Too many Hobbies... how do you balance ( long term )

M

Magnum Wheel Man

New member
So I'm a shooter, a whacko handloader ( around 80 different calibers ), a 4 wheeler, a watch collector, a vintage car / hot rod buff( have an original / vintage 38 Nash, & building a frame up hot rod )... plus others

seems like I have my 4-5 main hobbies, & I bounce around, where I'm 100% into one for 6 months or a year, then switch to the next one, where I dive right back in where I was 3-4 years ago, then on to the next... sometimes there seems to be just too many cool things to do today... how do you guys balance your hobbies ??? last year I went out to CAS every other weekend, this year, I didn't find time to go once ( I'm building an old school hot rod from the frame up )... while at the same time, just finishing up my walk in gun safe room, so I'm organizing all the guns, & moving my temperary loading bench to it's new permanent location, where I'll be adding bullet casting to my shooting hobby... I'm balancing 2 major projects right now, & didn't leave any time for CAS this year...

what do you guys do, & how do you balance your time ???
 
Have honed my hobbies down to firearm collecting and autos. I am older now so I have streamlined my car collection down and focus on the firearms lately. Heck if you can do it all go for it. No hurry to slow down.
Also have a collection of watches...ever see the cheap chine automatics watches coming out. Amazing quality for $20. and under...
 
watches... I started as an accessory for CAS, with pocket watches... I found I loved the workmanship on those... then bought a 1938 Waltham to wear when I was driving my Nash... now I think I have over 50 watches, a balance between vintage wrist watches & pocket watches ( most of the pocket watches I have have silver cases... I'd love a couple gold cased pockets, but the best I've gotten in that area so far are good quality gold filled )

I've moved to mechanical watches for "everyday" now as well, I have a stainless Orient ( which is Jap ) automatic with a wind indicator & a date, on right now... pulled the stainless band in favor of a XXL Speidel english leather band ( don't like those strap on steel bands & have big wrists )
 
I tend to bounce around with my hobbies and try not to dedicate too much time and/or money on one particular pursuit. plus, I have a tendency to get bored over time so that's usually a quick fix for me. right now I think firearms will be a lifelong hobby, especially since I only own 2 rifles and don't plan on amassing a huge collection. quality over quantity I say. I also used to collect vintage safety razors which have seemed to have dried up on the secondary market. that's ok, I have more than I need at the moment and have no plans on buying anymore. I'm also into high-end dress shoes, unfortunately, a pair of nice dress shoes can cost just as much as a new rifle so this will be another lifelong pursuit. usually my finances dictate how long i'll continue my hobbies.
 
I think age dictates how we balance/juggle our hobbies and passions. As a kid, I was into hot cars and guns. Never had the space nor the tools to do a custom build but I was able to do customizing to my muscle cars by way of writing checks. Along the way, my gun collection was always something that never went on the back burner and I dedicated at least one day a week to the range.

As I got older, just owning a nice car was important and I also directed my interests to boats. Every couple of years I would trade up to a bigger and better boat until one day I woke up and found I was getting too old to do all the work that went with bigger boats and did not have the funds to hire a crew. Good bye boats.

Always had a tremendous interest in airplanes and became a Commercial Airline Pilot. Owned a few airplanes along the way but decided late in my career that I didn't want to fly on my days off as the routine of constantly changing time zones and flying on the back side of the clock was taking its toll on me. Good bye airplanes. It was time to leave the flying to someone else. However, I do maintain a current instructor's certificate for those days when the urge strikes

Other hobbies came and went. Now I have a Jag convertible instead of a Corvette and my wife has the full size sedan. My utility vehicle is a pickup truck and I tow it behind my motorhome when I get into the travel mode. My gun collection is the one thing that has remained a constant. And there are very few places I can go where I do not have have several of my guns with me for my "getaway from everyday stress" because it is what I do, "escape" which, of course, is the goal and purpose of a hobby. And I maintain a current instructor endorsement when I find the opportunity to create another gun addict.
 
It's interesting that anyone would admit to such a thing. I've had several interests, some approaching hobbies I guess, in the last 50 years. I wouldn't say I ever became "advanced" in any of them, in some of them I was barely above the "retarded" level, to be honest. I could barely manage to keep semi-active in more than about three at once. Being married makes it more difficult, too, and that's sort of like a hobby, too, after a fashion.

Unlike my late father-in-law, none of my interests had anything to do with work. He was an aeronautical engineer and when I met my wife, he had a disassembled airplane in his basement (a Culver Cadet). I later discovered he had a number of old and somewhat interesting guns, yet he was not a "gun person." In fact, no one else in the family is. I am the acknowledged gun expert in the family, not that I am in anyway expert. So far, all that involves in the occasional question about the difference between Ruger and Luger.
 
I only have three hobbies; bolt action rifles, target shooting, and handloading. I am in the process of putting together a 1965 mustang coupe but I don't consider the project a hobby.
 
That's a good point. In terms of time invested, this forum certainly has any other "leisure" activity beat in the last few years.
 
I am too broke to have more hobbies. Right now all I really got is guns and music. I only have about $2500 worth of guns but my music collection is over 20,000+ songs all full albums. Also lately I have been tracking down all the old DOS computer games I played in the 90's like Monkey Island, primitive by today's standards but awesome games.
 
I find that I tend to bounce around from one hobby to the next, but my hobbys are sometimes "seasonal"

Winter (especially around the holidays) I do model train set-ups
I keep african cichlid tanks so thats all year round
I tend to go to the range mostly in the Summer and Fall, but I purchase firearms/gear/ammo all year round
Im into custom cars, but I usually only do competitions and go to shows in the spring.
I used to get paid to do competitive gaming (MLG) for 6 months out of the year and then stopped for the off season now that I got out of that, I only get on occasionally after work
 
I share your "Blessed" problem. Along with guns and reloading, I am heavily into clock collecting/restoration, pocket watch/wrist watch collecting, boating and fishing.

I retired ten years ago and often wonder how I had time to work. The only negative is time passes too quickly. :)

Fifty feet from my front door is a 40,000 + acre lake. Out my back door is 7,000 acres of uninhabited, other than wildlife, woodlands. I often think I have already died and gone to Heaven.
 
ive always been that way too......im 45 and over my life ive done everything from hunting/fishing to paintball, shooting sports, snowboarding, skiing, rock climbing, kayaking....etc etc etc lol. Ive just learned to live with it, ive found that a lot of times i will come back around to a hobby 5 or even 10 years after i stopped it and get back into it. I go with whatever interests me at the time, and let the other stuff lay dormant until i get back into it. Probably the main downside to it is all the gear you accumulate.
 
I shoot, hunt, fish, read, run and bike all on a regular basis. I'm dying to get a kayak but I just don't know when I can fit it all in. I like to camp as well but a couple of times a year is all I can get out.

Like everyone, I spread my time around between all of them but can't devote enough time to any of them.
 
Practically all my hobbies are currently on hold as I try to sell my present house, while juggling the building of a garage at the new place. Running between the two places is getting old, also. The new garage will house my reloading processes and my weight room in addition to storage for my vehicles. My computer is my release for now, along with biking and exercise. Not much else.

Retired 4 years now. As has been suggested, when the hell did I find time to work?
 
I have a good wife... got to make her a hobby ( priority #1 ) :o

Alot of you guys mention hobbies I've done, or still plan on doing again ( for example, I have 6 aquariums built into the wall in my master bedroom, I used to really be into my fish, & have raised most all types from salt water reef tanks, to Koi... tanks sit empty in the wall, with every intention to start them back up again ) BTW used to have awsome houseplants back when I vacuumed aquarium gravel every week for a 5 gallon bucket out of each tank, & used that "dirty water" to water plants with... house plants have suffered since the tanks have gone empty

used to love to go deer hunting, & fishing regularly... but the last couple years, I've been lucky to find the time to go once or twice a year, & haven't had venision in the freezer for at least 2 seasons now :(
 
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When it comes to gun hobbies, they sometimes have a way of changing your priorities almost withour you being aware of it.

Take handloading, for instance.

Initially, most folks probably start reloading their own ammunition to make it less expensive to shoot, or at least allow more shooting for the same money. Then before you know it, you start experimenting, trying to see what you can do with different combinations. Before you know it, you are more than a reloader--you're a handloader. If you get your hands on a chronograph, you'll really be deep in the game. Soon you'll be thinking of yourself as an expert, or at least carefully trying to get your friends to think you are. You even begin looking for a photo of Dean Grennell to put on the wall, right next to the one of Jack O'Connor.

Ultimately, instead of reloading to feed your shooting, you're shooting to feed your loading operation.
 
it really is "rocket science" & that is so true... any more, I shoot ( more ) to expiriment with my new loads, that to just shoot the gun... can't wait till winter, & having my new permanent loading bench area set up... I plan to do alot of reloading this winter...

part of why I didn't do much CAS this summer... got too many empty 45 Colt cases that I didn't find time to fill... :o
 
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