Can you afford your special interests?

WAHHHHH my special interest is space and I know it's one of the most far-fetched dreams out there but I really, REALLY wanna go to space. However I need to go to flight school which costs like €90,000 where I live. I can't make it 

Yes I can.  It's mainly just building my various collections that I spend money on.

Dogs are the best people.

I found my reading glasses and dusted off a book I was half way through 12 months ago, then before I knew it I'd read the 3 I had gathered in recent years and hadn't started. Felt good to get back into reading.

It made me think I might get a Kindle, sounds like they're worth it?

Thankfully just about, but who knows after my upcoming PIP lol or not.

Let me explain one of my interests. I like filming in nature as well and have a videocamera and youtube channel to share the videos. I also like to treat myself some theatre at times/cinema. I just saw Garfield the other day.

I went into specialised inpatient for one of my comorb conditions at 21. I had odemea which I found distressing and an OT did a aromatherapy massage on me using essential oils. It really worked for me. I got up several times in the night to pass fluid. This really helped with my feelings of distress. This continued for me in further with getting OT massages with essential oils. I did a summer course as well and started buying on offer to help try and rest more. I was trying to manage health issues in an alternative way as well. Sometimes I go just too far and the oils can make feel quite unwell as they can be too strong. I have an aromatherapy burner. Amazon is easy to order from as well. I feel quite hypontised when I use Frankinese Chamomile Blue and Lavender at night in a burner. I kept some to promote well being, but I have streamlined buying oils today. Sometimes I just cannot bare being touched as well by anyone.

Just got quite a large delivery from Holland and Barrett. Really good deals. Free delivery. Further twenty percent .off it was and some of there standard sale

It's horrible that our furry friends don't live as long as we do.

I spend quite a lot on genealogy,including the DNA side of it. I spend a fair amount also on high range IQ tests.Although I spend quite a lot I don't get into debt, and do have some savings. It helps that I don't smoke, and very seldom drink alcohol.

I miss all the dogs I have ever had. They really are best friends.

I miss having a dog.  The unquestioning love. A friend who protects you. Keeps you warm at night. Guards when you are sleeping. 

I watched City of Death about three months ago, and for the first time since it was broadcast! They may have redone the titles, because I think it said Douglas Adams? (Don't quote me - my memory is notoriously shoddy, and maybe I just knew.) The funny thing is how I remember very clearly the hieroglyphic type pictures. I must have been 9. I started watching from my first Doctor - Jon Pertwee with Jo. (Kind of reliving my youth, which I am doing a lot recently) When I saw him as a child, it may have been repeats, so a year or so after first broadcast, but he was still my first Doctor. Even nearly 50 years later, the blue crystal (Planet of the Spiders?) was still lodged in my mind, and I was jolted back 50 years when I saw it (quite apt, seeing as this is all about time travel... well not so much Jon's era, but you know what I mean.)

I've paused watching, and am still only on Tom, but I watched a lot of episodes! One of the things that struck me was that despite Leela sadly being there as eye candy (totally passed me by as a kid), she was the most kick-a*se of the lot. A total equal. Not scared or anything or anyone.

Like the S&S 'head canon'

Shada is top-tier, as you'd expect with Adams writing! He did co-write one other too, City of Death which is excellent. Under the nom de plume of David Agnew, but it's very much his voice. Just in case you fancy giving that a whirl. He script edited that whole 1979 season too. Apologies, you might already know all that!

Yes, the elements thing... hmmm. Well, my wee bit of 'head canon' for that is that as the humans in S&S have so little understanding of reality's true fabric, the mysterious powers that be know something we don't about why those fit the bill! Or just thought 'elements' was a cool group designation. 

I'm going to ask for Blakes Seven for my birthday or Christmas. Sapphire and Steel was ace. Though, the 'element' thing still irks me for both - Silver and Lead were OK . I'm not a huge Whovian, but I do have the Shada bluray (as much for Douglas Adams as DW) and another Tom Baker set (S14). I've been watching some on iPlayer.

One thing I'm especially grateful for: the fact that the podcasts I religiously follow (many, but not all of them, Doctor Who ones) are free,  labours of love that they are. I guess they've taken the place of what fanzines (which were never free as such, but definitely breaking even at best!) were in the 80s/90s. The really deep dive stuff can be indulged in these for hours on end. And all for no financial cost. Fab. 

This is such an interesting question and thread, thanks for raising it as it's so interesting to see everyone's take on the cost issue. 

I'm a little stuck between a yes and a no on this one. My main special interest is, and has always been (since my 1980s childhood) Doctor Who. 

There's always been a bit of a battle between completionism urges and self control.

At the minimum, in the present era of Who output, I must:

Pay my telly licence (I watch other stuff too of course) to legally watch the newest episodes.

Get each month's Doctor Who Magazine

Buy one or more of the audio adventures monthly

Buy the Bluray Season sets as they come out (2-3 times a year) - this having already bought all the stories individually as VHSs, audios, DVDs over the years as things evolved

Get the books (largely factual/biographical) that most interest me

At a maximum, I would hope to:

All of the above, plus eventually get all the audio stories. 

That last is something of a vain hope. In the early days, the company licensed to make them had one or two new Doctor Whos and associated spin-offs come out per month. Now, between various strands, there could be as many as 5 or 6 in a given month. Short of a lottery win... I must come to terms with never making up the lost ground. 

Despite how it may sound, I'm basically an essentialist: it's the complete expanded canon that I'm fascinated with/invested in, so things like action figures, merch, collectables etc. are not a big part of my fan experience, and to be honest I'm not sure how anyone could afford to keep on top of all that - though fair play to them if they manage to.

While Doctor Who is my first love, adjacent fandoms also have a place in my heart, so I will be unable for instance to resist buying the Blake's 7 Blu-ray collector sets shortly to come out - with all those new lovingly made documentaries etc. as 'extras' that's too essential a purchase not to make. 

Other series I've bought on DVD over the years: Sapphire and Steel, The Tomorrow People, Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Doomwatch, The Omega Factor, Star Cops....

Of course that's been over decades. But it's no wonder that I always had more debt than any glimmer of savings. I hope to be able to change that soon, remembering to keep essentialism as my guiding principle...

I love my kindle subscription too, I was top reader 6 weeks in a row! For me it's really good value for money as I can read a book a day, I just wish there were more non fiction works on subscription and that I could zoom in on the maps and things, I love maps. There are things about the kindle that I don't find so good for non fiction, not just maps but glosseries and notes, I can't flick back and forward like I can with a paper book.

I had a look at OU open learn courses and none of them really grabbed me.

I can find bits and pieces later periods of history that will interest me, but not enough to make me want to learn more, although I can go off on quite a polemic/diatribe about the so called enlightenment which is well out of my normal areas of interest.

I recently stumbled on a good way to take part in my love of the br class 507 trains I'm joining the preservation society its 30 quid a year or a tennor a month if you want a membership card and a custom member number sp I'm opting for that second I will mostly struggle to attend events due to location and work but it will be nice to keep informed and to know my money is helping 

I find the internet a distraction I try stay away from YouTube tbh other than this forum which I'm using to get advice etc I'm trying to only use the internet for shopping and stuff 

As for storage I have a drawer which gets bad damp so i only store empty ps2 cases in it and wii games(I'm slot less fussy if wii covers get damaged as its easier to get replacements) 

I store the games on a cd shelf in slimmer cd cases I used to use sleeve cases but they damage cds and dvds 

If I owned a house and had more reasonable neijbours I'd convert a wall into shelves and I'd have a space underneath to store a kick stool so I could build high and wid

I do limit what i buy partially for to space and partly due to I get overwhelmed by too much choice which is why i gave up on my series s as i had the sounds of games on it same with ps5 but on switch I try buy mostly physical as this helps 

I like to actually own the things I buy. So I've got hundreds of CDs and books, many of which I've had to get creative with how I store them. I keep buying new books even though my reading retention got real bad ever since I got access to the internet.

Big tip dont become a professional you will change them way too often like were talking playing a set with a string missing and having to try get more after wards 

That said if your playing chords as rhythm and are playing only triad chords you find a missing d string makes weird but cool new voicings