The Real Price of a Hobby Is Never Just the Money

Published August 1, 2026. Last updated August 1, 2026. By Andrew M. Tan.

The Reality of Miniature Painting

Miniature painting is time consuming! It really is.

You can be a casual painter putting together a new Warhammer 40K army. Oh, this is probably the best part; the beginning. Starting is always the easiest. That exciting new collection and envisioning lore made manifest—a shiny new Necron force, yellow (?) Orks, or whatever you’ve chosen. The color scheme is next, of course, and how the whole army will eventually look and perform on the tabletop battlefield.

It’ll be glorious!

Then you realize, as I have many times over—a lesson never truly learned—what it actually takes to get that hobby project onto the tabletop in the way you imagined it.

You need the rules. You need the models and kits. Then you have to assemble them, paint them, and, yes at some point, transport everything safely from your home to wherever you’re gaming.

That’s the sum of it.

Time and money.

Every new project begins as an idea. Eventually, however, that idea makes a claim on your future (time!).

We Still Have to Do the Hobby

Sure, you can hire a commission miniature painter like myself—a self-plug—but when it comes down to it, miniature painting is still largely an all-or-none hobby. Someone has to do the work. It’s not a job, but it’s still work.

Work really is something you do when you’d rather be doing something else, isn’t it?

You can place a gray plastic army on the table and start playing, but that doesn’t feel particularly kind to all the money you already spent.

Yes, paint your minis!

Curiosity Has a Cost

I’ve bought so many things to try, explore, test, and then eventually discard.

Knowing myself, I’m always looking for that intellectual input. I need to feel like I’m learning something. I’m deeply curious about things, especially things that seem just unfamiliar enough to promise a new skill, experience, or way of seeing.

That curiosity has served me well. It’s part of why I became a scientist, a photographer, a miniature painter, and probably why Tangible Day exists at all. But curiosity also has a cost.

The problem now is time and money.

I’ve spent a lot of both. I’ve also spread myself thin. I’ve learned some of this the hard way — stretching a hobby budget without buying your way to better results is its own kind of discipline.

There’s just me, a single human being on Earth.

I have kids, for goodness’ sake.

Every kit I buy, tool I test, game I begin, or creative project I imagine quietly joins a line of other things waiting for my attention. And attention, even more than money, may be the resource I have the least of. The “attention economy” bites you hard as you get older.

Maybe I don’t have a solution other than being aware.

Saying Yes More Carefully

I’m more self-aware now about where I place my time, emotion, and resources. I don’t necessarily need a return on investment in the form of money, productivity, or some other material reward. A hobby does not need to justify itself that way.

But I do want to understand what I’m agreeing to when I say yes to something.

Because when I say yes to one thing, I’m probably going to have to say no to something else.

Boundaries, I suppose, is how this is described.

That word sounds more rigid than what I mean. I’m not trying to turn the hobby into another system of rules. I’m simply trying to notice what each new thing asks of me before I bring it home.

Every Unopened Kit Is a Broken Promise

In the miniature hobby space, this has meant being much more careful about how I spend money on cool kits, tools, paints, games, and other gadgets.

The problem is rarely that any one of these things is bad. Most of them are interesting. Many are genuinely useful. Some might even make the hobby easier or open up a new way of working.

The problem is accumulation. Like a bookshelf, at some point you can’t add more books without something falling off the edge.

The more stuff you have, the more time it takes away from you and from the other things you’re already doing.

An unopened model kit on the shelf may look passive, but it isn’t. It represents something unfinished. A miniature waiting to be assembled, painted. A paint set waiting to be tested. A game waiting to be learned. A tool waiting for a project that justifies buying it.

Each object carries a small promise about the person you might become when you finally use it. I’m making promises to myself I’m afraid I can’t keep!

That may be why it can feel so difficult to let these things go. You are not only letting go of an object. You are letting go of a possible future — a version of yourself who had the time, energy, and discipline to do everything you imagined.

I’ve had to accept that I’m probably not going to become every version of myself that my hobbies make seemingly and deceivingly possible.

There’s just not enough time.

Hmm. Maybe choosing, saying “no” more is simply part of making anything meaningful.

You Don’t Have to Own the Whole Hobby

I suppose this also relates to why I think hobbies, in general, should exist within a community if you want to enjoy them over the long term.

A community allows you to experience more of the hobby without personally needing to own, learn, or master every part of it.

Someone else can know the rules better than you. Someone else can own the terrain, try the strange new paint, print the obscure miniature, or explain why your army list makes absolutely no sense.

Why do I feel like I’m advocating the corporate world? I guess in some way I’m describing why and how large commercial companies grow and big ideas stay alive.

In any case, you still get to participate. You still learn. You still make things. But you do not have to carry the entire hobby by yourself.

That shared experience may be one of the best answers to the pressure to buy everything. The hobby becomes something you participate in with other people. Just because joe-schmo has the shiny thing, you could enjoy still from a distance. It doesn’t need to be in your house.

Maybe the Goal Isn’t to Experience Everything

I still love discovering new things. I still love learning, testing, exploring, and getting excited about the next project.

That part of me isn’t going away.

Curiosity is part of what makes the hobby fun. It keeps me looking, experimenting, and wondering what might happen if I try something differently.

But curiosity doesn’t require ownership. That sounds obvious when I write it out. In practice, apparently, it has taken me decades to understand.

I’m trying to be more intentional about what I bring into my life.

The price printed on the box is only the first cost.

Pay Attention to You

At the end of the day, the hobby is more than unopened kits, the newest tool, or having every possible option available.

Maybe this is all about learning to pay attention. Being firmly present to the miniature in front of you, and to the limited hours you have.

That’s part of why I started Tangible Day in the first place. I wanted a place to think about what making things means.

The things we choose to do and make matter. But now I’m thinking that the act of choosing matters too.

Final Thoughts

I still enjoy finding new tools, trying new paints, and imagining what I might make next.

I’m simply trying to be more aware of what each new thing asks of me. The real cost of a kit, tool, or game is not only the price. It is also the time needed to learn it, use it, store it, and give it the attention I imagined when I bought it.

There is only so much time, money, and attention to go around. For me, enjoying the hobby more deeply now means choosing fewer things and actually spending time with them.

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