Addons are cheap. I paid $360 to fill up the tank on my boat Friday and I'll need to do it again in less than 2 weeks. 

Not rich. No kids.

40 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

[  ] my boat

[  ] Not rich

Pick one 😉

What's a MSFS?

47 minutes ago, rka said:

Pick one 😉

You left one out. Fixed it for ya.

[ ] worked tail off to have nice things

I'm not rich, far from it.  But I'm retired now and since I am no longer able to hunt or fly-fish or backpack or go day hiking or rent a Cessna 152 once a month to just fly, the only thing left for me is reading, watching old movies on TV, and flight simming.  So that's where the money I used to spend on outdoor hobbies goes.

I've spent a ton on flight simming.  I have ALL the available Orbx scenery for P3Dv5.  So this morning I might decide to fly out of Ketchikan Alaska or Bar Harbor Maine or Aalesund Norway or Innsbruck Austria or Alice Springs Australia or Milford Sound New Zealand.  I have a hangar full of addon aircraft, but mostly the freeware ones.  And, of course, a Desktop PC to handle it all and a 31 inch curved screen monitor.  The money that used to go to my other hobbies now goes toward flight simming.

I spend most of the day adding aircraft, scenery, spotting favorite aircraft at favorite startup locations (I have over 100 now) with a screen icon so I can go directly to it; and anything else to fill the day besides two hours of reading and an evening watching television or old movies.

I am retired military so except for a few dollars a month for prescription drugs for my wife and I we have no other healthcare costs.  You tax payers take care of that for us and we appreciate it.

We live fairly well.  We eat well.  We dine out a couple of times a month.   In a couple of weeks Betty and I will be celebrating out 59th wedding anniversary at our local steak house and will extravagantly add a bottle of champaign to our meal.  Our appetites are not what they used to be so we eat less than we used to.  A boneless 8 ounce ribeye cut in half, half a baked potato, and half a sliced tomato for each of us will suffice for dinner.

We have a yard guy who cuts our lawn every two weeks and trims the trees and does minor home repairs for us like cleaning out the rain gutters every six months and all the things we used to do around the house but are not physically able to do anymore.

We live in an economical small city in an economical state where we pay no state income tax and our property tax is pretty low.

My wife and I have paid up funeral/cremation insurance and we both have a life insurance policy so the surviving spouse can cover other expenses and still have some left over.  If I go first my wife still gets half my military retirement.

So even though we are not rich we can afford to be semi-extravagant and spend our discretionary income on the current hobbies that replaced our older ones.  For me that is building on and flying my flight simulator.

Noel

 

Edited July 20, 20223 yr by birdguy

4 hours ago, birdguy said:

reading, watching old movies on TV, and flight simming.

sounds familiar 😊

you are lucky, now what would you do without flight simming? dreaming of a flight simulator or perhaps learn to play a music instrument?

Edited July 20, 20223 yr by turbomax

5 minutes ago, turbomax said:

now what would you do without flight simming?

When I was young (many decades ago) I remember seeing pictures and movies of old retired guys sitting in rocking chairs on the porch watching their little piece of the world go by.  Thank Heaven flight simming has liberated us oldtimers from that.  And I might add AVSIM and Hangar Cat.

Noel

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

I'm not rich, far from it.  But I'm retired now

LOL as am I. This Past Spring my wife was told she was in need of cataract surgery. Now she could have had the $4000 out of pocket blade surgery or the $8000 Lasik with eye Lense replacement meaning she would no longer need glasses. Being the unselfish spouse I am, I told her to decide. Needless to say, I'm not to let off on the cheap😂. Like most things the $8000 job ends up costing well in excess of $9000. But I'M thankful for the technology. There was a time when cataracts meant a slow march toward blindness. 

It's actually getting a bit scary being retired with inflation flirting with double digit and nest eggs evaporating with the tumultuous markets of today and health care cost rising. I will be seventy in a couple more months so statistically, though no one's promised tomorrow, we could both be around another decade or two, maybe longer. This is one of several reasons I'm not so keen to start repurchasing addons for another sim when I already own tons of them in my present sim. I'm thinking of the expensive stuff like PMDG, A2A, LEONARDO, among so many others many of which I purchased more than once when I went to the 64bit sim. So, like @birdguy I spend my time reading good books, watching Turner Classics or ROKU, yard maintenance, etc as well as simming, enjoying the thousands of dollars' worth of addons I have. 

When I hear stories like yours, Vic, it upsets me to no end.  Going further would mean I would be treading on a forbidden subject.  

My wife and I both had cataract surgery a few years ago and Medicare and Tricare for Life (for military retirees) covered it.  If I wanted to have corrective lenses instead of plain clear lenses it would have cost me 1K for each eye so I declined.  Glasses have served me well up to now so I'll just save the 2K and keep on wearing them.  

Noel

 

 

23 hours ago, AOB said:

I know there are some out there who are very rich but has anyone ever worked out the total cost of buying all MSFS add ons?

To even ask this question demonstrates severely misplaced priorities. 

7 hours ago, MDFlier said:

Addons are cheap. I paid $360 to fill up the tank on my boat Friday and I'll need to do it again in less than 2 weeks. 

Not rich. No kids.

That's one day of gas at the track for the car...  They say the quickest way to become a millionaire in racing is to start with a billion...

21 hours ago, billgustaf said:

Try golf as a hobby if you think Flight Simming is expensive! Just pace yourself with an occasional add-on, along with freeware. This is way less expensive than FSX or P3D. Really enjoying my hobby these days!

 It's true I used to think very little of spending $300-$400/month playing golf and that w/ $40 green fees, nevermind balls, clubs, transporation to and from, etc.  Still, I'm very value-conscious:  it has to mean a lot to me to cough up the dough, but then if it does float my boat I'm in.  Still, value-conscious!  6 airports, one plane (standing by for PMDG 737-800), Air Hauler (wasted dough for me), PACX (decent for what it is), and A Pilot's Live v2 which is working well for me currently despite its built-in limitations--it gets better in this regard fortunately.  It's a replacement for FSCaptain which still has a ways to go to be working well in MSFS.

There is no question MSFS is far and away the most complete flight sim in history--right out of the box, or download as the case was.

39 minutes ago, psolk said:

That's one day of gas at the track for the car...  They say the quickest way to become a millionaire in racing is to start with a billion...

I guess you need to put it all into perspective. I don't have a fancy house or a fancy car. But I love my boat.

Looking at the responses I think I should have phrased the OP a little bit differently. I was just musing over the total cost of all the add ons and whether or not anyone had actually bought them all. I did not mean to cast any aspersions on anyone regarding their financial status. I apologise for any offence. 😟

10 hours ago, W2DR said:

What's a MSFS?

MicroSoft Flight Simulator....generic, I suppose?