3.9k USD annually is a lot for a hobby. I'm not going to argue whether it's "just a bit much" or "ridiculous", but I think it's strange to imply that it's somehow not a lot.
And nobody would call out that kind of spend were it for one of those.
Are you kidding me?
> gaming rigs and their upgrades
Oh cool the newest NVDIA GPU is out, that'll be a $500-1500 cost!
> collectibles, legos
Yup - this hobby is all about upfront one-time costs
> shop tools and materials, music gear
Have you met anyone with a machine shop or who is into playing gigs?
> sporting and camping gear
lol..outdoors people love accumulating gear for each trip
On itself, neither of these hobbies cost that much money yearly unless you consciously decided you want to spend a lot of money.
(And I'm not even talking about big-ticket sports like golf, horse-riding, racing cars, etc.)
I used to do BJJ, which is a popular adult sport. I just googled: london bjj
My top hit was for Roger Gracie, which costs £179/month.
Also I think OP was confused by what you meant by "gym". In the UK that normally refers just to a place with weights and cardio machines. One of the most popular chains is Pure Gym which is typically around £30 per month: https://www.puregym.com/city/central-london/
We've just signed up to a more expensive gym with a pool, spa, sauna, etc..., but it's still around £160 per month for us as a family in South-West London.
It adds up fast.
Last year a single 2 week roadtrip on my motorcycle easily racked up around $5000 in total cost between needing new touring gear, new set of tyres, motels, etc. I have worn the touring gear once or twice since then but haven’t had a chance for any more big trips. The tyres I keep using of course.
This year a single maintenance visit came out to $2k. Just parking for my bike costs $1200/year.
Until recently when I started commuting again, my bike was purely a hobby. You could argue it’s still a hobby because I could totally BART/CalTrain to work if I hated myself enough. (it’s 60% faster by bike)
I think a lot of people on HN either aren’t honest with themselves how much hobbies cost, live in low COL areas, or both.
If you’re into an individual sport and you have private lessons, which are more common than you’d think, you’ll easily blow thousands of dollars per year just for half an hour or an hour per week. Almost anyone who is beyond a fairly recreational level in tennis, martial arts or fencing will be spending thousands per year.
On the other hand, 3.9k per year is a massive amount of money to spend on cheaper hobbies like hiking or painting.
It also depends a lot where you live, HN is very US centric and is full of people who are earning big money at tech companies there.
It’s only $325/month, or $10.32/day. That’s less than two pumpkin spice lattes a day. That seems low to medium for a hobby.
Viewed another way, it’s less than 1/20th median household income. It doesn’t seem crazy to spend a twentieth of one’s income on a hobby.