I'm scared to know what you may see as mid-budget hobby if you think gaming is cheap.
Or maybe you want to do machining(high end hobby), now you need a garage which will cost you ten thousands of dollars or you rent one for a hundred or maybe four hundred dollars per month. Then you need machines which cost more than 5k dollars and you guessed it, you will require multiple machines like that.
Getting free games per month or even getting access to a back catalogue of games with Game Pass or Playstation Plus is a monthly $9 to $15.
That's less than people pay that smoke.