I used to wonder why my colleagues’ blogs became strangely silent when they were working on their books. Haha. I don’t wonder anymore. Writing a book is an all-consuming process that’s difficult to describe. I’m thankful I recruited April and Baker as staff writers before I began working on my own book.
Progress on Your Money: The Missing Manual actually ground to a halt this week. Well, that’s not strictly true. I did miss my deadline on Monday, but it’s not for lack of trying. I’ve already written as much (~12,000 words) for the frugality chapter as for two normal chapters combined. The problem is that there are too many ways to save money! So, I’m producing a ton — I just didn’t finish the chapter on time.
The topic I’ll be tackling this morning is frugal fun. As I plotted the section last night, I realized we haven’t discussed this subject much at Get Rich Slowly. Why not? There are lots of cheap ways to have a good time.
While I finish pulling this section together, I thought it would be fun to poll you for suggestions. How do you have fun without spending a lot of money? Better yet, do you have hobbies or pastimes that actually make you money? I’ll go first.
Here are some of the ways I’ve learned to find maximum fun with minimum cost (and yes, some of these will be in the book):
- Take a class. Community ed classes usually cost about $50. Classes at the community college might run up to $200. While this may not seem frugal, remember that you’re not only having fun while you take your course, you’re (theoretically) picking up a skill that you can use to improve your life.
- Read a book. Boring, I know, but this is still one of my favorite ways to relax. For the past few years, I haven’t had much reading time. That’s changed in recent months. (Well, until I started the book, anyhow.) Now I remember how much I love Dickens and Twain and, yes, even Proust. If you use the public library or a used bookstore, this can be a frugal hobby, indeed.
- Exercise. I love activities that do double duty. When you find an exercise you love to do, you’ll not only enjoy yourself, you’ll also enjoy improved fitness, which in turn will save you money.
- Volunteer. I admit that this isn’t something I’ve done yet, but I’ve heard of other who have. The idea appeals to me. Find a way to do something that you love while also helping others.
- Make use of what you already have. Ah, this is a big one for me. I’ve shared before how much Stuff I have. At one time, I owned over 3,000 books. I still have about a thousand volumes, many of which I haven’t read. Plus tons of comics and music and movies. If I started using the stuff I already own, I’d probably never run out of things to do.
Last week, I interviewed Trent from The Simple Dollar to get his suggestions for simple pleasures. He had some great ideas. My favorite thing he said was this:
The mistake most people make is looking for the free stuff first. Look at the things you really enjoy doing. Once you know what you like to do, there’s almost always ways to do these cheap.
This is very true. If you know what it is you like to do, there are always people doing the same thing for very low cost. (Well, maybe not if you’re into boating. I’m not sure how you make boating a frugal hobby.) If you’re patient and clever, you can find out how others are doing what you want to do without going broke.
So, how about it? What sorts of frugal things do you do for fun? What info should I pass on to the readers of my book?
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I walk or talk to a tree.
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I am a member of my local art museum. The level I choose costs about $100 a year, but I can go as often as I like and have access to exhibits, lectures, and even singles events. Its very cost effective. Most cultural attractions have deals like this.
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I take a walk on the beach with my wife. We have the most amazing conversations. Costs -zero- and is really wonderful.
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I agree with Trent. I like to go to museums and lectures, so I keep an eye on my favourite places to see when they have free or “pay what you can” events.
One of my favourite finds lately was free demonstrations of fitness classes in a newly opened park in my area. Belly dancing with a few friends was something I never imagined myself doing, but now I’m tempted to sign up for a class!
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Our family plays games after the dinner dishes and before bed. I snicker to myself at the spelling and vocabulary practice the kids are getting with Scrabble and Boggle, the math practice with Yahtzee and the all-around good attitudes being developed by playing with a wide assortment of ages and abilities.
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Green market, yes we normally buy a cup of coffee and dog treats for Mr. Snarfle buts its a very low cost activity, we take a nice walk, we visit with neighbors, etc.
We also like to try out different coffee spots, which again costs money but we generally limit it to $5 or $10, we drive around or bike around and find a little bakery or coffee shop that we’ve never tried and have a cup of joe and snack.
We walk down town and have $1 beers on open mike night.
The library, free books and DVDs. Trade books, or have a book swap with other readers. I trade books with lots of people in the neighborhood.
Invite people over for a beer and snacks, cheaper than going out and they generally return the favor and invite us over.
Swap dog care or child care (I don’t have kids but my neighbors do this). Our neighbors watch out dog when we go away and we watch their dogs when they are out of town. This allows fun.
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my a favorite is a walk to the park with my wife and our dogs! and its free!
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+1 for using the ‘stuff’ you already have. Added benefit: the more you use it, the lower the marginal cost of purchase becomes! This helps explain why owning a nice camera or some backpacking equipment can actually be a frugal investment.
Also, if you have the right job, you will be having fun while making money. My day job might not always fit that description, but any part-time work I pick up (modeling, wellness coaching) is enjoyable and fulfilling – not to mention creates positive cash flow!
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I do the things that are on your list.
I take classes at the local Rec Center and sometimes the community college.
I take exercise classes at the Rec Center.–love YOGA!
And I used to volunteer at the local theater. You take tickets, give out playbills and help people find their seats and you get to see the play for free.
BETH–try the belly dance class, I took that for a couple of years!
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Geocache, outside of the cost of the GPS (about $100), its free, and a great way to find new places. When you figure the amount of time you’ll spend doing it, the investment in a GPS is minimal.
http://www.geocaching.com/
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Re boating:
If you live near a sailing area, lots of yachts need crew for casual races. Just turn up at the club & sign up – great way to learn & usually free!
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As much as I feel like I scream “no fun” by admitting it, not much tops a good library for me. It’s like shopping for frugalistas!
Also I love board games, especially with good friends around!
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My husband and I like to have picnics on nice days, instead of spending a lot of money going out to eat at a resturant. I actually enjoy the experience more. We’ll go for a walk afterward and enjoy the outdoors.
We also really love to turn on the TV and do jigsaw puzzles. You can find tons of jigsaw puzzles at garage sales for nearly nothing (Usually anywhere from $0.25 – $1.00). We have a closet full of “To be worked on” puzzles gathered from our garage sale trips.
Speaking of garage sales, I consider that a form of entertainment, too. You just have to be very careful not to buy stuff you won’t ever use or don’t need just because it’s a “bargain.” We bought our first house last year and we’re still in the process of setting up our home, and we’ve found tons of things that we’ve needed for the yard and unique pieces to decorate the house.
I live in the St. Louis area, and we are lucky that we have a world-class zoo in the area with free admission. We also have the art museum, which is free.
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I am a member of my local art museum. I’m in a big city, so the level I choose is $100. It allows me unlimited entry, special tours of the exhibits, lectures, even singles events. It’s very worthwhile! Most cultural institutions offer memberships like this. If you find one you love, go for it!
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Vintage video gaming. I recent bought the Valve Orange Box for $10, which includes 4 good sized games (Half Life, etc), but all 7-8 years old. I never played them new, and I’ve had a great time playing them all. My cost for gameplay is something like $0.10/hr and still dropping.
Part of this comes from being too cheap to buy current games (at $60 each) combined with a fear of buying a lemon.
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Running a boat isn’t all that bad if you do the maintenance yourself…Except for buying it…and gas…and rods/reels…GPS…sonar…nobody tell my wife!
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We have young children and there are often lots of free community events and festivals that are fun for us and the kids, too.
We also like to walk or bike in local parks.
I agree with Trent, when you know what you like to do, it’s pretty easy to find inexpensive ways to do those things.
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I want to echo the suggestion to look for volunteering opportunities. Two examples:
- When I was in college, I became an “arts reviewer” for the school paper. I got advance copies of movies, free tickets (always at least two) to new movies, and best of all, a pair of tickets to see the Bolshoi Orchestra (normal price >$50 each). That was a show I never would have seen otherwise, but it was a great concert that I will remember for the rest of my life!
- My wife and I have volunteer to be ushers at several classical concerts. For the cost of about 30 minutes of work (mostly just handing out programs), we got free admittance (again, normal price >$25 each).
- As I was finishing my master’s degree, I spent some time volunteering on the transition team of the mayor-elect of a decent-sized city. This was good experience in a field of work in which I thought I was interested, and led to an offer of a job offer (in other words, I was told, “if you’re interested, we’ll find a position for you”). I declined, but that has more to do with another offer I received about the same time. Again, not much work, potentially big results.
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If you like books, you might try Google Books, http://books.google.com/books. They have thousands of books available for reading online.
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Thrift stores are a great source of fun too.
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You mentioned boating is not cheap, but I think it depends on your definition of boating. My wife and I bought a tandem kayak a few years back for around $400. This initial investment (along with another $100 in paddles, PFD’s, and other gear) has given us countless hours of free enjoyment. Not to mention the serenity of paddling across a still lake and watching the fish swim under your boat. AND, to top it all of, you are getting good exercise and it has absolutely no harmful effects on the environment.
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For me:
-Playing & writing/recording music – this is something that could be very expensive, and I did spend quite a bit buying my instruments & other equipment, but I don’t have ‘gear lust’ (or rather, I do a bit, but don’t indulge it lol), so ongoing costs are quite minimal – just instrument maintenance & occasional hardware/software upgrades when absolutely necessary, which isn’t that often.
-Knitting & crochet – I’ve just started just learning these – my only costs are an instruction book, plus some needles & wool.
-Exercise – no gym membership – I exercise at home, or go out for walks/jogs.
-Reading – I use the library when I can get to it, or buy cheap second hand books online, & sell them on if I’m not going to re-read them.
-Creating websites – I do this for fun, and for income. The only cost is the domains (I don’t have to pay for hosting, but that would be pretty cheap too). I use Textpad (shareware, no need to buy it) as an editor. Or sometimes I use blogger for free.
-Meditating – totally free, although I sometimes use meditation recordings, but they’re pretty cheap or free.
-Photography & digital art – I have a basic camera & a free copy of Photoshop Elements that came with it, and have yet to exhaust their potential, so this is very cheap for now (I’ll probably upgrade both eventually though). I’ve made a bit of income from this also, although it’s not something I want to try to make into a business, as that would kill the enjoyment for me (same with the music). I like drawing too, which only needs a set of pencils, a rubber & some sketchbooks.
-Gardening/house maintenance – I’m not a gardening fanatic (and don’t spend a lot buying plants, furniture etc), but I enjoy keeping it tidy, and the exercise is great too. The only cost is basic tools, which I have. I enjoy cleaning & doing stuff around the house too.
-Surfing the net – I try not to do too much of this as it’s a giant time suck, but it can be fun, and is basically free since I have my laptop & internet connection for work anyway.
-Last but not least – just hanging out with my husband and cats – time together costs nothing (though the cats can get expensive lol)
I also used to enjoy making jewellery – supplies could be pricey, but I used to sell a lot of what I made & it was quite profitable. I stopped eventually after losing interest.
What I’d like to do when I have more time, but haven’t got around to yet:
-Volunteer at the local cat shelter
-Take a few classes in areas that interest me
-Learn computer programming
-Learn a lot more about investing
None of these should cost a lot either.
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I love reading (and so does the rest of my family) so that’s a big one for us. We also enjoy playing frisbee golf and other games together. I like just poking around places I haven’t been in a while too, whether it’s people watching or window shopping.
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Anything you use really often is good-value. Even stuff that costs a lot of money initially. The trick is figuring ourt what you’ll actually want to keep doing.
I’ve got shoes for backpacking, that I bought for $250. I’ve got a backpack which cost a similar amount. Hardly a frugal hobby, right ?
But the math change when I tell you I bought those shoes in 1996. That is 13 years ago. And I used them for atleast 200 hours every year since then, and that’s in -addition- to the 2 years as a student when I was too cheap to buy winther-shoes, and used my backpacking-boots all through the winter. Don’t even get me started on the backpack, I got that from my parents when I was 16, which is 2 decades ago by now.
By my math, comes out at around $0.10/hour, which is a cheap hobby by anyones standards, I’d think.
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My father and brother and I go on nature hikes all the time. State park passes don’t cost much at all, and year-long passes are almost always a great value ($12.00 at our favorite park). It is very relaxing, fun, and you get some exercise in there, too!
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When I’m home from work on Mondays, my youngest daughter and I walk the hiking paths in the local state park near our house. Free, invigorating fun, and a learning experience for her.
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Knitting & Sewing – general craftiness. I’ve been lucky enough to get materials for cheap through yard sales or by reusing old clothes or through gifts.
A less expensive version of Josh’s recommendation for geocashing is letterboxing. So much fun. And we usually make a day of it. http://www.letterboxing.org/
Walks or days at the park with my dog. On a nice day, I can bring a blanket, some snacks, a book and my dog and be happy at the park for several hours. I actually would consider my dog “entertainment”.
Taking advantage of “free” or low-cost community activities like food festivals, movies in the park, lecture or music series, museum passes through the library, etc.
For time with friends :
Book Club – once a month night that we each take turns hosting and I get my books from the library. I only host about once a year.
Soup Swap – I spend an afternoon with a friend each cooking an extra large batch of soup that we split up and take home. Fun to do it together and a way to manage food costs frugally.
Stitch and Bitch – like book club, except it’s a bunch of folks working on craft projects.
Happy Hour – occasionally treat myself to a cocktail at half price and still get home early.
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My favorite cheap thing to do is go dancing. In Ann Arbor it’s less than the price of a movie ticket ($2 – $10 depending on the night), and it’s a lot of fun.
And by dancing I mean swing, english country, contra, and various international dancing.
Also I’m in a couple of choirs that don’t cost anything to participate in.
Totally agree with Trent’s statement. Virtually anything you’d like to do you can do on the cheap.
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If you have young kids, take them to IKEA for breakfast and playtime.
First off, the breakfast is $1.00. Yes, you read that correctly – $1.00 for a plate off eggs, sausages and homefries. Another $1.00 for coffee.
We went on Sunday and after breakfast my daughter spent about two hours in the kids section, playing with all the toys. They have opened kits for the kids which they can play with and are expected to play with, so you never get hassled about it. My daughter spent an hour alone playing with their toy kitchen and all it’s little accessories.
By the time we got out of there, we realized that we spend $5.00 on what usually would have cost us at least $15.00 in breakfast and $5.00 in admissions to the local kids center.
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One of the things I really enjoy is playing disc (frisbee) golf. MUCH less expensive than traditional ball golf, it’s a great excuse to get some exercise and be outdoors. And unlike ball golf, it can be played year round.
In my area (Central Massachusetts), there are several free public courses within 20 miles. All you need is one or two discs/frisbees to start ($7 or $8 each). Really a great sport for those, like myself, who aren’t into playing the more competitive team sports, but still want to participate in fun outdoor recreation.
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Cooking!
I’ve been on the job hunt, so I am home most days. We have to eat anyway, and as we’re limiting our meals out cooking is not only cheaper, but fills my time and gives us healthier diet. Another bonus: it also warms up the house on these chilly fall days so I can keep the heat lower than I would otherwise.
Another favorite is challenging myself to take a daily photo. I already have the camera and computer to process the image, so it gets me to use them on a regular basis and improve my photographer’s eye and familiarity with my camera – and it’s fun! Uploading to a site like Flickr is a great way to share and build community with other photo buffs.
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Book Club at B&N (I usually get the book at the library, but if an author is coming I might splurge & buy the book). Also on-line book clubs with Advanced Reading Copies that are sent out free.
Letterboxing (http://www.letterboxing.org or http://www.atlasquest.com/)…similar to Geocache (#9), but it doesn’t require a GPS. Book, stamp, inkpad, and a compass are the tools that we use.
Going to friends’ houses…kids go swimming, play games, etc. Cook up some burgers on the grill, play some cards, have a fire to sit around in the evening. Best frugal fun there is…sharing time together.
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Went for a 4-5 mile hike along the coast of San Francisco and then attended a free Target-sponsored Asia arts museum day.
We TRIED spending money, but couldn’t, other than eating out for lunch.
It’s weird, once you get in a mindset to enjoy the free things in life, it’s easy to save.
FS
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I agree about the board games. Especially some of the newer ones that have become popular in Europe. Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, and Blokus are some great ones. A lot of these are pretty expensive as far as board games go, but they’re made with quality materials and are built to last. As several people have already mentioned, the more you use something, the cheaper it becomes per hour of fun!
Cooking dinner for friends (and hopefully receiving the favor in return) is a great way to be frugal and social at the same time. And then you could always pull out a board game after dinner.
Another thing I do is brew my own beer. This might fit better in just a general list of ways to be frugal (the beer comes out to about half-price), but the process of brewing is a lot of fun for me. And once you’ve purchased the ingredients, the beer is free when you drink it!
One last way to have fun while being frugal is volunteering at a music festival in exchange for a free ticket. Many festivals allow you to do this, and it’s typically not all that much work.
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Someone already mentioned digital photography, and I totally agree that it can be an incredibly engaging and inexpensive hobby. Several excellent podcasts will help you learn the ins and outs of the hobby as well: Photofocus.com and This Week in Photography. And you really don’t need an expensive, $1500 DSLR camera to get started. Just becoming better with your $100 point-and-shoot camera can be a fun way to learn how to be a better photographer. Thanks to digital cameras and cheap hard drives you can now take hundreds of thousands of photos at virtually no cost. (Pre-digital, this would have cost loads of money in photo developing at the local drugstore.)
Specifically, I like to take my camera outside for an hour or two in foggy conditions, in the fall, downtown, or in the country just to shoot a particular series of subjects to relax on a Saturday. This is an activity that gets you out of the house, gets you to see things in new ways, and provides a means for enjoying your surroundings more than just driving to and from work every day.
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Someone else mentioned geocaching!! That was my first thought. I spent about $100 for my GPS, and $30 for a premium membership to geocaching.com. Everything else is free, and you get to see a ton of interesting places, parks, etc. You get outside and get exercise, too. My husband has some camera equipment that he invested in, and even though the photography stuff was expensive to buy, we’ve spent plenty of weekends geocaching in interesting places and taking photos — at no cost to us! At the most, we pay to enter a state or national park.
Also, I am a member of a running group. There is some investment in clothes and shoes, but besides that, running is free. It’s social, fun and keeps me fit.
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Crewing on somebody *else’s* boat is pretty cheap, although you’ll probably want foul-weather gear sooner or later, depending on your climate. The main cost of owning a boat is usually storage, unless you go for a really expensive boat to buy or own (there are boats out there that will go through $1000 in fuel in an afternoon, and high-tech sails cost a pretty penny), so you can save a lot with one you can keep at home or at least in dry storage (which also saves the cost of bottom paint). The lighter the boat, the less of a tow vehicle you need.
But yeah, it tends to get expensive–it’s certainly one of the larger items in my budget (yacht club membership with boat storage fees for two boats and travel to out-of-town regattas, mostly). It’s a high priority in my life, so I don’t mind. And considering how much I get out of it (I go sailing three or four times a week when the days are long enough to go after work, half my social life revolves around my yacht club, and I’ve got enough stories to bore the ears off the nursing home staff when the time comes), I don’t think I’m really spending that much money.
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Yoga classes are really expensive (I think so, anyway), so we’re thinking about having a yoga “club” in our home. Read: big open floorspace, yoga mats, candles, good yoga video, and friends who want to do it, too.
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Add Hiking, Cross-County Skiing, and Snow Shoeing to your list of frugal exercise for fun. Even if you don’t own snow shoes or skis they can be rented for around $10 a day and you’ll get to see and experience things that are truly wonderful. As for hiking, there are thousands of miles of trails to Hike in the USA. You’ll never run out of new places to go!
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Playing cards! Even with little ones, everyone can enjoy Spoons, War, Go Fish or Crazy Eights.
Some of our favorite times with old friends involve the conversations we had while playing Euchre.
If you’re motivated, set up a scavenger hunt for your family and/or friends – at home, around local destinations, in the park. The person who sets up the clues and places the prizes gets to be the referee during the hunt!
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Boating isn’t too bad if you’re into solar-powered (i.e. sail) boats. We joined our community sailing center; for a yearly cost about the same cost as a year’s subscription to cable, we had access to any of the sailing center’s boats, PFDs, and weather information plus no need to have storage costs or worries. We calculated that even if we were members for 10 years, it would still cost less than buying and storing our own boat.
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I see that someone added hiking, a great way to have fun. But, I didn’t see bicycling. If you have any great bike paths around parks, the city, or the beach this is also really enjoyable. If you live in Oregon, I’m sure you can find bike paths that lead to some exciting parts of town. If you live in a city with few bike paths, you can at least find them near parks or beaches.
Most people have bikes hanging around in their garage, or you can pick up a used one at a garage sale for $20. It’s something that can be used over and over again, so it’s worth the minimal cost.
I love biking!
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Going away on the weekends for outdoor trips nearby feels like mini-vacations without being really far away. Camping is free/cheap and you have all your friends around. Plus you get a workout without knowing it.
I agree with Trent that taking local adult education classes are great. In the Boston area it’s somewhere between $100 to $200 for 8-9 weeks.
One of the biggest money zapper in my life is going out with friends to eat and drink. We are trying to have more themed pot-luck parties at our houses instead, such as sushi night and dessert night, etc.
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My frugal fun activity is brewing beer at home. The initial equipment costs run about $100 and ingredients run about $20 per batch.
Each batch provides me with about 8-12 hours of spread out over three weekends (brewing, racking and bottling). Plus it’s a great way to create something to share with friends when they come over so that adds even more hours of enjoyment.
Finally, I blog about brewing beer and I try to teach people how to brew through my blog.
If we count the cost of equipment, my cost per hour (assuming 20 hours of enjoyment per batch of beer) is $6 an hour. Now during the course of a year I will brew about 25 batches, host 5 pot luck dinner parties and spend about 60 hours blogging. Total cost per hour for the first year: $.32.
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I love my books, but sadly this doesn’t qualify as frugal. For me, books are so personal and I read and re-read them in my bed, while eating, in the bath, etc. and for that reason I don’t want someone else’s used copy and wouldn’t feel right doing that with a loaned out library book. Therefore, I spend a lot on books.
I also spend roughly $50 a month on my gym membership, so that isn’t exactly frugal (although on a cost/hour its probably pretty cheap).
I do love using my ‘stuff’ though, and will watch DVDs of old tv shows over and over again and love it.
But the cheapest form of entertainment is probably the internet, where I spend hours and hours posting on messageboards, facebook, etc.
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I’m not sure how common this is, but here’s one we were doing last year:
We’re hockey fans, and tickets can be pretty pricey, especially for good ones. Last year, with the economy tanking and the team playing poorly, they opened up the game-day skates to fans for free to try to attract people again. Any day there was a Saturday evening home game, they would open up the morning skate to fans. The mascot was there for the kids, you could sit in the first 15 or so rows (close enough to read the names on the jerseys!) and it was just really neat to see them talking, laughing, doing drills, playing keep-away, etc.
Sadly they don’t seem to have brought that back here this year (we made a point of emailing them to tell them how much we liked it). But I’d suggest looking into it for any sports fans.
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If you live within driving or walking distance of a local college, you can sometimes attend sports events for free, especially when the sports aren’t that popular. When I lived near a university, the ticket prices for football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, etc. were through the roof. But tickets for indoor polo, cricket, rugby, etc. were free, the players were thrilled to have more people cheering on the sidelines, and the level of play was often very good. The first time I attended a polo match, in recognition of a slightly larger crowd, the teams even took time to give a demonstration of how the game was played before they started the match!
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There are several sites where you can find free online games or 1-hour free trials of new PC games:
JayIsGames.com, Playfirst.com, BigFish.com, iWin.com, arcadetown.com, trygames.com
The following things are cheap, fun and good exercise:
There’s a tennis court in the local park which is free, just need the upfront investment in a couple of $20 rackets and a $3 tube of balls.
And we have to step out of the city for these great deals, but it’s so worth it:
A semi-local kayaking/canoeing outfit that charges $20 per person. That’s not bad for a really relaxing few hours and great upper body workout. Most such outfits charge a lot more.
We also found a semi-local place to rent bikes for $10 an hour and they are on a huge bike trail.
If we wanted to invest in bikes of our own, we’d be able to go trail riding at several parks outside the city, for the price of the gas to get there.
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I agree with the comment about finding jigsaw puzzles at garage sales or thrift stores. I recently picked up some (unopened!) puzzles at a thrift store for $0.50 each, and some used board games for $1.50 each.
I’ve also been exploring my creative side–cutting up old magazines to make collages while I listen to music, or giving myself little writing assignments.
And as others have mentioned, it helps to check the local paper or browse online to find free community events or lectures (by doing this, I found out about free events featuring two of my favorite authors!).
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Community events! I recently wrote about how I spent an entire weekend out and about for $3 in tips.
It takes some digging to find little neighborhood events sometimes, but they’re worth every penny.
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