Roehl]

Well, lemme see...in rough order of expense (most to least):

Work,
Cycling,
Homebrewing/beer drinking,
Grilling/smoking

[Steve Rozmiarek]

I think we tend to moderate our hobby expenditures as we get older. I used to drag race, hunt, shoot, found the fun of photography, as well as woodwork. The most expensive though was a fixer upper house. Due to an unexpected career change and relocation though, some priorities were analyzed. I suspect most of us have some mid life trigger where we decide enough has been spent on hobbies, at least for a while.

[roger wiegand]

How do you decide? Seems mostly by getting sucked in bit by bit. For me, what started with fascination with antique wind-up phonographs led to player pianos, then on to ever more complicated mechanical music machines (including a violin-playing machine), leading eventually to this http://www.carouselorgan.com. Utter insanity--but fun.

[Art Mann]

I've had quite the opposite experience of Steve. While I was working, I didn't have enough time to pursue woodworking so I couldn't justify buying new equipment. Now that I am retired, i have a lot more time and I am in the process of replacing most of my tools with upgrades. I am starting to sell some stuff and that will help pay for it.