What does 1000€ buy you in your favourite hobby?

3 cheap synths but only half a more expensive one.

Reasonable amount of average magic cards or just a few good ones.

Half a graphics card.

Some nice wood for woodworking, but not that much if decent quality.

A flight ticket.

3 festival tickets.

0.5kg of ketamine.

A lot of 3D printing filament.

2 Warhammer figures.

3 years of swimming pool subscription.

Either a whole load of books, fiction, tabletop RPG sci-fi. I would also need to buy more bookshelves to put these on.

A decent upgrade to my computer, maybe a new graphics card.

A sword or two, some better protective kit for sparring.

I could get a copy of the original "White Box" Dungeons & Dragons set, although not an actual first print run copy, because those go for $20k. But I'd probably buy the last few Planescape products I'm missing, which are also unreasonably expensive for rpg books but not in the same league as the original dnd sets, and much more enjoyable to read.

A few large sets, amounting around 12000 bricks, or a random assortment of up to 20000 bricks if acquired in bulk ( or like a bathtub of bricks if acquired second-hand )

Homebrewing. Either everything you need to get started and going for like €100. Spend the rest on tools and equipment and ingredients as you go and learn what you need and why you need it.

Or, as it seems to me is the middle aged man thing to do¹, buy everything for a complete microbrewery and insist it is absolutely necessary with the best of laboratory grade equipment for your first batch of IPA that will taste like anybody else's first batch of IPA and the only solution is to keep spending another €1000 when you got it on better equipment and gadgets and dodads and quirkmaflixers in magical materials and still nobody will be impressed but that's just because you didn't have the correct temperature to the third decimal and dear we absolutely need to take a small loan on the house no listen this is an investment when I get this going hey baby wait listen...

¹ I'm a middle aged man so I'm allowed to use these words.

A decent road bike. Not top specced, and with none of the additional gear you'll probably want, but you can definitely get started with €1k. I bought my current bike for approximately €700 and have upgraded + bought additional gear for probably a bit over €1k, but that has gotten me some really great stuff and I basically want for nothing in the sport.

A lot of yarn. A few motorcycle jackets and pants. ALL of the video games. A lot of yoga accessories that I've ogled but never bought.

I don't think I need to spend that much money on my current hobbies. But I obviously could

• A real lot of pencils, a lot of Bic and a lot of paper to write with (and to make paper planes, too). Like a good chunk of a lifetime worth of supply :p
• A lot (but already a little less) of top quality watercolor paint (that I don't need to enjoy my hobby watercoloring), too many top of the line watercolor brushes (that I don't need for my hobby either) and a lot of excellent watercolor paper (that I may enjoy using but still don't really need for my hobby ;)
• The entire line of Caran d'Ache 'Luminance' colored pencils and the entire line of Faber Castell 'Polychromos' colored pencils, in multiple examples. But why would I need that many colors when I use maybe 10 or 12 regularly?
• I do a lot of scratch building also using... cardboard. SO, a 1000€ would buy a few decades, centuries?, worth of cardboard and fresh hobby blades too. But since I mostly used recycled cardboard from old packages and parcels... I won't need to buy those.

Back when I was making scale models (plastic planes and tanks) I could have easily spend that In a couple hour in any hobby shop worth shopping at, buying a few fancy model kits, too much paint and some of the fancier tools, plus reference books. Or on a single camera lens, but that is another hobby I quit practicing. Or on some rare books... which I also quit collecting. It looks like I won't be able to spend much money :p

With tabletop role-playing games (I don't play D&D), a thousand bucks and you're pretty much set up for life. You can get a huge range of beautiful dice in all sizes, a nice deck of cards, a variety of tokens and you can skip miniatures to invest in bits that are more flexible. Speaking of flexibility, a big ebook reader allows you to enjoy tons of published games and only get physical box sets or books if you really desire them as artifacts. Another big advantage is that you can spend your money slowly and just enjoy what you have first.

A holiday

Composer here, I could grab quite a lot! There are multiple shops in a 2.5 hour drive-radius from me that sell used instruments and audio equipment for dirt cheap. I bagged a $700 audio interface for $100 - just a single hunge! I could probably start an Elephant 6-grade recording setup with a thousand.

2 years of yoga classes.

Or

All of the garden beds, fencing, and good soil I got for the garden.

A thousand euros in airsoft will get you a high-quality gun or two, depending on what you're looking for and where you're getting it from. Generally, replica pistols and "standard" rifles tend to be cheaper than anything heavy or exotic.

And you'll probably have plenty of cash left over, for things like safety gear, special clothing, and gun-related accessories like slings and holsters.

The most expensive gun in my collection, a replica of the pistol from Kingsman, was €430. I spent about another 100 on spare magazines, shotgun shells, and a custom holster. My next-priciest gun cost less than half that, even after acquiring similar accessories

I haven't put any money into modifying any of my guns, since that's an entire other can of worms I don't feel like opening. Most guns will be perfectly playable out of the box, rarely needing more than heavier BBs or a hopup adjustment to be improved.

The hobbies are photography and videography, and it depends a bit on how frugal I am being.

If I limit myself to buying new stuff? Not a whole lot. Maybe a camera body or a few lenses.
But if I shop around and get stuff second hand, then I could buy so many lenses and cameras that I've been meaning to try out.

Usually I do the latter

If you already have a good computer, that much money could outfit an entire home music recording studio with decent gear, especially if you buy good used gear, which is easily available:

A couple of good super-budget guitars from Harley Benton (a Strat clone and a Les Paul clone), for about $300 (new).

A good Yamaha acoustic guitar, $100.

A bass, $75.

An interface, to get the music into the computer, $50.

A basic MIDI controller, $30.

A good electronic keyboard with weighted keys, $100.

Microphone, $75.

Headphones, $50.

Electronic drum machine, $50, or use the pads on the MIDI controller, or voices on the keyboard.

DAW - Reaper is free, and works great.

That's approximately what I spent on my studio, and everything works great, and sounds terrific..

either 100 IEM or headphones, 1 home and portable setup or 1 thing in audiophile hobby. same with collecting pocket knives. not applicable with leather/Goodyear welt boots. probably starts at 5 pair of boots at the low budget end.

similar with coffee. it could just get you an espresso machine, or he'll just even a metal tamp. fucking crazy people those espresso drinking heathens. sips expensive bean juice

On raves...? 😵‍💫

Maybe a third of a used or import lathe or mill.

Machining is super expensive as a hobby to get started.

Which is why I'm slowly upgrading my cheap CNC router to be more rigid and capable, bit by bit. Machined stainles for the first time last week. though i'll never get close to a 'real' machine, in hobby machining, everything is a finishing pass…

Half of a full army, maybe some brushes.

An absolute shitton of indie games

Gunpla and other mecha model builder, here. 1k Euro could get you anywhere from 4-75 model kits (likely more if you really wanted to stretch it), a sweet airbrush setup plus all the tools you could need, or a few nice display cases to show the finished models off in.

Almost endless quantities (for me anyway) of 3d printing filament and small electronic parts.

About one-fourth of a top-tier professional video card, or a whole -almost top-tier- consumer card. Or a relatively decent factory-made classical guitar. That being said I'd probably go for a extrawide capo to fit my ten-string instead. And then buy coke with the remaining 950$. Regular, not diet

Another hobby. Two, if I'm lucky.

That's at least like... Ten crunchwrap Supremes!

digital art: i guess... a new drawing tablet? maybe a laptop that's also a tablet with pen pressure and stuff. would be neat

gaming: upgrade my pc (add a dedicated gpu, new power supply, water cooling, etc) + better peripherals

A suit of plate armour, and maybe a shield or a weapon.

A practice pin, a new cart, and about 30 new discs!

... Or about one graphics card...

Imagine how much SALE steam games I can collect!

Like 4-5 years of ancestry resources access, or maybe like a short trip to my grandparent's homeland to do my own research.

Or I can buy like A LOT of thread and cross stitch material. A lot.

All the Japanese language resources for a lifetime you need and then some more for lessons if you want.

• Wanikani and Bunpro might be about 300€ together for a lifetime.
• A few grammar books with extra exercises, like Genki, would be less than 200€ I think.
• Writing supplies, a computer, Internet access etc is assumed.
• 500€ Could likely get private tutoring for quite a few lessons I think. You may also want to look at courses by the nearby university or language school, or get additional support resources.

Japanese learning resources are really amazing nowadays. Tons of good free content too, like articles on grammar or YouTube Videos by people explaining stuff. If you cut Wanikani and Bunpro and go with Anki (FOSS) instead for SRS, you can go really cheap.

That is, the price you pay for learning the Japanese language is also that it takes a fuck ton of time to get anywhere. But then again, you understand Japanese after that, how cool is that??

A new main sail

An enclosed core XY 3D printer with a material changing system with a built in filament dryer.

The Bambu Lab P1S is a crazy good deal. If you get it with the older AMS that doesn’t do filament drying, it’s only €800.

There are some issues with Bambu Lab and their proprietary nature. But I’ve very much loved my P1S, and while I’ve tinkered with and upgraded it quite a bit, I’ve never NEEDED to the same way I did with older 3D printers (other than standard maintenance).

You can get Prusa’s Core One for a bit over the stated budget, but only if you do the assembly yourself. Which is fun! But you also don’t get the multiple material system included in that price.

A couple pieces niche test equipment that I'll ude once a year.

A Prusa or 76 spools of ASA or PETG from my local supplier.

I can get a lot of weigths and a sick power rack

A surprising amount as prices have dropped considerably in the past few years. (3d printing)

Flight, hotel room, and entry fee to a major tournament. If you're splitting hotel costs maybe that'll cover 2-3 trips, and enough left over for a good fightstick.

A decent entry-level hardtail.

100s of components and boards

If I really wanted to go HAM, about one third of a Norbauer Seneca. For me in reality, my laser engraver, 3D printer, soldering station, and other tools I typically use to do keyboard projects probably all come together to be about EUR1000.

Would that it 'twere my only hobby.

200-300 12" singles. Thus reducing my Discogs wantlist by about... 12%.

One nice guitar or a couple decent guitars, one rare comic book or a shit load of common comic books

A mid-range direct drive simracing wheel, or a very nice ukulele.

1L flasks, dimroth condenser, heating mantle, heating plate, materials to build an electric kiln, if i have anything left i'd use it on chemicals

and i'm probably already overbudget, home chemistry is fucked price-wise, we're lucky to have synthware for all our glassware needs but for equipment you either diy it or go broke (a good hotplate is ~500$ new, 200$ used in bad conditions)

Either a guitar.. or a gpu

about 100 nights at the cheapest campsite i know of that takes caravans

or about 17-20 nights at some of the more expensive ones

A hole in the water you can throw money into

Surprised no one has mentioned: Audio

I would either get two bookshelf speakers or a set of Hifiman Arya organics. Or a used lcd-x. Maybe a few guitar pedals. Or a new guitar. Or possibly a synthesizer.

Or a pair of boots, a great backpack, hiking trousers, helmet, harness and a "via ferrata cable kit".

A pretty good but not fantastic camera or lens

A new practice basket. A new stack of practice putters. A cart. With plenty left over for me to get a few more backups for some of my favorite discs.

Signed 1st edition hardback of New Hampshire by Robert Frost.

A lot of LEGO bricks for my models.

Photography:

I could get a Nikon Z7, but no lens.

I could almost get my favourite lens, the Lumix S 24-105 f/4 it is just out of range

First hobby, writting. So, enough pens and paper to the end of my life, and more... But not enough notebooks, I can't have enough notebooks.

Second hobby, collecting bones and dead things. What could be expensive is a nice shelf for exposing, but 250€ max. Dissection kit, 30. A big bag of salt, 20. Some pins, 5. This specific washing powder, 15/20 OR hydrogene peroxyde, 20/30. Uncolored dishwashing liquid, 2. Toothbrush, 2. Shovel, 15. Box of gloves, 15. A bin and a lock, 70. Nylon met, 20. This really nice vegan taxidermy, 550.

1/13th of an AMD Epyc 9755

Lots of volumes of manga, some indie games and a little handheld emulator

A good number of games on my PC.

Anywhere from 3-100 books of sheet music depending on the books.

A bunch of used blu-rays.

A ton of used records.

A new set of speakers for my record and/or home theatre setup(s).

A new amp for my record setup.

A new pre-amp for my record setup.

A little over half the parts for a new gaming PC.

Around 3-5 vintage watches for me to fix up.

Some new tools for fixing up vintage watches.

About 7-8 pocket knives.

A new kitchen knife set.

Some new pots and pans.

Does alcohol count as a hobby? If so then 5-10 bottles of scotch.

Shit, I have a lot of hobbies. No wonder I have no money. There’s probably stuff I’m forgetting too. Damn.

Had to do a quick conversion search to make sure roughly how much that would be, and I could have a day like the fairly recent day I bought a pawn shop acoustic guitar, pack of picks, and a guitar stand maybe around 10 times.

I could also, probably, head over to a CD shop I really like and buy probably close to 100 CDs ( probably much less than 90 because tax, but that's still a lot ).

I could go to an electronics shop and get their opinion and help on upgrading my desktop motherboard, alongside upgrading to a used, few years older ( probably 2020-21 because I don't do much that would kill it ) model graphics card if I could find a good one somewhere like eBay.

I could try to collect a physical copy of every single non-arcade, launched in America Sonic game on console. Console not included for some of them because they're too expensive or I don't care about them for the case of anything past xbox360 or ps3. Though, I imagine the Master System titles would be pretty expensive, so IDK how that would go.

Either that, or I would love to cheap out and just pay some people who are willing to do a copyright infringement by making some Tails plushies based on his SatAM/Adventures cartoon design/personality. Would probably be a lot cheaper and just as cool. Fulfills my hobby of having a ton of plushies/stuffed animals and be Sonic related, so bonus points to me.

I could wait for the next Steam sale and get tons of games to add to my backlog but never actually get around to. Even with my somewhat picky nature, I'm fairly certain I'd find tons of games to purchase.

I could probably get even better headphones than my already pretty good quality beats to really up my music listening. Pair that with a pretty good audio playback device and I'd be in heaven... or accidentally make myself deaf and wanna die.

I could get the remaining manga from the Bakuman series I like and, depending on price and volumes, probably get the remainders of Soul Eater ( I think I've only got maybe volumes 1-2 ).

I could buy a metric ton of snacks and foods from a nearby import store and an Asian market.

Hell, I could probably take a couple lessons for that guitar I bought so that way I can learn the proper way to play.

Edit:

I could also expand my dice collection and playing card collection. I would love to have a ton of decks of cards. Especially some ones where the cards are different shapes, like these little leaf shaped cards I currently own.

A decent guitar

~10 manual mid-range tools and enough wood to make a nice looking jewellery box.

I could get loads of cool liquors I've been eyeing for experimentation! Or like... one reeeeeally nice scotch.

Less than one collector booster box of cards from the latest set...

Sigh....

20-25 Rashguards i guess

A decent custom made surfboard, two very good but stock surfboards or 3-10(maybe more?) used surfboards. Or take 500 for a cheap flight to a surf destination and 500 for a board, which can get you a very good new one or 2-5 used surfboards.

I would probably buy a really nice Pechauer pool cue. Or another premium brand as quality equipment is pretty important for pool players.

A low-uptime server to backup my current one

Or a really crazy sex toy maybe, depends on how responsible I'm feeling

It varies wildly, but I'd go with the level of quality I'd be paying for, not what the most you could get for that money would be (Also, I'm in the UK, so I'm kinda just answering for a grand in GBP to save myself converting). Also, I kinda rotate my hobbies so my favourite varies based on when you're asking me. In no particular order:

Music production: a couple of Eurorack modules or some percentage of a full synth, you can get cheaper stuff, but I've probably got equivalents available at that level already. I could upgrade my keyboard to a fancy new Komplete or KeyLab one. Software wise, if all my software and vsts released new versions and I decided to lose my mind for a minute, I'd hopefully be able to cover all the typical version upgrade costs for that price. (Realistically I tend to wait until a couple of versions have passed before an upgrade if nothing jumps out at me about it)

Music listening (vinyl): 20-40 on records or a nice-enough-for-me pair of speakers. You could probably get 4 or 5 of my turntable (which would be silly) as it does the job perfectly for me.

Music listening (gigs and festivals): tickets, travel and a good chunk of my other expenses to go to Glastonbury or European festival (got decent camping gear already, so don't need to buy that). Tickets and travel, but not much for other expenses for a couple of smaller or city festivals. 10 arena gigs or 20-40 smaller gigs.

Travel: big, big holiday ~2 weeks, maybe half the hotel costs, maybe less as I tend to go all out when it's a long holiday. Shorter long weekends I'd hope to get my flights and accommodation at that price. If it's a stag do or similar, I'd hope to pretty much cover all costs for that.

Photography: I shoot full frame using a Sony alpha, so it might get me a percentage of a camera body or maybe a couple of decent second hand lenses (maybe 3 or 4 of the more entry level ones), of the lenses I'd like to buy, I think there is one I could get new for around that price.

Gaming (pc): probably a new mid-to-high-end graphics card, games wise I pretty much exclusively wait until things are on sale on Steam, so probably at least a couple of years of steam spend. Oh I could get a couple of steam decks if I had a reason to buy more than the one I've already got.

Watching football & rugby (live): I'm an Arsenal fan that lives in the north, so I'm probably only getting two chances to go for that price as I'll need to factor in travel, hotels, meals and beers. I visit some lower league grounds nearer me every now and again, I reckon a grand would pay for a season ticket and all my concessions that year plus a bit of merch at most of them. My rugby team no longer exists, but I could see them 4-5 times a year with travel etc. before they went into administration

Watching football & rugby (legally on TV): Need Sky, TNT, Amazon Prime, Premier Sports (predominantly for rugby), TV licence & if I was truly arsed about them, various one off passes for pre-season competitions. You're probably not getting a whole year for that price unless you do the threaten-to-quit-sky thing and hope they give you a decent discount, you can also get away with sharing logins for some of these, but I was answering strictly legally.

Eating a meal out (I like going to new restaurants so I guess it's a hobby): I'd probably take my partner out for dinner around my city 4-10 times for that depending where we go, a couple of courses plus a bottle of wine and maybe cocktails.

I..... was not expecting this comment to become an essay lol

A really good distilling setup, or an embroidery machine, or a hen house upgrade, or a sublimation printer and T-shirt press, or a fancy wine fridge (stocked)... I have a lot of favorite hobbies.

Haven TKL in e–white with the gold PVD plate, SW x Haimu MP Tactile switches, Wuque Studio Aurora Pink stabs, and GMK Pâtisserie keycaps. Sigh...