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What is your budget breakdown, or in other words how much of your budget do you spend on hobbies or video games or fun things?
My hobbies that involve spending money are primarily:
Hunting for old golf clubs at thrift stores and flea markets. Less than $100 a month. (I couldn't even explain why I do this. I just get the urge.)
Driving around and taking pictures of stuff. Well less than $100 a month (just gas and snacks really).
Reading; buying books at the used bookstore up the street. $50 max a month.
Working out at the Y. About $45 a month in membership.
Occasionally drinking at bars, breweries, etc. Probably not more than $100 a month on average, but months with special occasions do pop up and drive this up.
Video games... I don't really play a ton, and usually when I do, it's one game for a long time. Like $25 a month tops.
That's pretty much it. I'd have to do something really unusual to even hit 10% of my budget. I guess the key is that I like to cook and prefer to cook, so I go out to eat only 1-2 times a month. Other hobbies I have just don't cost anything. I play guitar but I like the guitar I've got; I like to work on my garden but that's free. I take a lot of long walks, that's free; I write, that's free. My friends and I hang out at each other's houses a lot, or else we do stuff that's like, "Let's go and look at x. Hmmm, that's a cool x."
I’d like to hear more about your golf club hobby. Are you a golfer? Have you ever actually found any gems at a thrift store?
I am a golfer, although I'm a super casual and have not been doing it for very long; and equally important, I already have multiple full bags' worth of clubs I can play. I think for me the appeal is that it's so fun to see how all the different ones will hit - especially given that there are several thrift stores within 15 minutes of me that price them at $1.00 a club. "Hmmm, that's an interesting bounce on that sand wedge. I wonder if it'll help me play out of trouble? Let's just find out." It combines well with another hobby, which is: going to the driving range and practicing. Sometimes I'll just take an entire bag of "new" thrift clubs and test them all out. It makes for a really fascinating afternoon for less than $20 - if you're into that kind of thing.
In terms of gems, honestly, that's even more uncommon than I anticipated. If you consider the "big" manufacturers to be Callaway, Titleist, Ping, Cobra, and TaylorMade - I've seen clubs manufactured by those companies in the last 25 years, like... never. Genuinely just about never. In the age of the Internet I guess people know how much stuff is worth, so those don't end up in places like that. Once I saw a set of King Cobra II irons that was missing the 9, and an ancient TaylorMade Burner 5-wood with a tiny little head. (I did buy that one.) I've heard of people reselling thrift store clubs and making money; I guess those folks just get to them first.
As far as playable clubs go, though, I've found some really nice stuff. I have a Nickent Super Concorde 7-wood that plays beautifully. I even found an ancient Northwestern 1-iron so I could find out if they're really as hard to play as people say. (Answer: Yep. They certainly are. But it gives me something to aim for - when I can hit that 1-iron off the deck, I'll know I've truly accomplished something.)
Most of the thrift chains divert the good stuff to an internet auction site. For example goodwill uses shopgoodwill.com there are some deals to be found there especially if you're good at recognizing obscure things from a photograph. The descriptions are pretty hit and miss so the best deals come from a big pile of stuff listed with just one or two photos of all the stuff.
In lenses buyers were very good if even part of a famous lens was visible the lot would sell at pretty close to low grade used prices.
Pawn shops are more likely to have semi-recent high-end clubs IME -- they probably aren't a dollar each, but much less than retail.
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