So let’s say I buy that book at around 25$. That’s gonna be a 10-12 hour read (I’m french-canadian but I buy english book. It costs less, you get more pages and it takes me a bit more time to read through).

And that’s only on the first read too. Not all, but a good portion of my book I’ve read a few times. There are at least 25 books I’ve read over 10, maybe even 15 times now.

so my price per hour goes between 2$/hour on the worst case scenario to 0.2$/hour.

A great bargain as I see it.

Another bonus is that it occupies what I call “dead time”. I’m using public transportation for 1 1/2 hour a day to get to work. Without a book to read it would just be torture by boredom.

Not counting the motorcycle or wear and tear on the motorcycle (tires, fuel, brakes, mileage, etc) this works out to as much as $210/hour if you just count your time riding and $40 if you count the whole day.

Track day entry fee $175
Cheap motel near the track $60
Fuel for your van or SUV/trailer to-from the track $80

Amount of actual riding time – 6 twenty minute sessions = 1.5 hrs
Time at the track – 8 hours

Man, I need to give this up.

[...] Marathon, we’ll see how we can reduce the costs for entertainment. The inspiration came from this article, that makes a nice job on breaking down the costs for several fun activities. Now, I’m not [...]

I’d like to figure out how much time i actually spend in my apartment. Just subtracting for the time I’m at work it’s already up to $7.09 an hour. Take away weekend activities, etc. and it probably hits $10 easy.

Anyways, my point is $25/hour at the Opera is sounding good since you are probably already paying more than you expected for mundane things, like the car you use to get there.

apartment: 5.75/hour
basic utilities: .25/hour
—————————
shelter 6.00/hour

$1400/mo + $60 utilities

car: 11.20/hour
car insurance: 2.40/hour
gas: 3.93/hour
maintenance: .80/hour
—————————
driving: 18.33/hour

15,000 mi/year @ 40mph. 28mpg
$350/mo payment + $75 ins. + $25 maint. $2.75/gal

[...] Get Rich Slowly: The Debt to Pleasure: What is the Cost of Fun? [...]

[...] Get Rich Slowly asks, “What is the cost of fun?” – J.D. breaks down some common activities into their dollar per hour cost. While I don’t think money is the only measurement that should be used for value, it is an interesting point. [...]

I also like MVP’s observation about going to the mall for fun — for most people, that’s either expensive (you buy stuff), or torturous (you see a lot of stuff you want but can’t buy it), or both (you can’t buy everything you want but you buy some of it).

Really, the movie theater is just about the cheapest activity available at the mall.

Currently we have my daughter in gymnastics 6 hours a week. It seems pretty expensive at $170 a month. However when I figured the hourly rate of this it came to around $7 per hour. That is about the cheapest activity any of my kids have ever done.

I think it is very important to factor in the hourly cost, as it could totally affect if you do something or not.

Also, you forget to mention drinking is one of the most expensive activities ever. At the usual $5 per pint / bottle, and 2-3 every hour, it gets really expensive. Drink less and save more.

Are there times I look at the stuff and wonder about how much money is invested in my fabric stash and my pattern collection? Do I really *need* over 100 vintage cookbooks? You bet I wonder! I can’t even calculate the cost per hour at this point!

However, an afternoon of sewing or enjoying a “new” recipe from one of those cookbooks is so off the scale in terms of nurturing my soul, that they are indeed worth it to me.

However, as one other person noted, this is why I am frugal in other areas so that I can enjoy those things that nurture my soul.

Julie
PS: And having someone say, “You MADE that???” with a sense of awe is absolutely priceless

mathew – amen on the squirrel feeding. I love my squirrels and even constructed a bridge from 3 pieces of hemp rope braided together. This way they can better use all of the trees while avoiding neighbor cats.

MVP – please don’t talk people out of buying new books. If they stop, I won’t have anything to buy at thrift stores or garage sales!

I think of it as looking at opera and saying, is it worth $25 an hour to me? Is paintball worth $10? Is the Wii worth $10?

To me, the wii is WORTH maybe $20 an hour. But much like JD, our Wii has cost us maybe $10 an hour (even with all our games!) and it only gets lower. The opera isn’t worth $5 an hour to me. But watching theatre would be worth more like $15.

and *insert mandatory comment about long-time lurker blog-lover here*

Okay, I want that nearly-2000 (570 a year for 3 years) hours of my life back, please……But DARN if $45 for 1710 hours of fun isn’t a good deal!

But don’t forget, the books are also the cheap part — really, buying any more than the original one (if you’re just a player) is useless. Where most PLAYERS get the money sink is in dice. Which are admittedly about a dollar a die for the really pretty ones. Which all players tend to want. However, you need 8 of them to survive. You will discover, however, you want more. I know people with upwards of 200.

However, starting D&D is free. I don’t know a GM, ever, who wouldn’t loan you her books for anything you needed, and doesn’t have sufficient dice for you. So it’s really how much YOU want to put into the game.

(and I’ll admit to a $45 dice collection and 2 more books, one of which was full price. so an extra $90, so $135, so closer to 8c an hour. Still the most worthwhile activity I have! Plus, I share all of these things with my husband.)

I usually go to community college classes or places that specialize in that activity. Prices end up ranging between $8-$35/hour.

I’m now deciding between trapeze school and Improv.

My most expensive hobby is singing in a chamber choir – it costs $120/quarter which works out to be about $5/hour for rehearsal time. The cost covers the rehearsal venue and the conductor’s wages and is well worth it. The pleasure of singing in a group and performing together rates very highly for me, so I’m willing to pay more for this than most of my hobbies.

My cheapest hobbies are reading novels that I borrow from the library and going for walks with a friend.

Also cheap entertainment: feeding squirrels in the back yard. Just $3 will get you a huge bag of sunflower seeds.

I’d go a step further and say that this is as important as the cost to begin with. I think of you Wii example of it being $10/hr and how it could be cheaper if you got an old school Nintendo off of Ebay. It might even be free if you end up selling it for the amount that you paid for it a few years from now. The problem with that idea is that it probably doesn’t rank as high on your “fun” scale. So it’s easy to limit the costs, but you have to factor in the “fun” to get a true number. Choosing the most cost effective option could very well be like being on a “fun diet” leading to a huge, uncontrolled, expensive splurge down the line.

Settlers of Catan has probably cost $0.50/hour, but Modern Art? That’s $40/hour right there…

My parents got their Monopoly board at a garage sale for $0.50. It had all the pieces and they still have it. The cost per hour of that game is probably less than a penny!

The bike is a unique animal in this case as it has a salvage value at the end of the hypothetical use calculateed, this is obviously not the case for paintball or watching a ball game. Additionally, the costs are front end loaded with a hobby such as a bike, it is expensive up front, with minmal outgoing cash during its usage.

Just a thought.

But back to the topic at hand, this kind of thinking is the reason why I don’t flinch (too much) at buying video games for my husband. Especially if it’s one I might be interested in, then I figure you can double the “play time” since otherwise we’d have to find something for me to do while he played. When you count it that way, some $50 games end up being only pennies per hour. This is also why I was perfectly happy to buy a Wii but have thus far balked at the Playstation 3. I haven’t seen any games for PS lately that I feel will justify the cost of the console. (I’m a lot pickier than he is)

BTW, it’s actually getting to be that going out to the movies is cheaper than watching from home (if you’re looking for a hi-def experience). Modern home theatres are incredibly expensive. While I don’t like paying $9 at a theatre, I can’t justify spending $1000 – $3000 for a home setup.

Or consider a a $200-entry bowling league vs. weekly $10 bowling nights (provided you like competitive bowling, of course). When it’s paid for and all you have to do is show up it’s more fun.

I’ve always noticed that pastimes with zero or low marginal costs tend to be the ones I stick with and enjoy most, which is doubly important when it comes to pastimes related to self-improvement (physical or otherwise), and I think that’s because I don’t feel like I’m using up resources when I’m engaging in them.

And even though I have a $30/month subsidized gym membership, I’d never drag my butt to the gym if I had to pull $2 out of my pocket every time I arrived.