If you enjoy something enough to do it in your spare time, use it to brighten your day, or see it as a platform for self-development, it’s totally worth your hard-earned money. But there’s a point of diminishing returns, where you feel inclined to buy more things for little gain.

Here are some rabbit holes to be wary of.

Photography

A higher spend doesn’t mean better photos

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

The term Gear Acquisition Syndrome, or GAS as it is more commonly known, is the bane of many who enjoy picking up a camera. Photography can be a very expensive hobby, and many of those expenses are justified. A good lens will last you a lifetime; a capable body is good for a decade or more.

But photography might be the worst hobby for trend chasing, and social media has really leaned into this. The trend of influencers pushing incredibly expensive gear from brands like Hasselblad and Leica seems worse than ever. These setups cost tens of thousands of dollars, but they don’t necessarily improve the photos you take.

Fancy equipment has its place, but you can produce excellent photographs on entry-level equipment with a keen eye and plenty of practice. Putting time and effort into learning photographic techniques and understanding how to achieve good results goes a lot further than going into debt for the fastest glass and brand-name bodies.

You can start taking photos on virtually anything. A smartphone, an old digital SLR, or a mirrorless camera with a kit lens from 15 years ago. Sony cameras are particularly good starting points as they have exploded in popularity over the past decade, with many available for very reasonable prices on the used market (arguably the best way to get your first full-frame digital).

If you have a 3D printer, you can save even more money on accessories like filter adapters, camera rigs, clips, storage, and more.

3D printing

You don’t need every upgrade and filament

3D printing was once the domain of the nerdiest nerds on the internet who would build, maintain, and upgrade their machines, piece by piece. But modern 3D printers have all but killed the tinkering hobby, which means today’s machines are mostly closed-source contraptions that make 3D printing easy and accessible but offer little in the way of upgrade paths.

If you want to see “significant” improvements, you’ll probably need to buy a new printer. In rare instances, as is the case with Prusa machines, you can upgrade a machine or add a tool changer like the INDX. But Prusa is pricey, and even these come close to the price of a new printer.

There was a flurry of anguish among Bambu Lab P2S owners earlier in 2026 when Bambu Lab launched its X2D prosumer printer months after the P2S release for an extra $100. For the money, you get two nozzles, a heated chamber, better filtration, improved belts for better print quality, and more.

The perfect 3D printer doesn’t exist. Upgrades are nice, but they don’t devalue what you already have. Your old printer is just as capable as it always was, as long as you maintain it properly. You don’t need every fancy filament on the market, and fancy filament upgrades can even lead to more print failures.

Coffee

Second only to photography for GAS

Credit: Tim Brookes / How-To Geek

Coffee was once over-extracted and bitter mud-in-a-cup that people drank only to wake up in the morning. We’ve thankfully moved past that, and now coffee is an obsession, a personality type, an art form, and a great way to lose a few thousand dollars by watching a few YouTube videos.

Believe it or not, you can now make better coffee at home than in most cafés. The balance of power has shifted, and consumer coffee gear gives you the freedom to tweak variables until you find your perfect cup. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to do this, using only your taste buds to guide you.

Good coffee at home starts with good coffee beans. Add an entry-level grinder like the KINGrinder P0 ($30) and a $13 plastic Hario V60 coffee dripper, and you’ll get excellent pour-over. You can spend more on an electric grinder like the Baratza Encore ($150) if you don’t like grinding by hand.

Things are more expensive in the espresso world, but even an entry-level grinder like the MiiCoffee DF54 ($230) and a basic machine like the Breville Bambino ($300) are enough to get at least 70% of the way there. I opted for a manual lever-press machine and bought a Cafelat Robot for around $450. You don’t need $6,000 machines and grinders that cost even more, or all the fancy and expensive accessories pushed by coffee influencers.

These include distribution tools (for getting rid of clumps) that cost hundreds, overpriced tampers (for pushing the espresso puck down), “special” milk frothing jugs, limited edition drip brewers, or coffee cups that promise to improve the taste of what’s inside.

The best money you can spend on maintaining a coffee habit is on beans that you ground fresh and know how to brew properly.

Just one more drill, bro

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

People get oddly tribal about power tools. This goes beyond preferring one brand over another to the point of feeling obliged to buy almost every new tool that’s released. It makes sense to stick with a brand if you’ve bought into a battery system, but keep in mind that the “real” hobby is using the tools to complete jobs.

Sure, there are “happy accidents” that you buy on a whim and end up loving, and stocking up on batteries for your chosen system is hardly a bad thing. But how many drills do you really need? Myths like corded tools being better than battery-powered ones are costing you money when you double-dip.

This money could be better spent on raw materials like wood or whatever else you need to build that next project. Sometimes an upgrade is worth it, like picking a Ryobi HP tool over a standard one, only at a time when it’s time to replace something that needs replacing.

Homelab and home networking

You don’t need a rack server that sounds like a passenger jet

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

You can start a homelab with an old laptop or a Raspberry Pi that runs a few Docker containers. You can use any old router, even the one supplied by your ISP. Even Wi-Fi is good enough for many services, like the Pi-hole DNS sink, as much as we all want Ethernet everywhere.

When it comes to spending money on a homelab, a used mini PC is arguably the best money for the home enthusiast. If you need a NAS drive, building your own from used parts on Facebook Marketplace is much cheaper than something purpose-built. You’ll have more money left over to spend on the most important part: storage.

Adding to your homelab is a case of expanding this setup bit by bit. A self-hosted server monitor like Beszel can show you when you’re hitting your CPU, RAM, and disk space limits so that you know when it’s time to spend more money. Fancy rack-mounted servers will make your closet feel like a data center, but they’re pricey, noisy, hot, and expensive to run.

If you’re already deep into one of these hobbies, you probably already know about the dangers of chasing upgrades. Looking for your next obsession? Check out some hobbies you can get into for cheap, right now.