Most of us find new things to be interested in over time; very rarely do people pick one hobby and stick to it exclusively for life. But every new interest often requires a certain amount of upfront mental or financial cost, whether we are learning about our new domain or buying the gear we need to participate in a new activity.
There are two general approaches to how one can spend money on new hobbies or projects: go big (buy the best or most expensive that is available), or go slow (buy the cheapest that meets your needs, then gauge how often you use it). The problem is that if you buy cheap, the quality may not be high enough for you to actually enjoy. But if you buy the highest quality you can, you run the risk of finding out that you don’t actually enjoy the activity very much, and you will have wasted a lot of money in the process of learning this.
There is also the cost of experience. When you are new to something, you are much more likely to screw it up. This should be a part of your considerations. If your inexperience means there is a decent chance you will accidentally destroy the object, you might consider buying a cheaper one first to learn on. Take drones for example. You probably don’t want to buy that $1,500 drone if you’ve never flown a drone before. Learn on something that won’t significantly impact you if you royally screw it up.
Honestly, one of the best ways to handle some of this is through self awareness. If you have a history of flitting from project to project, growing bored with each, it behooves you to be skeptical of new projects. Not that you shouldn’t explore new things, but that you should ask yourself if the price of an unfinished project is worth the experience you might gain from the endeavor. Dumping hundreds or thousands of dollars into something you aren’t going to complete or participate in for very long is probably a bad choice.
On the other hand, if you have a history of interests that are deep and long-lasting, you might be able to trust yourself by putting more money into a new project, knowing you are more likely to get solid value from it.
For example: for years and years, I had considered buying a metal detector. But I was legitimately concerned that I wouldn’t use it very often because the laws regulating it were so crazy. But thanks to last year’s stimulus check, I decided it was time to buy one, as I would have the chance to use it at my grandma’s farm. At first I contemplated buying the cheapest model in one of the series, but the kit that was two levels higher included two coils (large and small), a Bluetooth headset (so you don’t drive your neighbors crazy, bloop bloop!), and several additional settings, such as custom signal discrimination. I had wanted one for a long time, so I decided I may as well buy one that I would want to keep, and I was right. While I rarely use it, those extra features have made a world of difference, and I’m really glad I paid extra for them. However, I’m also glad I didn’t rush out and buy some thousand dollar advanced nugget seeker, considering I didn’t know what I was doing and am still not especially proficient in its use.
In general I have actually found this to be a good strategy: if you have been interested in something for a long time, it’s often best to go for the higher-end of the consumer grade. If nothing else, these things typically have a decent resale value, whereas the cheapest of the cheap are usually avoided. But going full professional is only for those with experience who have proven to themselves they can use it competently, and will in fact use it to begin with. I have a $400 backpacking tent, which is the higher end of consumer-grade. I do not have a $2,000 elite pro backpacking tent. What in the heck would I do with one of those?
It’s also true that cost often compensates for skill. Many of the specialty tools sold in auto parts stores are designed for amateurs. Professionals often know how to do more with less: they are less likely to need a special design to otherwise compensate for skill. So remember that before you get too deep in woo-dads!
This home-made book scanner that I’m building has really put me to the test. Although I’m used to working on my car, removing three bolts to replace something is fundamentally different from drilling holes in PVC at the right distance from a tee. Spray painting PVC also adds to its thickness and makes it more difficult to set or remove. I’ve wasted a fair bit of money on mistakes with this rig, but that’s to be expected as I’m learning new skills. Fortunately, PVC is extremely cheap, so in a sense, it’s not a bad material to be learning on.
The hardest and most expensive part has been choosing the two cameras that I need (one for each opposing page). The number of options available to you in the wild world of cameras is astounding, but after a brain-breaking amount of research, I was able to settle on a model from 2013 that allows for remote controls to be attached so you can trigger the shutter without shaking the scanner. They still cost me roughly $300 a piece after tax and all that, used, but damn, they’re good. I never knew just how much nicer a high end consumer camera could be than a cell phone camera. It’s not the number of your megapixels, it’s how you use them! But there for awhile, I was actually considering a top-of-the-line point-and-shoot that was $900, meaning two of them would have cost me nearly $2,000. Yikes! It had all the features, was really compact, all of that, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was wrong: I’m not even an amateur photographer, I just need two good cameras so I can scan some old books into the Internet Archive, because history is fun. I also wouldn’t mind a good camera for my planned travels next year, and photographing artifacts in the backcountry. Fortunately for me, I did not cave into my baser instincts and pay a ridiculous amount for cameras I can’t possible to use to full capacity. Mind you, $700 is still a lot of money, but it ticks off everything on my checklist, and if I can get the geometry for this rig set up properly, the image quality for these scans is going to be amazing. (I’m beginning to suspect I’m an archivist at heart)
Anyway, these are just some ideas. Most of my notably bad purchases make their way into my yearly “Best and Worst Purchases” posts. These aren’t always related to hobbies, but the concepts are very similar. Hobbies are supposed to benefit you, not hurt you, so you have to be careful how much money you put into them.