I have had a guitar for a few years and I haven't spent a dime since buying it. Haven't even broken any strings yet, which I already have 3 packs of replacements for because I thought they broke more often so I bought 4 packs when I got the guitar.

I think even that's getting cheaper over the last couple years. Mid range guitars are getting premium features & qc out of Philippines and Indonesia is pretty solid, modelers are making a big collection of amps and pedals unnecessary for chasing tones. As long as you're not a collector gathering signature serieses or looking at all the new releases giving yourself fomo it's not too bad.

...Joker? What are you doing on Lemmy?

EDIT: Nwm, he only burned his own share.

...the suspense is killing me! What is it?

These guys seem awesome. They deleted their backlog in like 1992 or '93 and said they wouldn't release an album until world peace was declared.

They didn't really keep that promise, but their next release was "K Cera Cera (War Is Over If You Want It)" in 1993, released exclusively in Israel and Palestine after the peace deal between Israel and the PLO.

Until you get into embedded programming and electronics....

And here's me thinking software development is a career 😭 good for you though. How did you get into it as a hobby?

I'd say spending SOME money and time on your most fulfilling hobbies is damn near a necessity for a healthy existence.

And yeah sure, plenty of people don't do that, and plenty of people literally cannot afford to do that here in my dear old US of A.

But you know what else I see a lot of people doing in the US? Fighting mental illness and talking ever more openly about the need for revolution and violence.

Spending disposable money on hobbies is fine

... so long as it does not materially impact your ability to provide basic necessities for your own wellbeing, food, water, shelter, some level of climate control, etc.

... and you are not directly, indirectly, or functionally spending other people's money on your hobbies.

My ex decided to take up photography. She's now essentially semi-pro and it was a terrible financial decision for all involved.

Christmas lists started to get reeeal aspirational. No, you are not getting a lense that's the financial equivalent of a decent used car for Christmas. Go shoot more gigs and weddings.

I'm not doing much photography now but I was way into it a decade ago. I did it professionally on the side, which helped justify some of my nice full-frame gear. It's nice when taking photos at a dimly lit wedding reception.

Your mention of Gear Aquisition Syndrome followed by a picture of a motherfucking peregine falcon in flight still took my breath away for a second there!

Nope, if you can't do it adequately with a cell phone camera, it's gonna eat you alive.

Oh no, the birb left a leg on the beach. Gotta buy a new lens to do better next time.

What paper you use? I've tried Rhodia and quite like it

Disc golf can be really cheap so long as you just stick to the basics. Lots of free courses or courses that cost like $5 if they’re nice. Basically spent $50 once and then nothing past that. Found a some free discs too that didn’t have any owner identification on them :)

Digital art. Potentially expensive at first, but if you already have a working computer, tablet, or even a phone, all you need¹ is to buy a drawing tablet, which can have a screen or not², and the screenless ones are way cheaper!

When it comes to software, I'd recommend Krita or ibisPaint (for phones) which are free (Krita is free and open-source - no ads, ibisPaint is free as in "it costs $0 but has ads"). There are lots of other software for digital art, and basically everything other than Adobe software (🤮) shouldn't be super expensive.

¹ You can use a mouse or a touchscreen instead if you can't buy a drawing tablet - they're not great to draw with but still viable for the hobby.

² You'd think a screenless tablet would be hard to get used to, but after some practice you get used to it.

Crocheting/knitting is cheap to try out but once you really get into it (and start worrying about yarn quality and so on), the money pit opens. Ask me how I know.