The Little World

Versus the value of the hobby – an eternal debate in many fields. Whenever we engage in an activity that does not immediately yield food, shelter, or sex, there has to be some calculation as to the worth of the time and money spent. In most cases the good stuff takes a considerable amount of both.

I am going to ask a cross-section of people in my various hobby interests to tell me how much they spend in a year pursuing whatever it is. I’ll know it will be a really cross section because I am going to persist until they get annoyed – I want the truth.

This means I’ll also have to fess up and calculate how much I spend on photography and scale model building. I have shelved re-enactment so that does not draw upon me any more…but I suspect I spent as much on it in the last few decades as I did on anything else. There may have been a few cases of return for goods sold or services rendered, but overall the ink in the ledger is red.

Of course, that may not be a bad thing. Red is also the colour of living blood and if you are sanguine about your hobbies you are generally living well. No one really expects to be paid for having their fun…and if they do, it quickly converts the fun into worry and work.

If you are turned off by mathematics, do not read the rest of the articles on money. But if you are thoughtful, it might give you some idea whether or not you are behaving sensibly with your own spending.