How Do You Respond To The Money Question?

I was playing around with my 160mW CNI PGL-III-A-532 one night when my neighbor comes up to me and says "Wow! That is a cool laser! How much did that cost you? Like 30 bucks?"

I said, "add a zero"

Then he's like "300 bucks!?!? You're crazy! Just for a light? You can have it!"

I just say "To each his own"

I get the same response when people ask me about my RC cars too. What do you guys say when you tell people how much you've spent on your lasers? My friends all think I'm crazy for even considering spending hundreds on a 473nm 5mW laser pointer. However these are the same people who think you can just add a colored lens to a red laser to change the color.... *facepalm*

-Tony

Whenever someone that I vaguely know asks me, I just counter it with their own hobby.

When a someone starts proclaiming they could never buy a $300 laser, just say you could never buy a $300 guitar.

Been there with this.

-I do lasers.
-I do photography (DSLR stuff)
-I do high end audio and recording.
-I do ham radio.

These are not cheap hobbies. They are however, all technical hobbies. Technical hobbies tend to not be cheap; yet, IMO, are engaging to a certain sort of technologically curious mind.

So, I get this ALL THE TIME, with these "expensive hobbies". People do not understand why you'd pay "more than one order of magnitude over the cost of a beer" to do much of anything. But, then, their hobbies usually end at "dunno, I go clubbing on weekends." (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The other day I got ridiculed because my headphones were >$30. (That seems to be the magic point these days.) Oh well. To me they sound better than his earbuds.

When I was taking pictures of the moon during an eclipse on my street with a $1700 lens, someone asked, and after I told, I was called a "loser" for "spending so much on a stupid cammy". Whatever. They have pictures of kids with cake on their face, I have pictures of the moon.

Usually, nowadays, I just answer, "Probably more than you'd want to spend, ha-ha" and joke it off and leave it at that. Plus, people also don't really need to know how much they could hawk it on ebay for.

The funny thing is, if it were a car, for example, it'd be perfectly excuseable. But if its a "high performance laser", people just don't get it. So lately, for me, it's better to just kinda push it off jokingly and move on from the subject.

My usual response is: "I work very hard at my job, I make plenty of money, I can afford it."

@aryntha

Oh god yes, comparing it to their car spendings is the best.

Yeah I get that every time lasers get mentioned with my friends (or in my grade for that matter LOL).

It's always "Why the hell do you spend that much", "You idiot", "You spent that much for a little thing that shoots photons?!".

My parents thought I was a fool when I said I was considering buying a 5mW 473nm lol.
And you should have heard the argument that arose with a friend after he heard how I wanted 5mW of 473nm and what it costs.

I always respond with their expensive computer hobby/game hobby/etc etc etc.
But then it always comes down to, apparently those hobbies are more useful than photons.
Well, that's just their opinion and I really don't give a damn haha.

We're not even touching on the beauty of staying connected via the internet, and all that that one little thing does for this hobby..

Just by keeping an ear to the ground online I've gotten my hands on:

2X 1W CNI green show modules (producing 1.1W and 1.4W respectively)
1X 500mW RGB projector with all CNI analog lasers, all overspec.
1X JDSU 2214-40MLA multi-line argon laser in near mint condition producing ~45mW@7A.
1X Laser-Export 355nm pulsed laser system producing almost 7kW of peak power, q-switched.
and an untold number of diodes, parts, optics etc..

One of these I still need to pay for, but if I add the costs that I have payed and agreed to pay together we're talking about less than $2500 total. That's a ridiculously low number for what I now own.. The 355nm q-switched system and the argon each cost nearly $10,000 new.

I have learned far more from tinkering with lasers, arc-lamps, and other electronics than I ever could from weeks of clubbing. It is more productive than some people give it credit for.

The problem is, when you bring up their hobbies like biking or cars or computers ect. they say
"Yeah but they have a purpose, lasers are just lights, they don't do anything! Haha!"
The you have to say something like, "You just don't understand..."

-Tony

I see this kinda stuff everyday.

"You paid how much for a garter snake??" $350 your nuts.....

"Does that $500 record sound any better than my $20 CD??"

I don't tell people how much my lasers cost.

People have a tendency to link price with size, people who are not educated in the area can't understand paying so much for something with little physical value, they don't understand that more often than not it's not the physical value behind the product, but the effort, time and meaning behind it in which it's value is gained.

I just say I have so much spare cash I guess I have to waist it on something. That normally helps to demoralize them at the same time

I tend to be one asking that question . When it comes to hobbies and such, I'm pretty frugal/cheap. Anything under $50 I will generally buy without too much of an issue, but anything more expensive will warrant a "can it be DIYed" investigation. Most of my gear is either homebuilt or repaired from a broken unit.

I just say, as with any addiction it costs money. I tell the pot heads I know, at least my money does not go up in smoke.

I simply reply:

It is cheaper (in more ways than one) than my sitting in a bar every night.

Peace,
dave

Heck, a large part of why I got into lasers is because it's cheaper than my other hobby, which is clay target shooting. Yeah, it can be expensive, but it's only exactly as expensive as you make it. You can go hog wild and spend thousands in a week here, easily. Myself, I limit myself to one large purchase a year, and I spread out the payments/save for it so it's not that expensive at all really.

My capital investment in lasers is not insignificant, of course...but the insured value of my lasers is approximately a factor of 10 lower than the insured value of my shotguns alone, not to mention all the other equipment. My shooting bag with all my equipment (not guns, but choke tubes, glasses, etc) in it is approximately equal in value to my laser case with all my lasers in it.

Then the marginal cost is lower as well: batteries are a heck of a lot cheaper than shotgun shells and range fees for shooting clay targets.

I still do both, but lasers give me something to do where I can enjoy myself sitting at a soldering station (takes up very little space in the apartment too, great advantage over many other hobbies) for hours on end, and get that sense of satisfaction from a working laser, with very little monetary investment.

So yeah, just start comparing laser to other hobbies. Sure, it may not make sense to some people, but it compares very well in the cost department to some of the most popular hobbies out there. Fishing? Hunting? Cars? Anything RC? Rocketry? Music? Compares very similarly to all those in many ways.

If I know them, I usually tell them that lasers are my much cheaper alternative to crack.

If I don't, I just tell them they don't want to know.

-Trevor