Randy P
Flying isn't a working mans hobby. To get a PPL card these days is about $8000, which includes instruction, books, and testing. Rental rates for a Cessna 172 (wet) is around $180 per hour. It's recommended that you fly at least 4-6 hours per month minimum. After refueling, it's pretty easy to spend over $1000 month and not really go anywhere other than flying around your area of residence. For that kind of money, I can come up with a lot of fun things to do other than flying.
Yep. It was easy to blow a few hundred flying around the local area. Once I got married, my wife pointed out that we needed to be saving that "couple hundred" into a savings account for a house. That ended that. In addition, yep.... my life insurance rate was affected by the pilot's license. Agent said once I got 500 certified hours in my log book my rate would come down. I calculated it would cost tens of thousands to save a a few bucks monthly. Once I quit flying and my medical expired, they lowered my rates.
I used to work for a guy who bought a plane. I don't know what he paid for it but he dumped tens of thousands into it. $8000 to weld a crack in the aluminum block, $5000 to reupholster the seats, $12000 in the avionics panel for updated radios and nav gear, and then the operational costs. Currently, he's sold all that for an experimental cub ultra-lite that requires no license as I understand it. Heart related health problems forced his hand on that.
Me? I go to the airport fly in's once a year and look at the planes and think back to when I used to fly.