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gotta say, skating is a relatively cheap hobby as long as you are fine putting up with a soggy deck and fucked shoes.
if you're getting six months out of your shoes and nine months or so out of your deck (and not getting ticketed) it's really not bad compared to most activities. being in a band is way more expensive. i'm sure if you were really into painting and going through supplies quickly, that'd work out more expensive. any sport where being part of the team involves paying coaches is going to be as or more expensive, especially if there's other equipment to buy.
and then there's also the super duper super secret that you can ride blanks and off brand shoes for like 50% of the price and it'll only make about a 5% difference to your skating.
"Relatively" is the most important word. I definatly lived the blank/cheap/second hand gear for a long time but you can also buy a soccer ball for $20 and it will last you for years. You can also play football, volleyball and basketball with it if you need to.
that's how they reel you in. they'll know you'll grow up loving it. and then boom. once you've got the funds they'll have you spending £60 a time on a replica shirt which they change every fucking season. god forbid you actually want to go and watch a game. that'll cost your immortal soul. chuck in your legs too if you want a pint at halftime. lol.
seriously though, i played football as a kid - as everyone in my locality did, which wasn't particularly ghetto but also wasn't particularly fancy - and it's much more expensive than buying a ball. boots are as bad if not worse than skate shoes. replica kits are stupid expensive. there's registration fees and training subs to pay if you want to join a team. once you're in a team there's the travel cost of away games. if you have any kind of passion for it, that creates pressure to subscribe to sports channels so you can actually watch games (hard to learn about something if you can't actually see it) etc, etc, or go watch games which has a tonne of costs attached even at lower tiers.
i had one season of going to watch my home team who were fourth tier (e.g. nobodies) at the time every other week, and even walking to the stadium and rarely getting a program/food/drink it was still working out fairly expensive.
and that's to watch absolute crap. lol.