Thrifty Hobbies
July 15, 2008 by Karen Weideman
Filed under frugal living, money saving idea
The following is a guest post.
I started running again the the other day. My workout plan involves running on 5 nights a week between when the kids go to bed and my bedtime. Three of those nights are weekdays. I realized that this could save me some pretty decent money.
Instead of spending money on any number of food or entertainment related things, I now have three nights where I just will not have time to do much besides normal family time, nightly chores, and my workout.
Now running is as much a hobby for me as a health thing.
So I started thinking of other hobbies that I have that prevent me from spending money.
I like to read but prefer to buy used books or get them at the library. I read about 15-30 minutes most nights so books take me a fair amount of time to finish.
I have started to enjoy poking around at the yard. Things like mowing and, in particular, picking the weeds. I spend 1-2 hours a week and since I have a new push reel mower I don’t even have to pay for gas.
I like to write fiction. Every few months I’ll play around with a story idea for a couple weeks.
I like to watch movies. I used to see a movie virtually every week. With movies going for about $8/ticket plus popcorn, that would easily be $50/month. I use Netflix now and pay $13.99. I end up watching more than 4 movies most months and pay significantly less for treats.
Those are most of my cheap hobbies. What hobbies do you have that end up saving you money?
Thanks so much to Mike for today’s guest post. He is the father of 5 year old twins and a new baby. You can find him writing about IVF, raising children, raising a child with autism, and fatherhood. I hope you’ll visit him at Be A Good Dad!
LRN
Blogging.
Also, if you have a good internet connection, Netflix On Demand is great. There are a lot of movies you can watch instantly in addition to the ones you receive in the mail.
A money saving hobby for me is knitting. I’ll sit and knit presents for kids rather than splurging on something naff and plastic. I’m not sure if the naff knittyed teddies are any better than cheap plastic toys, lol.
Good article. I rarely go anything outside the house (i’m trapped here) so saving money by not going to the cinema etc doesn’t help me personally, lol.
Like someone else mentioned, knitting is my cheap hobby…although it hasn’t been cheap lately buying organic yarns…but it will save me money from having the actually buy the finished product.
Netflix has been great to us. DH and I rarely get out to actually see movies in the theater and when we do, it costs a fortune in gas, babysitting, popcorn and tickets. $20 a month for netflix and we get tons of movies. We get one or two movies a week that DH and I wanted to see together and have a “date night” after the kids are in bed.
Mine are Blogging, Writing, Reading and playing Guitar.
Here’s a good list (IMHO) - my list of 10 cheap hobbies:
http://simpledebtfreefinance.com/10-cheap-hobbies-for-fun-and-relaxation/
~Joe