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😅.
Shoplifting can be both fun and profitable
Posetive money hobby
Learn about birds
+1. Birds are flipping awesome. When you get into your 40s, looking at birds hits different. I now get up at 330 in the morning on my days off to look at birds.
Birding! Cornell’s “Merlin” app is free and an excellent identification/logging tool.
Roleplaying games. Download a free ruleset and a dice app for your phone and you’re good to go.
Juggling.
You could learn to sew. Make your own stuff and repair the stuff you already have.
Keep an eye on local marketplaces for vintage Singer sewing machines. They’re heavy and a lot of people are looking to get rid of them. Forget the people who think they have a gold mine because it’s an antique. Bide your time and research the strengths of different machines (two solid performers are the Model 15 and Model 66).
The vintage Singers and Whites are built like tanks. If they still move (no rusty barn finds), they can be calibrated. It usually just takes a little sewing machine oil. Familiarising yourself with how they work and what to look for will do wonders. Sewing is a great skill to have.
disc golf. There is a small cost to entry, but you can buy some used discs for a basic starter pack to get going. From there just find a local course and start playing! However if you enjoy it (like I did) I cannot guarantee that it will stay a cheap hobby.
Just be like me, and use the same katana for ten years straight.
You get really good at technical putts with a katana.
Damn I suck at throwing anything over a 9 speed. I’ve only been playing for about a year and a half, though. I’m this close to getting most of my drives nose-down. But better putting has been the real game changer for my scores.
Nothing you’d probably like?
Conlanging - the art of creating tongues. https://library.conlang.org/about/conlanger.html
Collecting seeds
I like knitting and crochet, if you go on car boot sales you can often find a lot of balls of yarn almost free, and there are so much things you can do, for you or as gifts!
I’ve been really enjoying getting into penpaling. Stamps are pretty much the only expense. I really enjoy disconnecting from technology and focusing on the letter only.
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.
Cooking is actually a really good shout for people who have very limited culinary skills, you don’t need to become a master chef but learning the basics so that you can at some point just look in you’d fridge at a bunch of nearly expired produce and then make something of it.
You will save yourself bigtime cash cooking for yourself if that’s not something you do already fairly routinely
Being able to make a palatable meal with random ingredients that are going to go bad soon is a real skill and super useful. My wife is a master at it and I’ve been trying to get better at it too. I’ve found it pretty easy if it’s all produce but other ingredients absolutely can work too, most ingredients can work together in some capacity if you use them right. Vegetables are just the easiest for me, personally.
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
For anyone considering this, Harvard University’s cs50 course is free and invaluable to anyone who wants to pursue these interests.
Speaking of free courses, Nand2Tetris is excellent for learning how CPUs work.
Invaluable means valuable? What a country!
:P
Invaluable means the value can not be determined, not that it has little value.
yeah lol. I was just quoting the simpsons. “Inflammable means flammable? What a country!”
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.
Foraging. It costs almost nothing to learn about the plants that grow around you and what you can do with them. I’ve been doing it for about 5 years now, and spent maybe $80 on a good hori hori and $40 on a good mortar and pestle when I wanted to get serious. Neither of those are necessary to forage. A good field guide is something you can order at your local library. The main cost is time studying at home and on the field.
Here’s some amazing pesto I made with wild mustard garlic greens.
And the before picture
I can not recommend the hobby enough. I’m happy to try and answer any questions you might have.
Oh man I got to enjoy a chicken of the woods mushroom for the first time last year and it was amazing. We enjoyed sumac tea all summer and have a bounty of hickory nuts this fall. I made wild riverbank grape jelly from grapes harvested from my mom’s backyard. Definitely need to be careful with ID’ing and never picking something you’re not 100% sure of but it’s liberating and satisfying.
This does sound very compelling, but how did you start?
When I go outside in a place that has plants I try to ID at least one that I don’t know. When I get a positive ID on it, I’ll look it up and sometimes it will have edible or medicinal properties.
Fell mouth first into a blueberry bush while hiking
Hehe, I don’t know much but I know those very well. There’s lots of them in Franconia!
Did you know that wolves prefer blueberries to meat?
I unfortunately live too deep inside the city to try that😅. There’s very little vegetation around.
I’m not sure where you are exactly but you’d be shocked. When I was last in New York I actually took an “Urban Foraging Tour”. They showed us these wild weeds that grow on stoops that apparently make a great tea.
I don’t forage as a hobby so obviously this is all just experience from one two hour tour I took like five years ago but still!
You would be surprised. Dandelion for example is a plant that thrives in cities, is entirely edible, and you can roast it’s taproot into a delicious coffee substitute.
I started out with dandelion actually. I made a whole plant tea out of it heat dried. It entirely transformed the plant into something that smelled delicious, almost this floral toasted honey smell.
Just don’t take from places where a lot of pets get walked, right next to roads, or sprayed. Wash everything and anything you take home throughly, and research research research before you start picking.
Garlic mustard can be great, but you have to get it at the right time. It becomes bitter when the plant starts to mature.
While experimenting with it one time I did something resembling Palak Chaat with some tender young leaves. They fried up beautifully and ended up translucent - like green stained glass - and wonderfully crispy.
