How costly is cubing?

[Bapao]

It's very affordable until you decide you want to compete and need to travel to be able to do so.

 

[Ninja Storm]

Cubing's a heck lot cheaper than my last hobby, Yu-gi-oh.

It's sad that I can't go to many competitions(can really only stay in-state or <4 hours), but starting to plan my own competitions is great. Nothing beats walking to a competition xD

 

[cuberkid10]

Speedcubing costs nothing compared to my music hobby. Like, $400 for a editing program, $700 for a DAW.

 

[Dacuba]

Yeah travelling is by far the most expensive part of cubing, even if there are many competitions in your area, like here in Germany. And most people have to travel much longer distances than me.
Lol $100 for a advanced cubing collection, it's definitive about competing.

 

[tx789]

travelling and shipping.
Shipping is if yur in a isolated country or far way from where it is coming for ifyou want it fast it can cost a lot of money


I've been to one comp and it was a 1 and a half hour drive. If the same venue is used next time we have a comp in nz. I'll go since a can walk there now. But if it in Auckland it'slike a 8 hour or so drive

 

[BlueDevil]

I'm lucky that I live in the northeast US, so I can go to a fair amount of comps in the year for cheap amounts. Round trip on public transport + some walking to the venue, or just a drive under 3 hours will get me to many competitions.

I think my cubes are worth more than the price of attending the 4 comps that I did.

 

[FinnGamer]

I agree with the traveling, I spend about 100€ in Cubes, and know I have enough that I don't need to buy more for the next months.
But travelling to German Open cost me 100€ for a one time event (Hotel+Food+Gas).
Cubing is pretty light on the equipment, but if you want to compete, you need to pay

 

[Photon]

Yes, India, Chennai. I don't know about the food for certain. I'm NOT trolling. The movie tickets however, I'm fairly certain. At one of Chennai's newest malls, good comfortable seats were at 120 INR. Which Google tells me is roughly $2.28. zdnet's article goes further to say the average ticket cost is $0.19, but that's probably not for "decent seats".

Spoiler

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/itfacts/cheapest-movie-tickets-per-capita-price-are-in-india-us-china/997

PandaCuber does make a good point about the value that a speedcube offers. :tu

 

[emolover]

Wow, movie ticket cost $8 during the day and $11 at night at the sh***y theater closest to my house. At good theaters is even more. All of that does not include the overpriced popcorn, soda or sh***y drinks.

 

[izovire]

It'll cost you an arm and a leg... hopefully you don't have to use an arm because you'll need it for cubing.

As low as ~$15 and up to ~$300. If you start collecting other puzzles and crap... like 11x11's you might spend more than 1k. It's totally different if you want to compete too!

 

[CuberPanda]

It'll cost you an arm and a leg... hopefully you don't have to use an arm because you'll need it for cubing.

As low as ~$15 and up to ~$300. If you start collecting other puzzles and crap... like 11x11's you might spend more than 1k. It's totally different if you want to compete too!

You can give an arm and leg and do OH solving XD

 

[SweetSolver]

It depends. I you want to be a full-on collector, then it's obviously going to cost you a fortune. But if you just want to be a regular speed cuber like myself, then you'll probably only spend the odd $15 here and there. So compared to other hobbies, yes, it can be quite cheap.

 

[RCTACameron]

I have a decent sized collection of about 70 cubes, and I'm guessing it would be valued at around $1000 (less than $15 per cube), though I have got a lot of them as presents, prizes etc. Considering I barely use most of them, the equipment needed to compete is fairly cheap. The other factor of being able to compete is travel, which is generally more costly. It is about a 35 minute drive to most competitions to me, so relatively cheap, but the 2 I have travelled to have probably together cost more than all of my cubes. So generally, equipment is cheap, and getting to competitions is cheap if you live close (and most entry fees are $10 or less too), but travel can make it quite expensive.

 

[applemobile]

Expensive as you want it to be /thread.

 

[Genesis]

It definitely boils down to how many puzzles you want to buy and your sources of cubes

 

[Enter]

Cubing is cheap compared to other things! I have spend about 250€ for my cubes. And these is not a lot! If I remember buying games for N64 15 years ago huh the price was astronomical for one game about 80€ and I still have 20 original games in my collection. Every sport-hobby costs something and I know that in some countries people are not paid well and because of that it is hard to pay for toys when you need money for food!

 

[Litz]

It's by far the cheapest hobby I ever had. Some people do like to collect tons of cubes though, so it does get a bit more expensive, but I still consider it a pretty cheap hobby.

 

[TimMc]

My cubing related expenses for the past 12 months...

Transportation (6 flights, buses, taxis etc): $3,200
Accommodation (2 hotels): $1,300
Speed Stacks Equipment (2 timers, 2 mini mats): $90
Puzzles (w2, ss4): $20
---
Rough total: $4,610

I'm probably missing a few things from this list...

To put this in perspective? It's about $18 for a ticket to a movie ($25 for a larger screen). A ~500ml bottle of water is about $3.

Tim.

 

[MalusDB]

Holy crap you guys are sheltered. I can't believe you thought he was trolling by saying movie tickets/groceries were that cheap. You do realise that the value of a dollar in India is more because things cost less but people also earn alot less right? I actually am kinda shocked at the amount of childish responses in this thread. Not even childish, ignorant.

 

[Reprobate]

I didn't mention travel, because I figure flights and hotels are going to be similar no matter if you're going to a cubing meet or a knitting convention.