-Reading books. I keep new books that I didn’t read yet somewhere in my room and when I feel that I need something new I grab one of them and start reading.

-Photography

-Learning something new!

Getting started is very cheap. All you need is a healthy dog and something to motivate your dog. I use a clicker to mark desired behaviors and they can be purchased for a couple of bucks and they last forever. I use his regular food, dog treats, and some healthy human food as motivation. Other dogs are play driven and can be motivated by a game of chase, a ball or a frisbee.

Dog training has great benefits for dog and owner. It strengthens the bond between dog and owner. It stimulates your dog to keep his mind active. Behavioral problems are by far the number one reason that dogs end up in the pound which leads to 3-4 MILLION dogs being euthanized each year. Last, dog training is FUN!

Cooking and Baking – especially baking is fun for me.

Exercise – I recently found some free yoga podcasts (just google it) and can now round out my yoga practice for free!

LG

After thrift shopping for a while, I’m of the opinion that we aren’t addicted to spending, so much as to acquiring. If we can do that for far less money, then we’ve killed two birds with one stone.

Other frugal habits–blogging, walking, and meeting with friends at a coffee house over a $2 cup of coffee.

The cool thing about entertaining yourself on the cheap is that not only have you kept yourself busy doing things you enjoy, but there’s so much less stress knowing it’s cost little to no money. I don’t know about most people, but I don’t find a $100 and $200 entertainment activities common these days to be very de-stressing in most cases! If I have to spend that much money to unwind, I’ll be creating stress in other areas of my life, mostly the bank account and the paycheck…

I guess I worded my comment badly – was just pointing out that Textpad is a much more frugal option than pricey WYSIWYG editors such as Dreamweaver & the like which may only have a limited evaluation period, since it gives you the freedom to really test it out for as long as it takes to decide if it’s the best option for you. To me it goes without saying that an ethical person would pay for it if they decided to use it long term.

Just to clarify, Texpad is indeed shareware, but that doesn’t make it free – the idea is that you can evaluate it free of charge, but then you’re supposed to pay for it if you keep using it. Granted, nobody will catch you if you decide to use it without paying for it, but that’s the same logic as downloading pirate software.

By getting involved with other like minded parents to run the Club, we are able to keep fees down to AUD$200 per 3 month block for four or more 1 hour lessons per week.

Going to a privately run swim school, I would be paying that much per month.

I give up about 6 hours of my time each week and in return I have made quite a few new friends, gained skills I use at work and with 4 kids who swim save AUD$4,000 over the six month swimming season.

My wife helps out with our eldest girls netball team and saves over 50% on the fees.

So to repeat I not only save money but I gain friends and skills that can be used at work. And most importantly my kids love swimming, I can afford for them to train to their hearts content with it bankrupting me.

Enjoy comics? There are thousands of webcomics out there, all available for free. You have to look around to find good ones but some are really amazing. And free.
Enjoy watching TV? Many cable channels have free videos on their websites, so you can catch your favourite show for free.
Enjoy reading? My library has a website that allows download of ebooks and audiobooks… Not only rfee, but if it’s raining, snowing or you’re sick, you don’t have to actually go there, which is nice.

You can find free courses online for almost anything, with videos to show you how to do it (or so you can hear, if it’s a language for instance).

But if the weather is nice, you can also go for a walk, picnic, go to the library (I love browsing for books/DVDs in and on itself. Kind of a shopaholic thing, except whatever you get will be free).

Depending on where you live, you can also find some other neat stuff. When I was in New York, there was a theatre which was free one night a week, for comedians to try new material in front of an audience. It was a lot of fun. And their other shows were cheap, too.

If I’m feeling social, I can invite friends over and play video games, board games, card games… We actually started up a table-top RPG group in our small town and managed to find people thanks to an add in the library.

You can also play with your kids or your pets for fun + exercise (hide-and-seek, tag, etc).

Reading to my wife or grandchildren.

I get a ton of books every week or so from the library.

Piggybacking on another suggestion — learning to take better pictures with your existing camera — photography is a great way to enjoy the outdoors, too. You really learn to stop and look at things more closely.

For evenings in with friends, we really like the game 1000 Blank White Cards. All you need is index cards and pen/pencil (although colored pencils, markers, or crayons add to the fun). It’s a card game where the players create the cards and the rules as they play. It’s kind of difficult to explain briefly; check out the rules and description here: http://www.elsewhere.org/discordian/bwcards.html/ (fyi, a couple of the sample cards there are somewhat adult in nature, but this is not a necessary part of the game).

Essentially, everyone gets five blank cards. They create, by drawing with a pen/pencil on the blank cards, cards with point values, effects, or actions. You go around the table and play cards with either yourself, another player, or all players as your target. You can create a card that changes the rules at any time, or changes the effect of another card.

We’ve played this game with kids as young as ten, and with older people. Because the players make the cards, the game content is totally up to you. It’s also never the same game twice.

Regular card games can also be a ton of fun for spending time with family and friends. My favorite is Kierki, or Polish Hearts (rules here: http://www.pagat.com/compendium/kierki.html). It’s like hearts, but each deal has different points-bearing cards and thus different strategies, which makes it much more interesting than hearts to me.