$2550 spent on Amazon since the start of my second grow (End of October 2017) until now.
$1400 and change since the start of my third grow (March 2018). Most everything purchased since March was for the outdoor and soil growing efforts… trying different mediums got expensive I guess.
I still have one plant left on the third grow (my indoor Gold Leaf)… other than nutes and electricity I shouldn’t need to buy anything to finish it. Heh. I think I can get a pound of that one plant, which would be around a $2,400 value.
That’s not entirely unreasonable. Cost of weed is about double here, which seems to be about the norm outside of a few regionally flooded markets. Then you figure if you counted only the stuff you currently have in use and consumables, it probably would be a lot closer to paid for. And you’re now running multiple spaces that you really didn’t get the production from that you probably will the way you’re set up now.
Knowing what you know now, I bet you could setup a space that would pay for itself within the first year if not the first grow right?
I could easily set up a grow that would pay for itself in the first harvest. If you figure an ounce is worth $150 and can grow a pound in a 4x4, that’s $2400. I think you could set up a 4x4 tent with great lights for under $2400 no problem - especially if you grow in soil. Hydro adds some start up costs.
Let’s make an Amazon wishlist and see what it adds up to.
Agreed! Which is pretty much where I was going. This stuff is a little pricey, but nowhere near the expense of buying lower performance stuff trying to save a few bucks and then having to replace it later.
Under two grand so far. And that’s with an HLG-550 off of Amazon.
Need to add fans… other than that I don’t think I missed anything that I consider essential. Well… nutrients but we’ll leave those out of this equation.
Yes and no, if you’re buying the cheap stuff and expecting it to do what the expensive stuff does for the same length of time, then I agree with you there as many have found that out to their cost.
But if you start off spending pennies, like I did, with the full intention of upgrading to something better once you know what you are doing then that comes in under “investment” and, well, given that the hundred and odd bucks I’ve spent in total, including electricity, is away to likely be wiped out by what I am about to harvest then that money, although it might have been spent better as part of a more expensive setup, was money well spent as the experience gained at a small price is of much more value to me than having a lot more money tied up in an expensive setup and getting poor returns.
So it all depends on the individual’s plans and expectations, and some people have greater expectations than they should, to be quite honest.
I feel the same way. When I started out I budgeted $1000 to get set up… I spent around $900 initially. I didn’t consider that I would want things like humidifiers and dehumidifiers. Everything I purchased is still being used (well, not everything… buckets and things like that) for the time being, so I’m still getting value of the money I’ve spent.
I could just as easily have dropped this much money on any number of other things and not gotten anything in return except a bunch of good times.
It took me the pain and agony of actually growing to understand what I need and don’t need. I didn’t know that last year. I didn’t have any clue.
So now if a newbie was coming to me asking how to get started, I’d tell them that step one is saving $2000.
As I’ve said before, I reckon that’s why there’s always complete tent/light/extractor/etc setups for sale on the second hand sites here as people spend a load, don’t get the returns they expect and then just give up and go back to buying.
But then you’re looking at people who are missing one vital thing, a plan. They think they can just drop a seed and grow a tree of the finest weed possible, and after the third failure they realise that ain’t the case and give up. And nothing will change there either.
Budget is one thing, but an unlimited budget doesn’t mean squat if you don’t know what you are doing and that’s where people fall down at the start regarding expectations.
I mean, I learned the hard way, even with my low expectations at the start. But there are people out there who think they can grow a prize winning mega plant even though the only thing they’ve ever grown before is fungus between their toes, and they are the people who suddenly find out their expectations are much bigger than the reality.
The leverage point is the definition of what a load of money is. It’s different for everyone obviously, but all you have to do is look close. There’s people crushing small grows around here. @MattyBear, @raustin, @Dieselgrower all come to mind. All doing small spaces very well, defying any watt per square foot rules or that you need a big space, big pots, 15 bottles of advanced nutrients or any other of that nonsense.
@dbrn32 are you saying you know a way to save 250 on a diy light vs hlg-600 or its 250 less to buy the hlg-600 sorry for so many questions but I’m trying to get the best bang for my buck I went cheap 1st time now it’s time to upgrade but still not trying to to go bankrupt lol
If you are running the numbers like a business then you have X amount in capital investment like lights, tents etc. and operating costs like electricity and nutrients and water. Just to clarify.
Yes - I haven’t gone and done a full balance sheet or anything. This is rough math.
But I will probably create some financial books re: my grows so I can track them. Now that I have some basic understanding of what I am doing, I am going to be trying to find efficiencies and cost savings wherever I can. The first most obvious place is replacing the blurple panels in the veg tent with something that consumes less energy but produces equal vegging results (and provides the flexibility to use for flower if needed).
My ongoing costs are electricity, water, and nutes. I would probably want to figure out how much other stuff I regularly replace (net pots, buckets, hoses, etc) over the course of a fiscal year and put that into a monthly opex budget. From a capex perspective, I would want to establish a five year plan and make a budget accordingly.
