This hobby is like most others, ya gotta pay to play. My problem is that I have TOO many hobbies. Besides watches, I collect knives. A good quality custom knife can cost alot more than one of the reps we buy.
Boating..... There's a hobby that is a black hole for funds. The common joke about the name BOAT is that it stands for Break Out Another Thousand. Besides all the upgrades and maintenance that a high performance boat needs, we live in a world of high fuel costs. The engine in my boat is 502 cubic inches, and on a fun filled weekend of tearing up and down the lakes I might go through two or three 58 gallon tankfulls of gas. Now THAT'S painful.
I also race RC cars. In a season of racing I'll go through three or four nitro motors per class that I'm racing in. A competition nitro motor runs $300+, and one constant in RC racing is that SOMETHING breaks every race day.
The list of money pits that I call hobbies go on. The thing is, unless your hobby is sitting on a park bench watching people go by, MOST hobbies cost SOMETHING.