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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   4727 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 27, 2023

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What's your philosophy on spending on hobby equipment? Let that be better kitchen equipment, better sports gear, better gaming gear, whatever.

I strongly lean towards the "A bad carpenter blames his tools" and "The magic is in the artist's hand not the paintbrush" camp and think that when partaking in a hobby the "right" way to do things is to practice frugality in the initial stages and upgrade the equipment as you grow out not in.

Some examples of this in practice;

  1. I used a rackety old bicycle I bought used for years until I built up enough fitness where the cycle was the limiting factor and not my legs. Then I bought a name-branded bike and was instantly much faster. (For aspiring cyclists, yes it actually takes years.)
  2. Used shitty grocery store knives until I developed enough knife skills to justify owning a Victorinox Fibrox. Still nowhere near justifying one of those Japanese blades.
  3. Bought a good gaming setup with a good GPU, Mouse, and 120Hz monitor after years of gaming on a shitty setup.

However, I'm seeing the holes in this line of thought as I am in a place now where I can just afford the "good" equipment to start off with. There exists no Frugality or Thriftiness God who will look down on me for breaking the old ways, if anything, I might be somewhat of an extremist in that regard.

But it feels "wrong". One of the things that helps me sleep easier at night is that I live this way. But why? Any arbitrary things helping you sleep well at night? Or is it just a made up struggle?

Depends on the hobby. If it's something I'm going to use regularly or where the quality of the tool directly affects the quality of the experience or the finished result, then I try to get something at the inflection point of the price curve where the tangent is around one. As an example, I won't buy Lie-Nielsen or even Veritas hand planes, but I won't buy some vintage Soviet shit off the local equivalent of Craigslist or anything from the DIY big box stores either. But Dick or the house brands of two dedicated local carpentry stores are usually at the right price point.

If it's some random one-off task, I go the Hazard Fraught route and buy the cheapest tool that will do the job. Right now I am on vacation in the mountains and I've bought literally the cheapest hiking shoes I could find. They and my feet held up well.

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