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😅.
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.
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.
Shoplifting can be both fun and profitable
Posetive money hobby
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.
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.
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.
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.
Research the shit out of something you are interested in. Go down all the rabbit holes you can find. Compile it into a simpler, better understood synthesis. Convert it into a YouTube vid and deploy. I’d watch anything if well researched.
Nothing you’d probably like?
Do you have a working laptop or desktop? Learn to code. Actually code none of that vibe code bullshit. Making games is fun and rewarding and has an amazing community.
Geocaching
And while you’re out geocaching, check out Street Complete
OpenStreetMap surveying is an excellent hobby. I’ve been doing it for years.
Its free (somewhat), but the commercialization of it by the geocaching.com assholes has made me sour on it.
I’m a premium member and I find it worth it because I hike a lot. But for people who don’t have expendable income, you can just install the open source geocaching app c:geo, you’ll get a lot more caches than the official app and it will give plenty to find. Additionally, you can email geocaching and they give you a week or 2 weeks of premium, with that time, you can download as many caches offline as you want.
Yeah I know about c:geo, I have it on my phone.
I pretty much just gave up. Geocaching.com ruined it for me. It should just be a wiki and open. But nice to know the tip of two weeks to download.
I remember when it truly was a free hobby. It also was a lot more fun before GPS was on everyone’s phone and you used a separate GPS device.
Well, geocaching here, where I live, may be a completely different or separate thing then, we have our own geocaching repository with mostly small and interesting hides (or virtual caches or multi caches) or educating about your environment. Fully community driven and maintained, free of charge.
That is pretty neat. I always have to use one to 3 sites depending on where I am in the world.
I remember when we used to do CD, DVD, foreign coins and kids toy caches. Those were fun. Now it seems like everytime I check its just a log book at best, or a “scenic” cache.
Yeah, it’s mostly really just a log book or even a code you can check online. But there’s still a chance to find some small kincks-knacks in a Kinder Surprise shell thingy.
Im a big fan of calligraphy. It can be free using just a pencil and paper that you have. But it is more fun if you spend the $35 on marker paper and a calligraphy marker.
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.
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!”
Speaking of free courses, Nand2Tetris is excellent for learning how CPUs work.
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.
