Save money? My wife asked me how much money I thought I was saving by brewing and wine making. None. It is impossible to "save" money and spend money at the same time.
This is a hobby for me. Like all my hobbies it costs money...cars did, motorcycles did, sailboats did, archery did, shooting sports did, they all do. I think the better question is how much fun are you having for your bucks? I am having fun! I bought all my gear from folks who weren't having any more fun and sold out. But...I am still spending money...spending is not saving.
Errr, okay. It is quite possible to spend money to save money.
Buy 5lbs of frozen chicken in bulk at $25 is saving money instead of buying it a single pound at a time, at $8 a pound. That is spending money to save money.
Buying LED light bulbs is spending money, but if it costs $2 per year less to run each bulb, that is spending money to save money.
I brew at between $.35-.50 per bottle typically, that is a lot less than a typical $1.50 per bottle price I'd pay for vaguely similar beer.
That is saving money. Yeah, I occasionally buy gear, but it either allows me to do things like crush my grains, so I can buy in bulk (massively pushing costs down), culture yeast, so it is easier to reuse yeast, pushing my costs down, or saving me time and/or improving the quality of my beer, which or more intangibles, but you could argue you can convert time to money (at some exchange rate) and better quality beer, you can argue means you are comparing your baseline price against more expensive beer.
I don't disagree, if you are enjoying it, you can afford it, that is all that matters. However, some of us, it is important to also be saving money. I couldn't do this hobby if it was costing me more than just buying the beer from the store. I am not poor, but I certainly would have a hard time budgeting MORE for brewing my own than buying it at the store. I can donate some free time, as I enjoy the heck out of the hobby, but I couldn't (at this point in my life) donate money to it as a hobby.
Most of my hobbies have some kind of payback, even if they aren't necessarily ALL net gain. My computer hobby, well, I'd at least argue for some of the stuff that I'd want no matter what, it would be a lot more expensive than having put everything together and maintained it myself. As well as making my family's life easier. My photography hobby, well, probably haven't spent more on gear than would have been spent on setting up a couple of pro photographer photoshoots every year for really nice family pictures (and I don't mean go to the mall kind of photos. I mean the kind you are probably spending $200-300 for). On top of the less tangibles of having great family photos at events, better documentation of things like family trips, birthday's, etc. That said, photography is a less tangible "saving money" hobby of mine.
Brewing, certainly a cost savings there. Automobile hobby? Well, I can't promise everything has saved money there, but a number of things I've done have increase fuel mileage of my car more than the price invested. A few things not. But, hey, the work I've done on my car is minor. In recompense, I am awesome mechanically, in part from enjoying working on cars and doing minor modifications. I haven't paid for an oil change in 10 years or any other car repair (okay, minor lie, 8 years ago I did take my wife's subie to get the timing belt replaced, as I just didn't have the time to invest to do it myself). That has probably saved me $4,000-5,000 over the years based on what I know the shop cost would have been for some of the work. That is a heck of lot more than I've sunk in modifications in to my car (maybe $1,000? Probably not quite that much).
My construction/home renovation hobby is dearly expensive, but you know what, if I didn't know how to do it, a lot of the stuff we would have paid a contractor to do. I HAVE been keeping a rough tally of costs as well as projected project costs if we had hired a contractor. I think at this point I am up to around $100,000 in savings over the years.
I garden as a hobby, but considering my garden's yield, we have probably come close to saving what we have invested in capitol expenses the last couple of years since we moved in to our current house. It'll certainly break even within another year or two despite some more work we want to do.
I want to get in to hunting this fall, but it is for the savings. 80lbs of deer meat is whatever cost of the license and equipment, as well as paying a processor. Ignoring the equipment, that is a LOT cheaper than buying 80lbs of beef, goat, etc. Just a couple of successful hunts/deer pays for entry level gear costs (Pricing out what I need, about $300 of equipment to start recurve bow hunting). Then it is just my time, which if I am enjoying it, that is enough. Oh, it is certainly possible if I enjoy it enough I'll likely spend more on gear that has intangible returns, but it is damned unlikely I'll ever go nuts on gear and so long as I don't turn out to be a crappy hunter, probably still getting more out of it than whatever I am investing in costs.
I honestly can't think of much in the way of my hobbies that does not save myself/my family money in the end. Photography and/or computers is MAYBE the closest I can think of that has a very fuzzy ROI. I'd almost say backpacking, but that is a lot cheaper than paying for a hotel room, stuff to do, etc. for a similar vacation. But, sure, backpacking might be my one hobby where there is effectively zero return on investment.
Everything else, there is arguably a net positive ROI for my hobby.
But, it is perfectly fine if your hobbies do nothing but bring you enjoyment. I personally want to meld my hobbies with saving myself and my family money. A lot of times, that means I can afford to do MORE of the hobby, or pick up another one that'll save us money, or just use the saved money on something else (like a vacation for our family. Or a new couch that we need. Or saving for my kid's college).
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