Inspired by the previous question: What is your “inexpensive” hobby that turned out to be expensive/ you gradually invested lots of money into? : asklemmy, I would like to know what hobbies are easier to keep cheap.
I still ride my mountain bike from 15 years ago. It requires a yearly budget of maybe 100€ for the usual maintenance stuff, like chains and tires.
Cooking. I have accumulated good cookware through the years and I don’t find myself wanting anything new. The only expense at this point is good quality ingredients, but I only eat meat once or twice a week so even that doesn’t get expensive.
As a tradeoff, cooking for yourself also saves quite a bit of money compared to eating out. You’ll spend more on ingredients but less on staff to prep and clean and serve. And with a enough practice, some of the food you make can be better than what you get in the restaurant. 🤭
Coffee. It CAN get extremely expensive, but importantly the expensive parts can be re-used for decades, and also there’s a bit of a bend point in value for the hobby.
Once you get a $150 really good grinder and start grinding whole beans every day, you’ve gotten 40% better. Then maybe a Chemex or Aeropress for $50 and a weight scale for $20 and you’re another 30% better. After that…it’s easy to spend $300+ at a time on better equipment or getting into espresso but each thing is like a 5% improvement. You’ll notice, but if you don’t have much money, it’s not really worth it.
And the beans SEEM like they’re getting expensive but a bag gets 2 weeks of coffee for me, $20 for really nice beans just isn’t that much per cup.
Finally a coffee enthusiast who thinks like me. Too often the mentality is, it must be expensive to be a good coffee, which is not true at all.
I use a 150€ portafilter machine for espresso, americano and cappuccino, and depending on beans and mood, just a French press for “coffee”.
And my home brewed coffee is better than like 95% of the coffee I get elsewhere.
Yes, coffee! It’s wonderful when you figure out how to taste coffee and work out what qualities of a roast you enjoy.
I got into coffee during the pandemic and can wholeheartedly recommend it as a cost-effective hobby, particularly if you’re already a coffee drinker.
Wait… those exist?
Writing lore is pretty cheap unless you start getting very into fancy notebooks for it. My, my daughter and a couple friends like writing stories set in fictional works and sharing them.
Honestly other than that…
I put down £50 on a raspberry pi to lean about more about computers when I started a new job… I’m trying to find a grand to upgrade my 3 pi homelab into something with a few more teeth.
Mechanical keyboards… You can guess…
Cross stitching is an extremely inexpensive hobby. You can get started cross stitching for less than $20, if it’s a small project. It does require a lot of time as a tradeoff, but can be a very fun way to express your creative side and make cute gifts for friends.
If you have a computer, learning to program is literally free. It’ll take time and discipline but I personally enjoy it and the mental challenge it presents.
Skyrim/Fallout modding. I have never bought a mod, only gotten them from the nexus or made my own.
Absolutely. My friends get upset I refuse to buy new games and just mod instead. Its like a new game all the time.