How do you fund your diving?

[Kevrumbo]

I work in Southern California Aerospace Industry, 9 to 12 hours a day, sometimes all seven days of the week for nearly a month straight. If all goes well and units delivered on time, I take the rest of the Quarter off and blow all my Overtime earnings on overseas tropical Scuba trips to SE Asia & Oceania/Micronesia.

. . .Of all the technological breakthroughs made in Los Angeles during the Cold War — the laser, the first supersonic jet fighter, the Apollo moon ship, stealth aircraft, the space shuttle, the intercontinental ballistic missile system and much else — the creation of a communications satellite has had the largest and most enduring cultural, social and economic impact. . .

. . .Los Angeles County, the Birthplace of Recreational Scuba: where you can snowboard/ski in Winter Mountain Wilderness; then turn back around to swim, surf & night dive in Kelp Forests at Mainland Beaches; and finally come home to Suburbia with a perfect Mediterranean Climate --all done within either a span of 12 hrs, or a leisurely paced Weekend. . . !

 

[rivers]

Use birthday and Christmas money to buy anything i might want. And I don't do much else besides dive. All of my diving is local however. A "trip" might be a long weekend away at the coast, where I am most likely camping and eating pot noodles to cut down on costs.

 

[spectrum]

In 2005 I sold this and that got me and my wife into complete cold water gear. It had run it's course after 29 years and I was trading one dream for the next and never looked back. Along the way the household added to the collection. It's a lot easier when you have the same objective. Now this is supporting anything I decide I want to add. The rest comes from the household.

Pete

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I don't drink, smoke, eat out or go to movies, plays or sporting events. I don't have any personal electronics other than an old cell phone. My most expensive piece of gear is my boat, which takes most of my paycheck to use. It took me six years to save for my half of the boat. I made a lot of shore dives before that. I went on two warm water dive trips in the past year, but none in the previous eighteen years.

 

[jezellw]

Social Security check. Thank those of you who are still working and paying into SS. I paid in since I was 12 years old, retired at 62, and am still paying some in at 73. I really appreciate those of you who help support us old geezers. Believe me, we are indebted to you.

 

[ajtoady]

Work, Work, and more Work!!! Wife and I run two businesses and love to do what we want. The cottage rental pays for the taxes and health ins. The electrical end in the paper industry pays for the rest. I try to work on the road (all across the states and Mexico) about 8-10 weeks a year and usually that works. Most of my gear is acquired online and some from my LDS. Lately been picking up some HOG stuff from J. Lapenta and his pricing is more than competitive. I bought one used reg and found out it was used a little hard or not maintained as I would like. Lesson learned. I had it gone thru thoroughly and rebuilt for my peace of mind. At my age I have no mortgages or liens, just a truck payment. I consider myself lucky to be able to try misc. diving scenarios, side-mount, twins, BP/W, etc.

 

[BVickery]

Lets say I developed a taste for Ramen and become a really good shopper at making my food budget stretch more than usual.

 

[Carlos Danger]

Like most probably do, I picked up much of the typical small stuff first. After I had a few trips under my belt, I started doing a lot of research on the more expensive items during my off seasons. Once I made my decisions I bit the bullet and whipped out the ol' creadit cards.

My advice would be do your due diligence, make wise practical choices, and keep it simple. I think I probably wasted more money on years worth of configuration tweaks and silly accessories.

 

[TracyN]

I am a nurse and although nurses don't make all that much money I am single with no children and the only real bills outside of the normal utility things are rent and a car payment. Because I am responsible to no one but myself and my only other active hobbies are martial arts and running my extra cash gets spent on diving. Most girls will go shopping for designer clothes and things but I will go shopping for dive gear. However I have most of my gear now so most of my extra cash goes towards nitrox fills. Plus when you only work 3 days a week that sure leaves a lot of time to dive, haha!

 

[CAPTAIN SINBAD]

No matter how rich you become, you will always be asking yourself "how do I fund my next dive?" Jacques Cousteau was wondering the same thing all the way till the end. There is no end to this addiction. You must know that you will never be satisfied. After realizing this, here is how I go about it:

1. Owning gear makes things cheaper in the long run. Being on limited diving budget, I have had years where I would make scuba purchases but dive less and these were followed by years where no purchases where made instead more diving was done. A few years of alternating this way (Gear purchase vs Dives) and now I find myself at the level where I am not the most experienced diver but have most of the gear. The next few years will be purchase-free years for me in which I will be doing a lot of diving but very little/no gear purchases.

2. I have the option of being a vacation diver. This means I can take one major trip to exotic / fancy location (Indonesia / Phillipines / Palau) and blow my whole years diving budget on it. Or I could do a lot of local / cheaper dives that are spread over the year. I plan to go route # 2 for this year. Did a lot of local dives in NC and the rest of East Coast USA that did not cost me an arm or leg but were great dives. Next year I am thinking of keeping the same because there are a lot of local dives that I could do without blowing in a lot of money.

3. I have decided that the only time I will fly to dive is when I have accumulated enough air-miles. This for me means every three years one over seas trip. There are plenty of places where there is great diving but they are not advertised as "vacation spots." Dollar still holds some value so these places can offer great value for money. Eg Egypt, South Africa, Croatia are as cheap or cheaper than the Caribbean except for the flight.

4. As a television journalist and a documentary film maker a lot of my gear has been provided to me by my sponsors and my sponsors have also paid for some of my diving. In return for that I have been able to provide for them some interesting underwater content which is always great for TV ratings etc

5. I do not want to teach SCUBA simply for making diving cheaper. Since we are dealing with life and death scenarios I believe the only people who should teach SCUBA are the ones who want to teach for the sake of teaching SCUBA. These IMHO make the best instructors. They take a genuine interest in their students and dont treat SCUBA as a "job."