A counter question to the guy who posted a similar question few hours ago, cause most of the answers weren’t helpful for someone like me, who doesn’t have much money😅.
Hiking can be nearly free especially on beginner trails that don’t require special equipment
Writing is something I hated in school but as I’ve gotten older it can be fun to kinda play god with peoples lives.
Cooking isn’t free but could actually save you money if you eat out a lot.
Writing fiction is so much fun.
When you start writing, you’re in control, but about 1/3 of the way through a longer story, the characters start taking over and leading the way, to the point that if you’re not careful, they’ll lead you astray from the story you want to write, and they’ll start writing their own story--which may or may not be a better story. If you’ve never experienced this, it’s surprising the first time it happens.
If you have a computer, you can learn to write code. The market for programming is in shambles, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. You can do all sorts of things like make a game, build a personal website, make a custom app, make art, and more
That’s my career 😭. I honestly wish to change careers and do programming just as a hobby, but right now, it’s already what I do.
reading.
Yes! Libraries are free, and awesome. Unless you don’t have one near you. Even then, used books can be had pretty cheap, and you can often find ebooks given out free or cheap. Plus stuff like Gutenburg and Standard Ebooks for older texts. Doesn’t take long to build up a stack of books you have no hope to finish reading!
I have a very weird relationship with reading. I either am not reading one, or I’m obsessively reading one. I’ve completed not so small books in 2 days, like project hail Mary. I completed animal farm in a day.
Great suggestion, but I need better time management while reading books.
There you need to buy books unless you go to thenlibrary
or go to anna’s archive!!
…
I haven’t seen Cooking, Baking and even Gardening on the list.
These are hobbies that saved you serious amount of $$.
Making food from scratch is always cheaper and healthier.
If you don’t have much space you can have a tiny vertical garden (pallet) or just a few spiceso n your counter.
And technically growing weed to smoke is gardening and also saves money (tho I don’t know first hand, I don’t partake).Edit: forgot about: hand sewing and hand embroidery, crochet and knitting. You can fix up clothes so they last longer - and you can spruce up existing clothes also.
Gardening can be so expensive! I have a big fruit orchard and a vegetable/herb garden, I have a well and don’t pay for water, and I have my own compost system, and I chop and drop and prune my fruit trees to maintain keep them within reach. I get a free load of wood chips annually that I use for mulch, and it takes me 3 days of backbreaking work to install it all.
I still spend hundreds annually just on soil to top off the vegetable/herb gardens. Then there’s fertilizers, pest control, lady bugs to control aphids, mesh bags to cover my grapes and figs so birds don’t eat them all (they still get most of my berries). I don’t account for mowing and weed whacking as charging them barely makes a dent in my electric bill, but trimmer line and sharpening/replacing blades is another cost. Weed barrier, shade fabric, trellises, I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of other things.
If you have a couple small raised beds you use for herbs and maybe a small tomato plant, it can be relatively cheap, but the average person will not save on grocery bills by gardening.
The exception is herbs! Don’t buy that $7 bunch of mint from the grocery store, just cut a small stem and throw in the bottom of your shopping cart and pretend you don’t notice it, when you get home throw it in a water cup and give it a few days to root, move it to soil and now you have free mint for life. Same with most herbs. Save your green onion bottoms and do the same with those, don’t but a bunch every time you need a few leaves.
But that’s not much of a hobby on its own, as soon as you start gardening for a hobby, it starts getting expensive.
move it to soil
soil in a pot. don’t plant mint in the ground unless you enjoy pranks on yourself.
Ha! It’s true, it’s a hardy spreader that refuses to die, use a pot unless you know what you’re doing.
But it’s also very easy to cut back or pull out in huge sections if you let it overgrow. Or just weed wack it every now and then.
I don’t care for lawns, so I let it grow as ground cover in a bunch of spots, it looks and smells great!
I even plant it under some trees I have in raised beds (dry loving trees in really wet soil), it uses the excess water, and it acts like a living mulch.
But yes, you should be careful where it’s planted, it’s pretty invasive and can overwhelm some of your other plants if you let it go wild.
i used to have these arguments with my dad about clover. i love clover. he loves grass.
my favorite park growing up was not a fancy park. it was up in oregon near my grandparents’ house. the “grass” was clover and that’s part of why i love it so much.
Mint is eternal.
i boil a large handful of lemon balm (it’s a type of mint) each week (i like stink pots okay). i have tried to kill our lemon balm through overuse. I’m pretty sure that patch of plant will outlive me.
I did the mint idea once… The spider mites came with it killed my basil. You can call it karma. :D
yeah even with the increase cost in groceries if you buy the elements for cooking and baking the material stretches way further than ready made food. and you can learn as you go.
All great suggestions! They definitely will have a huge learning curve in practicing their new skills but the time to skill ratio pays off eventually, and you are investing in yourself which is a priceless
Gardening only started to cost me money when I wanted to expand and do more things after trying it for free.
My free starting point: take a cutting of rosemary, I see several growing around town so I just took a few of them. Root them in cups of water and then plant. Let it grow larger and you now have a free supply of rosemary to have with roast potatoes.
Take more cuttings to propagate further. I have quite a few now because I really like roast potatoes and make my own herb salt. Currently go with 1:1 dried herbs to salt by volume, using rosemary and sage.
If you like suffering like me: you can buy dollarstore seeds and to grow them from scratch.
Every spring they have everything you need to start: pots, crappy soil, seeds and watering can.
Then you can learn the skillz.I’m honestly struggling growing sorrel from seeds. (Those were more expensive seeds) After it gets to about 4 leaves it just dies.
Cuttings from stuff you can find growing around is free, for pots/soil you can just dig it up somewhere if you want, use an empty bottle as a pot if necessary. Pretty much everything I am growing currently is perennial too.
Got an allotment now which is around 125m³ and costs like £40/year. Spent a bit on getting a bunch of different things to try to see what goes well and so far the things that are growing well are kale, walking onions and rhubarb. It would cost well over £100 to buy enough of those to cover the plot I have, or I can propagate them to get more over time for the much lower initial cost of buying just a few of each plant. Of course it will take a bit longer to get a high amount of productivity from it, that said the kale seems to be growing pretty fast now and I could probably multiply it by 4 in just a few months. Rhubarb and onions probably going to take a bit longer, rhubarb is a popular plant so I might be able to get some from other people around me for cheap/free. Could offer some walking onions, don’t see many people growing those so its something more unique.
Check what physical goods your local library lets you check out. Some have tool libraries, creative spaces with access to artistic tools and supplies, kits to do citizen science, etc.
If you’re low income you might also qualify for free or low cost recreation programs through your county or city’s parks and recreation centers
masturbation
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OP asked for free things that are fun. I don’t see how masturbation is “fun”.
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☺️ At least 1 who understood it was a joke 😘
You again Cousin?
I love going on hikes or nature walks. Some great free apps are Merlin (for identifying bird calls) and Seek (for identifying plants and animals). All completely free aside from getting to to trail, but even in city parks it can be pretty fun. A good pair of binoculars is a great addition if you have the $$.
I see binoculars at thrift shops all the time for the price of a semi-fancy coffee. Just make sure the lenses are clear and they focus correctly (sometimes the optics are messed up).
Definitely. Also, lots of local birdwatching groups or chapters of the Audubon Society that host pretty frequent outings. Most are free or pretty cheap. Then you have lots of experienced people to ask questions and make friends. Check Facebook or your local photography store flyer posts.
Check out your local library! They have books of course, which can open up all sorts of new hobbies, but modern libraries also can have computers, free classes, workshop and maker spaces, tool borrowing, and sometimes even video games and the like. My local one even has free tickets to museums and the zoo!
If you want something free/cheap as hell, take up drawing. You don’t need fancy art supplies, just a pencil and paper. Look up proper drawing classes and books and get awesome at sketches!
Ours has some board games too, including some fun ones that can be played with others or solo.
Running costs a pair of shoes every now and then and extra laundry detergent but otherwise free. Like any other hobby you absolutely can spend tons of money on it but it’s not required.
Runkeeper is a free app where you can log down your runs but a casio watch with stopwatch is good enough if you know the distance.
Also, contrary to what a lot of people think you don’t have to push yourself, you can just be easy running (chill jogging) and still make massive gains in endurance, speed, physical health and mental health. Depending on your starting point brisk walking can be sufficient to get started and then transition to “let me just jog a bit” when you feel like it and still have massive gains.
You can even combine it with other hobbies like audiobooks, music and/or podcasts.
Running feels to me like “cleaning the pipes” of the body that’s relaxing and makes the remainder of the day a bit more enjoyable.
I would have started running a lot sooner if someone just told me that it’s actually fun to go slow. Now my slow is my old fast.
Yeah, a lot of people don’t realise that if running is not enjoyable then they’re putting way more effort than necessary.
Shoplifting can be both fun and profitable
Posetive money hobby
If you have a computer, music production (using free DAWs like Zrythm and free VSTs like Vital, sample packs, etc.), writing, coding.
If you don’t mind sailing the high seas or if you have access to a public library, discovering new video games, movies, music, and books can all be life changing. Many people will be more than willing to give you recommendations, or you can look up some “best-of” lists, either in specific genres/categories, or more generalized.
If you want to do things away from a screen, take a physical map, get a compass, and draw a circle from your residence of a radius that is how far you think you can walk round trip, then pick a random point and walk to it. Taking friends with you on the adventure is a great way to make things more fun if your schedules align.
My wife has been crocheting up a storm this past week. You do need yard and hooks, but as far as hobbies go, it’s pretty cheap.
I’ve been crocheting too! Making a huge granny square blanket. Easy, can zone out or watch/listen to stuff while I do it. It’s kind of cathartic.
Free
- Hiking
- Bird watching
- Volunteering
Low cost (some equipment required)
- Hunting
- Fishing
- Cycling
- Chess
Origami, lots of videos and diagrams for free online, paper is cheap and if you want to go even cheaper you can specialise on scrap paper.
Hiking/going for walks, sketching, reading (public domain books are free at project gutenberg, libraries are free), watching shows/movies (again, libraries offer access to this locally and through apps like Hoopla, Kanopy, etc. and there’s free streaming off Pluto.tv, Shout.tv, Tubi, etc), music (again, libraries or free streaming), body weight exercises and cardio don’t require a gym.
Might add more later…
