Dustin.Skydiving is by far the most expensive sport I can think of. BASE is exponentially more dangerous and requires a lot of experience skydiving to justify trying even the most safe of BASE options. I love skydiving and I plan to do that a lot more in the future, but BASE is risky for the sake of risk. There is zero time to pull a reserve in a lot of jumps, and if you do have time you need to be very experienced to pull it off.
So unless you want to hope for the best and await the inevitable, you'll need to spend a lot of money to build experience and discipline as a skydiver. At $25 a jump at a cheap place if you pack your own chute that you already bought for several grand after doing AFF for several grand.....skiing is definitely cheaper.
I've spent my entire career in aviation and have jumped a bit. It's dangerous, and that risk is balanced by caution, discipline, knowledge, and experience. If you don't have all of those always, eventually you'll fucking kill yourself. And no one will think you're badass for dying at 28 "doing what you love", sorry.
I don't care about being badass
Or posting for clout on social media
I am the only person I can think of who doesn't photograph my whole life
It is something I have always wanted to do, can't explain it
I am willing to put the time, effort and money into learning
In terms of money, skiing costs me around 10-20k per 6-8 week trip