What's your most expensive interest?

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Broadly I like physics. In specific, it is lights.
It started with a SAD room, Seasonal Affective Disorder drives me bipolar when sunlight is under four hours per day.
Duplicating outdoor noon sun in an open field led to sunburn and peeled skin, I take this serious. I adjusted the light to an open field with a tree in the middle for shade, the UV is still there but more diffuse.

Out of the blue, green, and red lasers the green is strong enough for me to write cursive on plywood. The warning label says "do not aim at satellites", these are mostly played with in the winter, the nights are over 18 hours long for several months.

The SAD room can be varied from desert to jungle canopy, I have 17 HIDs but only use five at a time for background. The HIDs are way harsh compared to LEDs and the spectrum is preset instead of adjustable. There is also a four foot high surround with 70 various fluorescents, sunsets can be spectacular with proper switching.

When I am chilled (outside temps reach -40) I go into the room and turn on all the lights at once, 8600 watts in one place warms me up and gets me cheerful as well.

Yes, I had a job, and no, I do not have running water, piping scares me no matter how bright I make it.

Glass blowing is fun, but yes, access is all you want. Once you start that furnace, you can't shut it off. I tried off hand glass blowing for about six months. Impossible to make a living at, without being solely obsessed at getting really good, really fast...and having someone to pay your way while you get good!

I don't have a pottery studio, just all of the tools...a studio would imply the room to use the tools. I have half of a 900 square foot garage, which isn't mine, and it's full...mostly metalworking machinery and hoarded crap. I think I'm expanding the metalworking machinery though, I want bigger stuff. My jewelry tools all fit in a box thankfully, though I want a table.

Thank you for all of the posts, they cheered me up to know that other people have similar obsessions. All of the people I work with are like, "oh, i buy coach purses"...how many do you own, "oh, maybe 5". Puh-lease....come back when you can put a 3 in front of that, and have named them.

taking road trips to Florida

I personally did not think my special interest was overly costly until I realized all the awesome things I cannot afford, like a $1,000 set of inking markers a friend of mine has v,v I want them.

i'm happy to see other metal workers and jewelry makers on here! I have a full silversmithing studio myself. I did work professionally at it years ago too but stopped abruptly and never looked back. I made a left turn and taught myself graphic design and did that until I decided to be a doll maker.

But....my big collection is my vinyl. Lucky for all I am weird about spending money on it, i prefer to find awesome records at garage sales and thrift shops. I will occasionally buy an interesting LP on ebay but I don't enjoy it as much. Same for the occasional record store purchases when the need to own a certain LP wins. I did get a nice turntable and receiver at a garage sale last week Now I have 5 turntables. Oops.

I prefer to find things instead of just buy things. To me they are soooo much better and more enjoyable that way. i have a major thrift shop obsession.

learning to fly fixed wing aircraft is my greatest personal expense next to raising three children.

why do so [relatively] few people do audio restoration as a musical hobby?

Gardening,I spend way too much money on plants.But my yard is AWESOME.
But sometimes I feel to dejected to even enjoy that.

I've been into RC cars and helicopters for nearly half my life. I recently wrote out all of the rc cars I've ever owned (over 40) and added up the value of each car (when they were new) and what aftermarket upgrades I've done to them. It turns out that over the past 16 years, I've spent nearly $18,000 on this hobby!

I currently only have 5 cars and 3 helicopters. All together, they're worth around $5,000 not including support equipment like spare parts, batteries and chargers (another $1200)

the single most costly piece of equipment i have, [still it is worth every penny, i bought it used] is a CEDAR DCX digital declicker used to remove impulse noise from phonographic recordings. no software [and i've tried just about all of 'em] can do exactly what this baby does, i.e., declick soundfiles with percussive musical transients in them without blunting those transients. but it doesn't like brass music that much, i have to turn it way down or else the brass becomes more like cloth.

Last Summer's obsessive project was designing & creating a gravity fed automatic plant watering system for my Herbalist friend so that he can water several of his house plants while he's away for a weekend trip. It doesn't look like it would have cost as much money to build as it did, but I had to buy a few tools, borrow some, pay a bong maker to bore a hole in glass, source all the materials via many trips to hardware stores, furniture shops, garden centres, thrift stores, & a friend's restaurant. I had to learn how to cut glass & enlist the strength of a couple of fire fighters to hold some material under a drill press while I bored a hole. All in all it also took well over 100 hours of time, especially since I had some technical physics difficulties to figure out and correct. I could have made it for a much lower cost if it just had to function, but when I offered to build my idea into reality I was given the criteria that it had to look good or he wouldn't want it on display in his home or garden, soooo the budget had to go up to accommodate that. It does work as designed & we're going to set it up properly this Spring. It would certainly cost less money to build another one now that I've bought the tools. It would also take significantly less time since I'd basically go shopping with a bill of materials list and then just get it done over a weekend vs. having to design it and source parts and tools every step of the way. All in all it might have cost less money to pay someone to go water his plants when he's away but I learned a lot and had a ton of fun making it - annnnd I made it as a gift for my friend, so, it was worth while just for that factor.

I have two main vices:

1) Photography, especially astrophotography. The money spent on telescopes, lenses, cameras, filters, autoguiders, computers, cables, software and above all a tracking mount really adds up over time. However, the cost of my semi-dark sky shooting location (a "summer cabin" up in the Catskills, hence the name "semikaatskillian") dwarfs all the astro gear put together. As I get older, I'll have to switch over to macrophotography/microphotography, which is far less physically demanding.

2) Precious metals: mainly gold, just in case we go through a period of high inflation in the years ahead after I retire and can't earn any more money. Over the last 50 years, I acquired mostly "junk gold" coins -- old circulated (5,10,20) dollars, sovereigns, francs, marks, lire, pesetas, kroner, pesos, reales, etc. BTW, I keep all these in safety deposit boxes in multiple banks in multiple "cities", so if anybody wants them, they'll have do bank robberies. I take closeup reference photos (see interest #1, above) of the coins before they go into the vault. I suspect I'ev spent more on interest (2) than (1) over the decades.

Fly fishing and fly tying, but only at the start, when I had to buy everything.

being a female Aspie mine are utterly gender relevant (and probably seem frivolous compared to some on here).

Probably the most expensive one is beauty gadgets of which I have quite a collection.

My matching colour co-ordinated shoe and bag collection (which I bought but don't use) is pretty extensive.

Over the years, I have probably spent a fortune on make-up as my interest in that started at age 13 and has never waned. I buy make-up even when I don't need any so I've always got stocks of creams, make-up and associated stuff in reserve, but still I will buy more.

I also collect jewellery, and end up buying more jewellery boxes for it all, and most of it is never worn. My husband can't understand the way I tick.

If I had the space, my book collection would expand no end...this would include scientific mysteries, conspiracy theories and the paranormal.

My love affair with eBay has gone on years. If I can't think of anything to buy I will research what I can buy and have a need to maintain my habit.

I've never had the money to blow a lot in one go, mine add up up in value over time.

I used to collect jewelry (mostly designer brands) so that was pretty expensive. Haven't done it for a few years though. Now I collect handmade hair sticks or forks. I think DH is pretty grateful about this less expensive hobby. I think next thing I'll be selling off everything I collected and try to be a minimalist.

Some of you guys really do have a lot of money to spend on pricey interests... My problem is more that I can't finish projects that I've started. I'm happy to just survive in everyday living doing my job in autopilot mode. Anyway, I've spent a good sum on hobbies, which include:

- Photography (my DSLR $1700), Astronomy ($...)
- Cycling (altogether my two bikes $3000)
- Audio reproduction (approx. $1300), Recordings ($..., I don't have that many)
- My London trip in September 2012 ($1300) (it is connected to my Oliver Twist obsession and being an Anglophile)
- Cars (a 1970 Skoda S100 from Czechoslovakia, 80% restored, $1800), and a VW Golf VI I'm using currently ($22800).
- Notebook ($820)
- Bank-account ($... )