Ask Lemmy

I don't think the average Joe would know how expensive Warhammer 40k or model trains are.

Maybe not as expensive as the others, but crochet/knitting/sewing all start off fairly cheap, and then the next thing you know you're offering to service old men behind a Joann's fabric because you need this particular fabric and you need an entire bolt of it, and it's the one fabric in the entire fucking store that isn't on their amazing buy one get 73 free sale for the week.

Keyboards are generally known about, but the ergo part of it is a rabbit hole within the rabbit hole. Some people literally design, 3D print, wire up, solder and program one-off keyboards because they don't like the ones made by other people.

I'll do the reverse - I think most people would expect homebrewing beer to be quite hard to get started with, but for $50 you can get everything you need to start making a really quite good beer, and save money at the same time (homebrewed beer is usually much cheaper than store bought)

If you want to get started search for "brew in a bag" and buy a kit beer mix. You'll need a handful of equipment like a brew bag and fermenter, but that stuff is really cheap.

Then you can indeed go down a massive rabbit hole of refinements, but it just amazed me that the first beer you make will already be a good one.

I am still amazed about how much money you can spend on making coffee at home. 300€ for a manual grinder - "that's the cheao chinese stuff" wtf

Racing drones.

It turns out when you crash your $500 drone into a brick wall at 50mph, shit breaks and you get to spend more money if you want to fly it into another wall

I feel like a lot of people might think miniature building/painting could be easy - or at least quick.

It isn't.

Woodworking and collecting old tech. Both my hobbies / crafts, both started very cheap and very little, today in my workshop there's upwards 60k only in machines, not counting the tools, if you want to have a working computer from the 60s or even 50s, you'll pay. And pay and pay. My advice: collect old cars. Or yachts. Cheaper :)

Apparently fur-suits are ~$15,000. You could buy a car for that and still have enough money left over to drive for a year.

Skydiver here.

It's not just money, it's not just skill that makes you a successful jumper.

It's a certain type of attitude and the ability to think when you've aimed yourself at a planet. Not everyone can do it. To be blunt, there is a large part of the population that shouldn't do it, because they have terrible decision making ability.

As far as money, I went through the student program in the mid 90's and it cost me about $1200, if I recall correctly. My first rig, used, was $4000. My second rig, new, was just over $8000. I have 4500 jumps most of which I paid ~ $20 each for. I don't want to do that math.

Mountain biking.

Warhammer 40k. I heard about the game years ago and thought it sounded pretty cool. Didn't realize that unlike D&D, it's not something generally played without minis. And it's a massive war game. So you need a lot of minis. And it's a massive war game. So you need to know how to strategize or you're gonna suck. High cost and high skill.

I just read the lore instead. 🤷🏻‍♂️

You can get started homebrewing cider or mead for like $50, especially if what you're brewing isn't carbonated so you can just store it in whatever. You can also buy home garage versions of fully automated brewing and canning lines that will run you into the tens of thousands, not accounting for consumables. It escalates fast.

Modular synths, eurorack is where you find the most accessible modules than the other formats. Sometimes you go and spend 600€ in a module without batting an eye.

Also you have to count the case, patch cables, etc.

It gets expensive quickly if you can't fight the GAS (gear acquisition syndrome)

Also it is a musical instrument so you need to practice many hours to play it affectively.

It is really cool, I do enjoy myself playing with my modular, but would love to have more time to spend with it.

Camping. Whether it's at a campsite, where a family might spend tens or hundreds of thousands on an RV and all the gadgets in it, or deep in the woods, where an ultralight backpacker might spend thousands of dollars upgrading perfectly good gear they already had because it could save a few ounces.

To be clear, camping is actually really accessible, and few people go THAT extreme with it. Just... no matter what budget you set for it, there are ways to spend it. :P

Amateur astronomy, you can start with a modest Dobsonian then it get can very expensive very fast and you need to understand celestial coordinates, ccds, optics and such.

Telescopes

Have you seen the price of polo ponies lately?

Sim racing. An entry level wheel cost 100, an okay one 300 and the most expensive I've seen is 100,000

https://www.f1authentics.com/products/red-bull-simulator-championship-edition

Mechanical watches. I guess I grew up with quartz watches and only learned about the existence of automatic watches a few years ago. Marvelous things they are, and of course, high watch brands like Rolex, etc, are tens of thousands of dollars, with certain pieces going for millions. Insane.

I imagine taxidermy is super difficult

Rock climbing. To start out you basically just need $150 worth of shoes and some $5 chalk. Trad climbing or big wall climbing can be 5 figures and a dozen years worth of experience. And the skill ceiling is probably obvious, but it's become an Olympic sport for a reason.