Asklemmy

Great post OP!

My wife and I started playing Disc Golf as an "inexpensive" and more accessible option to traditional golf with a started set of cheap discs off Amazon. Carts bags, and DOZENS of discs later...$$$

Hobby electronics started cheep, with a crappy soldering iron (a good precision one was the best purchase ever) and some cheep parts, ended up with a room stuffed with a thousand dollars worth or parts and a few thousand more in test equipment.

Fishing. Who would have thought it was so easy to get addicted to buying various baits and lures.

Photography

Gaming

Rc cars. I got a crappy 1/6 scale truck (newbright) for shits and giggles to see what it could all do before I fried and broke it. Ended up slowly dumping a bunch of crap into it (Batteries, lights, new controller, esc, new brushless motor etc)

Wouldn't have been quite so bad if it was a "normal" scale rc, but parts for something 1/6 scale is pretty pricey. I could have just bought a better machine, but it was still fun and I learned a bit about rc stuff. This is the frankenRC https://i.imgur.com/ey1jJYX.jpg

EDC (everyday carry) this can include pen, notebook, knife, phone, fidget, etc. my most expensive piece that is in my current rotation is my fidget clicker in full brass from unquiet hands. that one chunk of metal and magnets cost me $130

3D printing. Purchased a cheap 3D printer to save money printing things instead of buying things. 5 printer print farm later, no idea why I'm doing this to myself.

Firearms.

It was fairly inexpensive before the pandemic. But since it's been a nightmare of price gouging.

It's also one of those hobbies where buying one thing leads down a rabbit hole of spending.

Thinkpads.

When I first got into my hobby (DJ) I thought I only needed to pay into the set up cost of buying equipment (turntables, mixer, sound), but I eventually learned that I had to keep buying records because I couldn't just mix the same two recorded forever, and that got expensive.

Knitting/crocheting and cannabis. Not (always) together. Yarn art to pass the time while sitting with my mom - I start a lot of things and always need new yarn, but I never finish anything. Cannabis because I started making candies for a sick friend and it's pretty easy to get caught up in different strains and what's on sale this week.

Cross stitching.

I must have $700 worth of floss a 200$ custom stand and then accessories, I just gave away 82 skeins of off brand that advertised dmc dye standards, but WEREN'T. Don't buy floss from Amazon kids, it's worth it to do a custom order from joanns or Michael's mid project.

It started with wanting to do a fun little Christmas ornament project with the Littles and now I have 7 mid finished projects including a massive LOTR project I've restated 3 times, that has 1 of 12 8×11 pages done on this beast l nearly 3'x2' Aida cloth.

For me it's photography. I originally bought a camera and lens second hand. Now over the past two years its become rather a lot of money. I bought a Nikon Z8 last month and it was definitely worth the money.

3D printing.

Music production. And IT in general.

But specifically the music production; started off as "I'll by FL Studio and muck around with it" to "I need ALL THE VSTs!". I've sunk like $2500 into it in the last two months (which is a hell of a lot of money to me), and I keep buying shit for it.

Am I any good at it? Fuck no. But it's not stopping me from keeping at it and buying shit I probably don't need :P

And the IT stuff consists of rack-mount servers and Pi's. I've sunk around $25k into it all over the last 12 years.

Camping and camping gear. It can be so cheap and easy, but when you start buying high end gear it adds up quick.

Not to mention the different types of camping, backpacking, car camping, glamping, etc. Car camping “overlanding” gear is awesome, but so expensive.

Collecting vinyl records. I started 10 years ago when you could get lots of records for 3-5$ per record. Now everyone is crazy about collecting and they can cost 40-50$. Was a great investment if I sell them. But I enjoyed collecting them regardless of value.

Mechanical keyboards

Running as soon as I discovered the Runningshowgeeks subreddit.

Disc golf.

Discs cost only $15-20 new, used ones can be only a few bucks, you only need one or a few to play, and most courses are free.

In reality, you keep buying new discs. And a bag to carry them. And more discs. And a bigger bag. Then a home basket. And a net to practice in. And more discs. Then a rack to hold the extra discs you can’t bag…. It adds up!

Collecting military surplus/old random military shit. Helmets, great coats, radios, a field phone, ww2 machete. Ya get the idea.

Have you tried playing table tennis? It starts tame, but as soon as you get a bit competitive and learn about custom rackets...

I just drained my bank account last weekend for a new racket and box, a few new balls,...