Frugal Hobbies: What To Do With The Free Time That Not-Spending Frees Up

Having a hobby is crucial to the frugal lifestyle - it can provide rest, encourage creative, foster community, keep us from wasting our time + money on less important activities and so much more! BUT hobbies can also be expensive! On this episode we discuss how to enjoy a hobby with breaking the bank, and how to find a frugal hobby if you are still clueless in this domain!

Sponsors:

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Notable Notes:

What the Internet has to say:

• This article from The Simple Dollar gives some pointers on how to have and enjoy a hobby without overspending on this leisure activity.

What Jen + Jill have to say:

• Begin with inexpensive gear. As this article mentions, if you are not doing the activity with inexpensive stuff, you won't do it with expensive stuff. Try the thing out first prior to investing the big bucks!

• Pair an expensive hobby with an inexpensive hobby - this will help to balance out the time and money spent on the hobby!

• Apply a budget and identify ways to maximize that budget. For example, consider selling old hobby related gear each time you purchase new hobby related gear!

• Regularly reflect on whether the hobby is still a priority. Lives shift and sometimes our interest and attention shifts too. Pay attention to this, and give yourself permission to find new ways to spend your time!

• Upgrade slowly, and do plenty of research prior to spending money on an upgrade!

• Get involved in local groups related to your hobby. This has many benefits including community, potential access to less expensive gear, resource and shared knowledge, and much more!

More from the Internet:

• This article from Bustle gives some tips and pointers on how to find to a hobby even as an adult. For those who don't yet know what they want to do for fun/leisure, this article gives some great ideas on where to start and how to think about this topic.

More from Jen + Jill:

• Look back to your childhood - allow this to influence and inform the things you enjoy and find ways to recreate those fun childhood activities like painting, creating, singing, etc.

• Try a few things out - don't feel pressured to pick a hobby and never depart from it. Engage in a variety of things and see what sticks!

• Find something that will help you disconnect from the other parts of your day. The point is for a hobby to utilize other parts of your brain and skill set and to provide rest and leisure!

• Think back on any past hobbies you have had - are they worth picking up again?

• Notice what you love to do as 'guilty pleasures', this could be great inspiration for a hobby!

• Consider if there's any areas you want to grow in or change about yourself and incorporate this into a hobby

• Think back to the last time you forgot to eat! Anything that distracts you from this important task could have indicators about what you might enjoy as a hobby!

BILL OF THE WEEK - Thank you Jen for sharing your bill of the week with us!

• If you want to submit your bill of the week visit frugalfriendspodcast.com/bill to leave us a bill

Lightning Round

Here's a few our frugal friend's favorite frugal hobbies!

• Eileen said reading library books
• Katy loves walks in nature
• Rebecca runs,
• Melinda sings in her community choir
• Traci likes puzzles and couponing
• Vicki specifically likes travel podcasts
• Jennifer volunteers and gets memberships and into events for free because she’s a volunteer.
• Emerald had some very great ideas. Dreaming, singing, piano, screaming (!?), cleaning, looking at houses, Thinking about what she would do with a million dollars, Playing facebook games with her sister, Video chat cooking with her brother and (my favorite) Staring at her baby
• Christina likes hiking local reservations
• Angela makes quilts out of old clothes (awesome idea because quilting can get expensive)
• Leah had a whole list: rock painting (there’s actually an organization in St. Pete that does that and leaves them around the city for people to take pictures with and move to different places, its kinda cool.) language learning (free apps and youtube vids for that), baking, crocheting with recycled plastic bags, walking her dog, and making maple syrup because she’s Canadian and she can do that
• Alex makes art and she’s started a business out of it so her hobby pays for itself
• Mary Kate loves writing
• Brooke is like “do budgeting and paying off my debt count?”
• Kathryn also walks and jogs with her dog and is a gigging musician and voice teacher
• Another Kathryn in the group loves working out, gardening, cooking and she’s in a bluegrass band and wouldn’t you know it...
• Marn also said playing bluegrass music is her hobby! 2 bluegrass players in the group!
• Emily crochets and sells items in her Etsy shop
• Erin is a birth doula which brings in a little money but she spends a lot of time researching and learning new things for that,

Frugal Friends Book Club:

It’s May and we’re reading The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist for book club!

• If you want to enter to win a free copy, leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, screenshot the review and send it to frugalfriendspodcast@gmail.com. We’ll select the winners at the end of the month.

See you next week!