And people think GW is an expensive hobby?

[Mr Mystery]

LAWKS! It's a thread about how we choose to spend our cash!

I have one other hobby apart from GW, and that friends is live action role play! Absolutely love it I do ;)

But my word it can get pricey. Last year I went, already having the kit, and managed (including ticket) to blast my way through about £400! This year? To celebrate new job and financial woes starting to recede into the distance, I'm putting together my first ever In Character area. Which means a tent with some odds and sods. Odds like a wood burning stove. Sods like a rug.....

Teepee itself is quite an investment at £479.... But it is bloody enormous, and will last years. Stove? £139..... But does mean I'll be able to cook, and therefore avoid paying through the nose for a lacklustre plate of food from the wagons!

Armour and weapons cost as much as that in previous years, and I'm still just starting out! Longer I have it, the better I maintain it, and the more events I attend, the better value I get :p

So what are your significant cash drains folks?

[Deadlift]

When I was "serious" with my powerlifting, food, supplements, specific clothing and gym membership could easily cost £400 pcm. I eased back when the nippers came along and I realised physically I was never going to be able to compete at any serious level. As much as I wish I was, I just wasn't able to get my weight down to compete at lower body weights, and when I was at my heaviest I still wasn't strong enough. I wanted to also have a go at strongman, but most of those guys are giants in statue and even the local comps I tried I struggled with due to having a smaller frame than those monsters. Grip plays a massive part in any serious lifting and although mines good, I have small hands compared to those big fellas which isn't good at all when the bars your lifting are the diameter of a coke can.
I don't drink much, but wine is increasingly becoming a hobby as well as real ale,
And there is my other real embarrassing hobby, golf. I ,started playing about 4 years ago. I don't play week in week out but I do try and get out once a fortnight. If I thought powerlifting could get expensive I was wrong. My 1st full set of cavity back clubs set me back a few quid, and I have been eyeing up some Callaways to replace my current woods.

[scadugenga]

Shooting is an expensive hobby. Fun, useful, and occasionally cathartic, but expensive.

I prefer archery usually. Less expensive, and more options available to practice.

[Aspire to Glory]

40k is cheaper than cocaine.

[eldargal]

Historical re-enactment can range from tens of pounds for fabric to a few thousand pounds (18th century court dress made out of high-end silks...) and a few hundred pounds for helmet, sword, dagger and knife etc. up to tens of thousands of pounds for a full plate harness.

Cosplay can also be expensive if you buy proper fabrics.

[dark messenger]

Dungeons & Dragons is my duck.

I have two groups, one which I am the Master and the other in which I am a player. With the cost of the books and handouts/printouts, assorted sheets of information for characters, the world setting, dungeon maps, miniatures, multiple complete sets of dice... I'm already looking at spending about £250 just to update our current campaign to 4th Ed!
And that's on top of what was already spent on getting the complete 3.5 and 3.5 Extended stuff and breaking into Pathfinder with the games club...

Not to mention it's very time intensive too, I spend most weekends dedicating most of an entire day to it. So as a result I have very little time for 40K anymore and this makes me sad as I have many scores to settle. Plus an entire IG army to build (I'm only halfway done rebuilding my Wolves army)

I know D&D isn't as expensive a hobby as others but to me it's a large hole that needs lots of money to plug :(

[Psychosplodge]

Taking up photography was a bit pricey for a DSLR a few lenses, bag, filters etc,
And cosplay can get get ridiculous. LARPing sounds fun though.

[Wolfshade]

I think one of the issues is the continued cost.
Some hobbies have no mandatory continued cost. By this I mean the day to day costs, a costume that is created does not need to be replaced, unless you want to, a 40k army doesn't require more units unless you want to, arguably new rules is a mandatory cost but since this is infrequent I shall discount it, in archery there is a continue cost of strings, arrows, feathers bosses etc. scuba you need to refill the air tanks, and quite often the locations require a booking fee, rock climbing.

Bellringing is my passion and that is generally free, though peal fees do apply, but that is because the maintence costs are absorbed by the church they are attached to. Though arguably the beer afterwards is a mandatory part and that can tally up...

[Psychosplodge]

I think the continued costs associated with cosplay/larp are more to do with the attendance of events, more than extending your collection of stuff...
Also the Beer.

[DrLove42]

The name of my blog (in my sig) says it all.

40k is expensive, but so is videogaming. I look at my games collection and it must be into the £3-4000 range by now

[Mr Mystery]

I think the continued costs associated with cosplay/larp are more to do with the attendance of events, more than extending your collection of stuff...
Also the Beer.

Pretty much. But weapons do break (mine are fine still) and kit will need periodic replacement.

Then there's the traders. Last year I bought a mace (hitty!) bandages and apothecary stuff (healy!) and a bottle sling (drinky!). Oh, and a new belt. All tots up rapidly!

Totally worth it though :)

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

My main hobby is making electronic music, and theres definitely a reason it's a hobby...haha cos you can't make a living out of that hahahahaha...oh dear...sorry.

It's an expensive hobby though, VST pluggins (software production tools and synthesizers ect) can cost hundreds of pounds, if you want the professional and good sounding ones anyway, add to that the price of monitors and any hardware (I own a few synths, vocoder ect) and it can get expensive easily..

[Wildeybeast]

Buying a house. Turns out you need a butt tonne of money before the banks will even let you through the door to discuss getting a mortgage. My 'hobby'/biggest financial drain is saving money for that. In the past I would have at least been able to call it an investment for the future, but given the current economic climate I'm not even sure it can be called that.

[Deadlift]

Buying a house. Turns out you need a butt tonne of money before the banks will even let you through the door to discuss getting a mortgage. My 'hobby'/biggest financial drain is saving money for that. In the past I would have at least been able to call it an investment for the future, but given the current economic climate I'm not even sure it can be called that.

What I find so frustrating with banks, especially when it comes to mortgages and 1st times buyers is even though someone can be renting, and the rent your paying monthly will most likely be more than your intended monthly morgage repayments they still insist you "can't afford" the repayments.
You can jump though hoops, providing proof of income and employment. You send all the information to the underwriters and they insist on more information. You give them what they ask for and they then lose the original copies at the processing centre (usually in mumbai) of the previous info, therefor putting the whole process back by weeks, only for the offer they have given you on the proviso that you give them yet more info is no longer valid. You have to start the whole process again.

I ****ing hate banks and yes I'm married to a Barclays Morgage Adviser.

[Hive Mind]

My main hobby is making electronic music, and theres definitely a reason it's a hobby...haha cos you can't make a living out of that hahahahaha...oh dear...sorry.

It's an expensive hobby though, VST pluggins (software production tools and synthesizers ect) can cost hundreds of pounds, if you want the professional and good sounding ones anyway, add to that the price of monitors and any hardware (I own a few synths, vocoder ect) and it can get expensive easily..

Just get the FM7. It's the only plugin you'll ever need to make electro.

[DarkLink]

With the economy the last five or six years, there's a reason why mortgages are so tough to get.

[Wolfshade]

I had fun and games getting mine, though my house will survive nuclear fallout if I block the windows...

[Deadlift]

With the economy the last five or six years, there's a reason why mortgages are so tough to get.

Which is kind of cyclical really, considering many perceive banks are to blame for the whole current mess were in now, personally I don't entirely. It's customers are as much to blame for taking out loans they couldn't afford to repay to buy things they didn't need. But then with financial regulations being what they were anybody could walk into a bank and take out a sizeable loan unsecured. But then the banks were also very aggressive with the way they marketed their loans in the 1st place.