Sometimes you want to dip your toes in the wide waters of hobby land without investing in it. Or maybe you aren’t in the mood to have another pot to pour money into. Whatever your reasons, a hobby has to be fun (to you), interesting and, in this economy, affordable.
So, I’ve prepared for you a list of 17 cheap hobbies that require very little investment or none at all. Pick the one that resonates with you the most, save the rest for later.
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Popular Cheap Hobbies To Try
I want to start with a few popular hobbies just because sometimes the best ideas are those tried by many people, and all we need is a reminder those hobbies exist. This is your reminder.
1. Bake Breads
Making sourdough is a cool hobby that has double purpose – it makes you feel like you’re having a pet (I mean there are bacteria you need to look after) and you also provide fresh, delicious and steamy bread to your family members every day. It is a skill but one easy to learn, and you only need to invest in flour and water which are still fairly affordable.
2. Start Crocheting
As a relatively cheap hobby, crocheting is also a very cozy and relaxing craft you might fall in love with. That is unless you turn into a production machine and have wild dreams of turning a hobby into a business.
Learning how to crochet as a beginner is easy, there are thousands of free resources online. Funding the first project could cost you less than $10, and you end up honing a skill you will have for the rest of your life.
3. Learn Urban Sketching
A pencil and a sketch pad are all you need to start this art. If you always believed you had a thing for sketching, this hobby might be your best choice. Urban sketching means taking long walks (or even trips), liking a building, or a door, or any other man-made object outdoors, and then sketching it.
4. Start Journaling
People who journal for years would tell you that journaling isn’t really a hobby, but I think it fits the category just right. You get to do something you like, something that makes you find your flow, brings you peace and relaxes you. These are all characteristics of a hobby, so let’s put journaling here as well.
You could do it with a pen in a normal notebook or you could go wild and journal on anything but a notebook – the back of receipts, leaflets, napkins, flashcards and any other piece of scrap paper that lands in your hands. Now, this is fun.
5. Join a Book Club
There is clubbing and then there is book clubbing, and I cannot tell you which one is crazier, because book clubs can introduce you to very fun like-minded people you will love chatting with.
These clubs usually have monthly (or weekly) meet-ups, joining them is free and your only investment is the books you would’ve bought anyway.
More Cheap Hobbies For Adults
6. Creating Junk Journals
Before I leave the paper and book world behind, I want to introduce to you the one hobby very few people know how to properly practice. Junk journaling is the process of creating journals out of scraps you never paid anything for. The most popular ones: junk mail, receipts, thank you cards, postcards, mailing envelopes, labels, invoices you don’t need, packaging boxes, vintage books that you would usually throw away (or donate)… The list could go on and on, but you get the idea.
Your investment could be in glue, twine to bind your journal together and time – lots of time, because it is a hobby that slowly creeps up on you and you get easily obsessed with.
7. Birdwatching
This is the first absolutely free hobby on this list. You really just need to go out on a walk, look up and spot the birds. There are free apps like this one that could give you all the curious info about the bird you just saw with a tap of your finger. That’s it.
Hobbies that go under the same category are cloud watching and nature IDs.
8. Geocaching
While outdoors, I need to let you know about this fun hobby, especially if you have young children who love to hunt for treasures.
Geocaching is a global treasure hunt that has “branches” in nearly every area of the world.
You sign up as a member in the Geocaching app (it is free), pick your treasure hunt area and then go out to actually find that treasure. It usually is a small box filled with low-value items, that you are obligated to leave as it is, where you found it. So, the goal isn’t to get the treasure, just to find it which is fun enough to have millions of participants globally.
9. Foraging
A seasonal hobby, but absolutely free where I live. Worth saying, please check your local laws about it. Picking up berries, elderflower, wild plums and herbs, all growing on public paths is a fun activity that offers you a pleasant walk outside (maybe you could do it as a family or solo). You get to keep the produce for yourself and maybe turn the berries into jam, use the herbs to cook, dry the flowers for tea in wintertime.
10. Learn a New Language
If you are keen on learning something useful through your hobby, a new language is the perfect direction. You can use free apps such as Duolingo, grab some cheap flashcards and start learning. I always like to mention that a new language isn’t just that – it is also learning about a different culture, cuisine and mindset – they all shape a nation’s language.
11. Collecting Seeds
Every fruit and veggie we enjoy daily are grown from a little seed. Collecting, cataloging and keeping specimens of the seeds of those products is a real hobby and it is basically free – you would’ve bought those fruits and veggies anyway. Now all you need is to keep a few of their seeds, wash them well, dry them and keep them in an ordinary file folder.
Fun fact: you can even swap them with people online.
12. Go to Trivia Nights
If you are a nerd and are proud of it (as you should be), visiting trivia places is the perfect hobby. Your investment might be a drink and a snack, rarely an entry fee, but you also get the chance to win something (smugness for example).
13. Do a Deep Dive in Photography
You could always go wide and just snap photos of random things, but what if you learn how to take artistic close-up photos only? What if you learn how to take wide landscape shots only? What if you only take photos of certain plants, objects or buildings?
The idea of this hobby isn’t to just take photos, it is to explore one aspect of photography deeply and nail it until you master it fully. And your phone is likely all you need to start this hobby. If you need more information, YouTube offers thousands of videos from professionals, easy to access right now.
14. Learn Astrology
The world of astrology is so big and wide, there is always something new to learn and to consider. But every piece of information gives you a map of the planets when someone was born. There is always so much hidden information, it is a fascinating hobby to have.
15. Junk Sculpturing
You grab random objects that have individual purposes and turn them into a sculpture – you give them new meaning, a new life. Sometimes, that would make you stay and “work” on your new art for hours and other times, you would drop it for a week or two until inspiration hits again. This is a free and seriously fun hobby I bet nobody around you has.
16. Analog Puzzles and Games
“Analog” is the modern way to tell you that every puzzle you solve and game you play needs to be off the devices. Meaning, you go and grab yourself a puzzle from the shop (thrift stores are packed with cheap puzzles), you buy the Sudoku book, or the board game, and you get busy with them in the real world, not online.
17. Learn Historical Hand Lettering
Imagine a Jane Austen character writing a letter in a tiny gloomy room, sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair behind the loveliest vintage writing desk you’ve ever seen. She writes a letter to her lover, a letter to the milkman, a letter to the landlord, a letter to you.
That is one of the historical hand lettering styles you could master on your own, at home. Maybe you would have to invest in a special type of pen, but the rest is just paper, patience and practice. There are more than a few historical hand lettering styles you could choose from, so you know which one you’d like to approach first.
Final Thoughts
I hope the ideas above showed you that an affordable hobby doesn’t mean a hobby you don’t enjoy. Quite the opposite, a hobby doesn’t have to ask for constant investment and lavish materials to bring you joy and make you love every second you’re spending on it.
And if you’re unsure which hobby to choose, start with the one that caught your eye first, give it a week and see if it’s something you actually enjoy. The good part about cheap hobbies is that you never lose money on them if you start and then drop them quickly after.
So, save this post to your favorite Pinterest board, pick one idea and go have fun with your new hobby.
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
