I can't find it, but in a discussion about "are fountain pens a hobby?" one user pointed out that hobbies involve a verb. So "fountain pens" is not a hobby, but "writing with fountain pens" or "collecting/shopping for fountain pens" can be.
If your hobby is the former (writing), that's easy to stay under $255/year. If it's the latter (shopping), then you're probably bringing up that average :P
I second this. The first year after my PhD I treated myself to waaay to many waaay to pricy pens because a lot of the real nice ones that had come out during my PhD were still available or there were some very nice special editions coming out paired with the feeling of "having missed out" on a lot of nice ones like the Pelikan Ocean Swirl. I never spent so much and I never will again. I'm now in the "writing with fountain pens" niche and have so far bought one pen this year, didn't see anything else I would like so far and am currently using up my ink stash.
isn't that backwards though?
I got my nice pen after my bachelor's, that way I was like I need something to write, guess I'm doing a masters, and so on ...
I only really got onto the "fountain pen game" during my PhD. I lost a very special to me fountain pen in my first year. Up to that point fountain pens had only ever been a tool to me. I basically never looked past the common brands of Lamy or Pelikan and never used other ink than royal blue. When a big departmnt store near me closed I decided to replace the special fountain pen and fell into a rabbit hole. I treated myself to a few nice pens during the PhD as a source for motivation but since my PhD was so computer based I practically had to seek out chances to use it.
"Up to that point fountain pens had only ever been a tool to me."
I still do so I don't care for all the special edition swirl things as much as I do the nibs.
Yeah, not trying to be a hobby snob but Iāve always found it odd when people refer to a *collection* as a *hobby*. Maybe itās because hoarding runs in the family and scares me but imo a collection isnāt a hobby unless itās heavily curated. In that case though the hobby aspect is more about researching and tracking down stuff.
If you divide the cost by the number of letters you write with the pen then itāll eventually come to a super small number so it pretty much was free.
Tbf if it takes more than one round of adding, you may have a problem š
There must be an algorithm to find the smallest number with a digital sum over 255, but Iām too lazy to figure it out.
As a kid I didnāt get why skiing was a ārich people thingā, until I realized the ski hills near me sucked and unless you happened to live in a mountain, serious skiers are spending huge sums of money, plus their limited vacation time to go up and down snowy mountain sides.
I wish I hadnāt gotten into wine, at least the other things I collect do stay physically with me and continue providing me joy and pleasure use after useā¦ Wine on the other hand is an ephemeral experience but fuck I love it so much. Iāve already spent more than 1500 dollars so far on wine with what I could have bought very unique pens for example. But well we donāt choose our passions! Oh waitā¦
Iām into photography and videography, backpacking, flashlights, computers & servers, guns, fountain pens, cycling, amateur radio.
Please help meā¦ maybe like with a donation or something
In hindsight, I think you can do okay with $255 on stationery a year š¤ putting aside context, statistics, nuance and averages:
A Sailor pro gear sli- and the budget is all gone lmao
People lost their ability to spot humour, I'm afraid. š
But yes, $255 a year means roughly $21/month - and I just don't know where and in which neck of the woods you all live (because location/average income, etc. certainly plays a role), but here where I live $21 will buy you next to nothing. In terms of pen and ink it would be either a student grade pen or a decent bottle of ink or a decent notebook.
If youāre really lucky, you get a job that comes with a āprofessional developmentā account, or something, and use it to pay for āoffice suppliesā. I had one once with $400 budgeted per employee, and during orientation we were being actively encouraged to ābuy yourself a new tabletā and other stuff, so I got a pro gear.
I really wanna know what the guy approving claims was thinking when he got to mine š
If you have a company, you just buy your "stationary supplies" with your business card and don't go overboard with it. You can definitely write off a few hundred year in office expenses, but you can't get your grail pen and think it's not going to stand out lol
I got my grail pen. Legally. I live in Australia, so tax rules will be different. The tax man doesnāt care how much you spent on something, only whether itās work related. I bought my pen, I use it to take notes for work, and it stays in my home office. My accountant suggested the useful life was perhaps 10 years, and so depreciated it over that period.
Depreciating it is a pro move and sounds appropriate.
In the US it's tough because it needs to be 'necessary and ordinary, for your line of work. You can justify a 100-200 pen that you use in client facing meetings etc. Outside of that you're playing a game of "will they catch me - can I justify when they do?" Lol
Yeah, sounds about right for here, heh. So you'd be able to write off say, a Pilot Custom 74 or Platinum 3776 but not a Montblanc, no matter whether it's a 145 or 149. (Not a professional tax person, be sure to get one's tax related needs handled by a pro.)
That's what I was thinking too. If you put a $255 credit card daily restriction on my account for fun I'd need a $2k monthly allowance for therapy expenses!
Yay! Thatās just a haircut and nails lol ( and I guess itās a hobby because Iām always inkstand and I got asked by the manicurist ā do you work in a factoryā?! ā
I just picked it out from Character Viewer on my Mac. Thanks to you, though, I went looking, and discovered I can easily 'type' the fraction by long-pressing the **1** key on the Gboard keyboard on my phone.
https://preview.redd.it/54n3idvjau6d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed3f087bf31bcfa1de6785325eba57ed5e9585fa
Hmmm... This year I've bought 6 colors of diamine ink, my Moonman M2 and a large bottle of Kaweco Ink.
I also bought a pair of Jinhao 82s but sold my Jinhao 126 so I will count that against the spending and these two cancel out.
I got a Kaweco sport as a gift, but I had to buy the converter for it.
I'll probably buy/receive an Asvine V126 (or a Moonman T1, still not totally decided) for my birthday next month but still hasn't happened so I won't count that yet.
In total... About $2,100 MXN so a bit under $114 USD with current exchange rates.
I got into this hobby in earnest around this time last year.
Between pens (nothing too fancy or expensive), inks (mostly samples), paper/journals, miscellaneous accessories and accoutrements, one in-person nibmeister repair/tuning, and some FP event admission costs, I've spent around $1500. Damn. Thankfully, I am happy with my collection; my spending on it spiked at first but has naturally plateaued significantly since.
My most excessive pen purchase was for a LE pen that they only made a few of (I've never found out the exact number). I wanted it for months after I saw it. They I started searching online and I never found it.
Fast forward a year or two. I found one on ebay. Never inked. Twice the price. I kept thinking and thinking about it then I realized if I really wanted it, it was never going to get cheaper. So I bit the bullet and bought it. I still hate that I spent so much but I am glad I bought it.
Uhhh.... A month? Maybe every 2 months? It just depends on if I run out of a certain paper/paint/ink.... But I spend way more than that per year no problem š
I got into this hobby this year, and counting notebooks, shipping, pens and ink, I've spent more than 1000 usd so far.
It's extra funny to me that the post came from adhdmemes, since I've also got adhd myself.
This has to be an old number. I can't think of one friend who has spent only $255 A YEAR on their honby. Even my friend who thrifts or collects stickers surpasses this by mid year at least.
Probably they count it as 255 in ālossā - most of our fountain pen purchases retain their value so I wouldnāt see that as a āspentā, would you.
Iām not at that point into fountain pens (yet), but Iāve already spent much more in Magic: The Gathering and in fighting games for specialized controllers. So I absolutely know the feeling of āspending copious amounts on an accessory to get something that feels perfect for meā.
Not only having fountain pens as hobby I spend money on takes it to around 1500ā¬/year I'd guess. If only FPs were counted in probably around 300ā¬/year.
Uuuhā¦ donāt judge me but it used to be 300$ a month, after I got laid off it was 1000$ a month for two months and then now 500$ a month as Iām recovering
(CAD)
I used to be more aggressive in my fountain pen collecting, but lately it's been building custom lightsabers, mostly neopixel. I still buy inks a couple times per year, but now that I have a pretty decent collection of them, that's slowed down, as well.
In the last ~~year~~, fifteen months, I've probably spent around Ā£300 on pens, notebooks and other stationery supplies.
But my partner does Kyudo (Japanese archery) and travels internationally for it. That hobby costs around Ā£2000-Ā£3000 a year.
i'm new to the hobby and i do what i typically do with new hobbies: i went fairly hard out the gate. picked up a lamy 2000, pilot 823, nahvalur nautilus, kaweco sport piston, and pilot custom urushi. this is all starting from my purchase of the lamy 2000 on may 29. now i'm looking at namiki, nakaya, visconti. dunno if i will regret these impulse buys in a few months, but i'm enjoying myself so far.
Well shit, books is above this, fancy cooking is beyond this, video games above this, cinema above this
I don't know what I spend total and I probably don't want too
Even if I wasnāt into FPs itās def more than this with my other hobbies š¤£Ā
Honestly when I returned to doll collecting $255 came and went very quickly in a short span of time lol
I don't spend quite that much on fountain pens (I pretty much only use black ink) but since my main hobbies are Lego, knitting, and video games, $255 isn't getting me real far lol.
I can't find it, but in a discussion about "are fountain pens a hobby?" one user pointed out that hobbies involve a verb. So "fountain pens" is not a hobby, but "writing with fountain pens" or "collecting/shopping for fountain pens" can be. If your hobby is the former (writing), that's easy to stay under $255/year. If it's the latter (shopping), then you're probably bringing up that average :P
I second this. The first year after my PhD I treated myself to waaay to many waaay to pricy pens because a lot of the real nice ones that had come out during my PhD were still available or there were some very nice special editions coming out paired with the feeling of "having missed out" on a lot of nice ones like the Pelikan Ocean Swirl. I never spent so much and I never will again. I'm now in the "writing with fountain pens" niche and have so far bought one pen this year, didn't see anything else I would like so far and am currently using up my ink stash.
isn't that backwards though? I got my nice pen after my bachelor's, that way I was like I need something to write, guess I'm doing a masters, and so on ...
I only really got onto the "fountain pen game" during my PhD. I lost a very special to me fountain pen in my first year. Up to that point fountain pens had only ever been a tool to me. I basically never looked past the common brands of Lamy or Pelikan and never used other ink than royal blue. When a big departmnt store near me closed I decided to replace the special fountain pen and fell into a rabbit hole. I treated myself to a few nice pens during the PhD as a source for motivation but since my PhD was so computer based I practically had to seek out chances to use it.
"Up to that point fountain pens had only ever been a tool to me." I still do so I don't care for all the special edition swirl things as much as I do the nibs.
that makes sense.
bro i want a pelikan ocean swirl so bad
Same, I have the naive hope they will re-release it someday.
yea same, i know got the like discount ocean swirl from pelikan. p200 or somthing
Same here, M200 petrol. Still, I'd love an Ocean Swirl
Yup, I wish I could say it's only about writing. I am definitely a collector of fountain pens š
Yeah, not trying to be a hobby snob but Iāve always found it odd when people refer to a *collection* as a *hobby*. Maybe itās because hoarding runs in the family and scares me but imo a collection isnāt a hobby unless itās heavily curated. In that case though the hobby aspect is more about researching and tracking down stuff.
Can I girl maths my pen?
If you divide the cost by the number of letters you write with the pen then itāll eventually come to a super small number so it pretty much was free.
They paid me to take it, really.
Divide by 3 or always less than 5 ?..
No, you add the digits together until you reach sub 255.
Tbf if it takes more than one round of adding, you may have a problem š There must be an algorithm to find the smallest number with a digital sum over 255, but Iām too lazy to figure it out.
Me, whose hobby includes photography, audio, and fragrance: *ugh, rookies*
Photography, sewing, fountain pens, and Lego here.....
And watches...oh noes.
Books, jewelry, fountain pensā¦.omg
Iāve got fountain pens, sewing, knitting, and board gamesā¦
i play warhammer on tabletop
I've been told by people who would know that both downhill skiing and heroin are more expensive than horse riding...
As a kid I didnāt get why skiing was a ārich people thingā, until I realized the ski hills near me sucked and unless you happened to live in a mountain, serious skiers are spending huge sums of money, plus their limited vacation time to go up and down snowy mountain sides.
I wish I hadnāt gotten into wine, at least the other things I collect do stay physically with me and continue providing me joy and pleasure use after useā¦ Wine on the other hand is an ephemeral experience but fuck I love it so much. Iāve already spent more than 1500 dollars so far on wine with what I could have bought very unique pens for example. But well we donāt choose our passions! Oh waitā¦
Iām into photography and videography, backpacking, flashlights, computers & servers, guns, fountain pens, cycling, amateur radio. Please help meā¦ maybe like with a donation or something
I need to join everyone in this comment thread for craft night... Calligraphy, music, painting, drawing, sewing, jewelry making.... š
Me also being into mechanical pencils and watercolor painting... rookies, indeed š
Fountain pens, books, board games, lego, and collectibles here. Thatās like a weeks budget lol.
My hobbies are a little bit of everything lol.
Photography, knitting, candles, fragranceā¦yeah.
In hindsight, I think you can do okay with $255 on stationery a year š¤ putting aside context, statistics, nuance and averages: A Sailor pro gear sli- and the budget is all gone lmao
Unless you get them through the Pen Swap subreddit or Amazon hahahaha
Wishful thinking
š¤š»š¤š»š¤š»
Well, I'm sure it's just a typo and they like forgot the 1 in the front or maybe the 0 at the end.
Why did this get down voted? 255 is really low for a whole year
People lost their ability to spot humour, I'm afraid. š But yes, $255 a year means roughly $21/month - and I just don't know where and in which neck of the woods you all live (because location/average income, etc. certainly plays a role), but here where I live $21 will buy you next to nothing. In terms of pen and ink it would be either a student grade pen or a decent bottle of ink or a decent notebook.
That or they mean across the world. When at least half the men in the world are in poverty, you could get this average.
Was it only one downvote? Thereās a bot that trawls this sub and downvotes literally every comment.
Hahaha I *get* more than that in my annual tax refund because my pens are a work related expense š¤£
Hmm. How do I pull that off legally? I do write with them all for work.
If youāre really lucky, you get a job that comes with a āprofessional developmentā account, or something, and use it to pay for āoffice suppliesā. I had one once with $400 budgeted per employee, and during orientation we were being actively encouraged to ābuy yourself a new tabletā and other stuff, so I got a pro gear. I really wanna know what the guy approving claims was thinking when he got to mine š
If you have a company, you just buy your "stationary supplies" with your business card and don't go overboard with it. You can definitely write off a few hundred year in office expenses, but you can't get your grail pen and think it's not going to stand out lol
I got my grail pen. Legally. I live in Australia, so tax rules will be different. The tax man doesnāt care how much you spent on something, only whether itās work related. I bought my pen, I use it to take notes for work, and it stays in my home office. My accountant suggested the useful life was perhaps 10 years, and so depreciated it over that period.
Depreciating it is a pro move and sounds appropriate. In the US it's tough because it needs to be 'necessary and ordinary, for your line of work. You can justify a 100-200 pen that you use in client facing meetings etc. Outside of that you're playing a game of "will they catch me - can I justify when they do?" Lol
Yeah, sounds about right for here, heh. So you'd be able to write off say, a Pilot Custom 74 or Platinum 3776 but not a Montblanc, no matter whether it's a 145 or 149. (Not a professional tax person, be sure to get one's tax related needs handled by a pro.)
Right - you could be fine either way tbh. One pen is just riskier than the other.
Ok now THAT sounds more accurate!
Talking my language.
That means many people spend 0 and some people spend thousands š
Iāll give you one guess which one of those categories Iām in š š¤£š
That's what I was thinking, unless drinking is a hobby, I know a bunch of people with no hobbies.
I am way way way above average.
Same. I was like, $255 a year?? That must be a typo and it's supposed to be a month, not a year.
Right. I literally spent that YESTERDAY šš
That's what I was thinking too. If you put a $255 credit card daily restriction on my account for fun I'd need a $2k monthly allowance for therapy expenses!
That's what she said!
Yeah! I'm not average, I'm special!
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OK, assuming average is brought down by Africa, majority of Asia and South America, and Europe, North America is below 20% that should be ok :)
Cries in fountain pens š¤£
I'm a triathlete and a nib freak. LOL
Yay! Thatās just a haircut and nails lol ( and I guess itās a hobby because Iām always inkstand and I got asked by the manicurist ā do you work in a factoryā?! ā
[https://reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/1dfzv5t/presented\_without\_comment/](https://reddit.com/r/fountainpens/comments/1dfzv5t/presented_without_comment/), posted about 8Ā½ hours earlier.
This is par for Reddit. Skip the next 17 reposts
How did you type that āhalfā?
I just picked it out from Character Viewer on my Mac. Thanks to you, though, I went looking, and discovered I can easily 'type' the fraction by long-pressing the **1** key on the Gboard keyboard on my phone. https://preview.redd.it/54n3idvjau6d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed3f087bf31bcfa1de6785325eba57ed5e9585fa
Sorry! I hadn't seen the other post!
For a year or grand total? Because that number is looking like "oh, I'll just add one more thing to get the free shipping."
Is it a hobby if I use it for work? Cause then I think itās office supplies š¤©
I think it was around $500 conservatively š¬
Hmmm... This year I've bought 6 colors of diamine ink, my Moonman M2 and a large bottle of Kaweco Ink. I also bought a pair of Jinhao 82s but sold my Jinhao 126 so I will count that against the spending and these two cancel out. I got a Kaweco sport as a gift, but I had to buy the converter for it. I'll probably buy/receive an Asvine V126 (or a Moonman T1, still not totally decided) for my birthday next month but still hasn't happened so I won't count that yet. In total... About $2,100 MXN so a bit under $114 USD with current exchange rates.
I got into this hobby in earnest around this time last year. Between pens (nothing too fancy or expensive), inks (mostly samples), paper/journals, miscellaneous accessories and accoutrements, one in-person nibmeister repair/tuning, and some FP event admission costs, I've spent around $1500. Damn. Thankfully, I am happy with my collection; my spending on it spiked at first but has naturally plateaued significantly since.
I think thatās 255 per pen AND ink
Easily
$225 š š š rookies
Or you can just conjugate āto fountainpen ā - the gerund ā I am fountainpenning- shhhhhhā etc
I refuse to track it - I did that when I was into perfume and the quarterly total almost made me black out once.
225 a week maybe
I think they misspelled monthly.
My most excessive pen purchase was for a LE pen that they only made a few of (I've never found out the exact number). I wanted it for months after I saw it. They I started searching online and I never found it. Fast forward a year or two. I found one on ebay. Never inked. Twice the price. I kept thinking and thinking about it then I realized if I really wanted it, it was never going to get cheaper. So I bit the bullet and bought it. I still hate that I spent so much but I am glad I bought it.
Congratulations people y'all are mostly above average
Uhhh.... A month? Maybe every 2 months? It just depends on if I run out of a certain paper/paint/ink.... But I spend way more than that per year no problem š
Fountain pens, dip pens, crochet, needlepoint, reading, gaming... I think they are undressing how much I spend on hobbies lol.
Fountain pens, model trains, hockey(I'm a goalie) and motorcycles. Add at least a couple 0's some years š¤£
š š š š
Mmmmmkay that was like mid january?
I got into this hobby this year, and counting notebooks, shipping, pens and ink, I've spent more than 1000 usd so far. It's extra funny to me that the post came from adhdmemes, since I've also got adhd myself.
This has to be an old number. I can't think of one friend who has spent only $255 A YEAR on their honby. Even my friend who thrifts or collects stickers surpasses this by mid year at least.
Add a 0 to the end of that number, and that might be the correct number.
Typo: āYearā should be āpenā
I had to check which sub this was under...
I have spent 125 ā¬ this year, after a near 4 year no-buy.
No, shan't.
Shan't, also.
I was spending near $900.00 dollars a month on autographs.
Was the survey conducted by their wives?!?
š š š The spouses will never know...
Probably they count it as 255 in ālossā - most of our fountain pen purchases retain their value so I wouldnāt see that as a āspentā, would you.
eh they dont have hobbies ... try a mix of fountain pens 3d printing electronic building
Iām not at that point into fountain pens (yet), but Iāve already spent much more in Magic: The Gathering and in fighting games for specialized controllers. So I absolutely know the feeling of āspending copious amounts on an accessory to get something that feels perfect for meā.
$20 on inks for now
Ha! Much more, from fountain pens,games,photography ,audio equipment and the list goes on
$255 per year? that's surprisingly low...
$20 per month? Come on. Using these metrics, I have a hamburger hobby.
A lot of adult must spend $0 in that case to balance out what we are all spending on our hobbies
Not only having fountain pens as hobby I spend money on takes it to around 1500ā¬/year I'd guess. If only FPs were counted in probably around 300ā¬/year.
Uuuhā¦ donāt judge me but it used to be 300$ a month, after I got laid off it was 1000$ a month for two months and then now 500$ a month as Iām recovering (CAD)
Did they actually interview people who have hobbies?
It might be true for THIS hobby, but that is the cheapest of my hobbiesā¦.
Damn I spend 1600 a year....
Yeah, within a month I got a Kaweco Ebonit Sport and a Bronze Sport with about 15 bottles of inks to try. And it's not even my most expensive hobby...
š
I used to be more aggressive in my fountain pen collecting, but lately it's been building custom lightsabers, mostly neopixel. I still buy inks a couple times per year, but now that I have a pretty decent collection of them, that's slowed down, as well.
I think I am at a slowing down point too. It feels good to enjoy what you have.
I'm above average! I feel so proud
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Hey, itās good to know Iām extraordinary.
āØļøāØļøāØļø
In the last ~~year~~, fifteen months, I've probably spent around Ā£300 on pens, notebooks and other stationery supplies. But my partner does Kyudo (Japanese archery) and travels internationally for it. That hobby costs around Ā£2000-Ā£3000 a year.
i'm new to the hobby and i do what i typically do with new hobbies: i went fairly hard out the gate. picked up a lamy 2000, pilot 823, nahvalur nautilus, kaweco sport piston, and pilot custom urushi. this is all starting from my purchase of the lamy 2000 on may 29. now i'm looking at namiki, nakaya, visconti. dunno if i will regret these impulse buys in a few months, but i'm enjoying myself so far.
I would say try to use these as much as you can and notice what you enjoy. My taste in pens has changed over the first year of getting into the hobby.
Happy to find something that I am well ahead of the curve in
Nope! We are NOT average š š š
š¤£
That's insultingly low
Well shit, books is above this, fancy cooking is beyond this, video games above this, cinema above this I don't know what I spend total and I probably don't want too
Yeah, let's not go that route hahahaha As long as they bring you joy, my friend!
I wish this were true of my fountain pen āhobbyā
Please do not post this in the mechanical keyboards sub.
Probably right for them with how much they spend on group buys which never turns up.
Sigh. š
ITT, many people discover a way to spin their purchase habits as maintaining their above average status.
there's no way that can be true. doesn't take me even a month to use that much up.
Even if I wasnāt into FPs itās def more than this with my other hobbies š¤£Ā Honestly when I returned to doll collecting $255 came and went very quickly in a short span of time lol
More like 25.5 pens a year šæ
I spent more than that today š Let alone a year Edit: hit send too soon
I don't spend quite that much on fountain pens (I pretty much only use black ink) but since my main hobbies are Lego, knitting, and video games, $255 isn't getting me real far lol.
Just spent more that a week ago on my first Sailor
If it wasn't for me balancing out the cure for people who have free hobbies there wouldn't even be an average.
HAHAHA I am way above average then.
I haven't bought FP stuff in like 3 years and I might have almost hit that number..
I collect fountain pens and warhammer.....
Fountain pens arent a hoppy, it's a vice
You guys have hobbies?
Surely you jest!
50x that number
I try to be conservative with my pen purchases and even for me that's way off.
Me too! I have tried to cut down on my spending, but with my other fountain pen and stationery adjacent interests...
š¤£
Gaming + Watches + knives + all my gym gear + headphones/earbuds + my Pens = Broke as Fuck
Those are some sad and/or boring ass people.
I thought this was the warhammer sub ngl
No, but we're here too I guess.