What is our time worth (to no one other than ourselves) when it is spent in a recreational pursuit? I do not own a 48-foot Marine Diesel boat, but I rent one, its Captain and Mate, when we want to go deep sea fishing. No one "pays me" to sit there and fish, but fish we do for 8 or more hours, and sometimes we even CATCH fish. We get back to the dock and I don't have to clean fish or the boat, just pay my part of both the days wage plus tip to the Mate.
If I OWNED the boat, woah Brother. That would be a horse of a different color and it brings on unwanted things like (the accursed) Insurance, mortgage or lien, storage, inspection, maintenance, upkeep, licensure, etc. All of these bring a certain cost that exceed my happiness in driving away from the dock with fish filets and the memory in digital pictures of another Good Day on the water.
Hobby time is decompression time, recovery from stress time, FUN time, and it is "not for sale" or the FUN goes right out the window along with its therapeutic value. We purchase reloading equipment so that we can SHOOT MORE for less cost than the retail value, shot for shot, and we get to amortize and KEEP the bullet manufacturing equipment, making us INDEPENDENT, so long as we maintain a supply of expendable components.
I talked to a guy at the local Marine Parts Store yesterday after he had quipped, "It's expensive here." I said these materials are the price of our RECREATION and at what point do we draw the line between the DIY effort to make trailers, motors, and boats work rather than pay someone to fix them, or WORSE, sit, broken down, at the dock or at home?
Just DO IT...and I don't mean purchase unwisely.
Repetitive reloading processes (some easy, some more difficult) that make me tired from the tedium include trimming cases, pouring cast boolits, and changing dies or tool heads in the progressive or single stage press with all of the tweaking.
I bought additional tool heads (mostly) and change a caliber's dies all at once. Reloading for 10 calibers (and for some 10 is a drop in their bucket), stockpiling consumables over time, and ENJOYING myself in the reloading effort is my Return on Investment, or else I wouldn't do it at all. I get energetic periodically and go on a casting "jag" that'll last two to four day through multiple calibers and thousands of boolits in each caliber - then I am done for a while in that. Prep'ing cases is, meh, just part of the effort.
I lost my Mentor, shooting, hunting, and Good Time Buddy of 30-years and still have that HUGE hole in my heart. I am not back yet to shooting, but honestly, the rest, which took two plus years to process before I could carry on, is therapeutic.