there has to be a list of hobbies one can try that cost practically nothing:
Solving Rubik cubes (a high quality speedcube is about 20$)
Crocheting/stitching (needles and yarn after cheap)
Writing (free)
programming
… (please expand if you have any ideas)
Hiking? I mean, the world is just out there.
Other outside activities that need minimal equipment come to mind. You ever played discgolf? Or went running? Or geocaching?
But yeah, lots of activities aren’t expensive. Draw something. Paint something. Sing! Or do some sports! Yoga only requires a mat if you do it naked.
I agree that in some conditions, entry is practically free. Assuming you have comfortable walking shoes and a backpack and assuming you leave near some trails.
Otherwise shoes and basic equipment for jut getting into it might cost a few 100$. not expensive, but I would not say free entry.
oh, I used to do a lot of hiking.
Didn’t consider a short hour long walk a hike.
I guess those ones do practically have no entry bar. given that everyone already likely has clothes capable of handling that.
Nah, honestly anything better than the bottom-of-the-barrel acrylics is going to add up quickly when you buy enough of it to make something like a sweater. If you want to use natural fibers (wool, cotton, I’ll take bamboo too) that’s a large jump in price, even if you’re not getting anything too fancy. And I feel like if I’m going to spend months hand-knitting a sweater, I don’t want to end up with something that’s all plastic and will degrade in a year.
I do also have some fancy hand-dyed yarns that were properly expensive and these ones are indeed 100% on me :P But they’re not really what I’m talking about here.
Yep. Often when I wear a new jumper or whatever around people who know I knit, I get asked ‘oh, that’s pretty, did you make it?’
Lol no, that would have cost me like 5 times more. I couldn’t afford to make it myself.
It’s not considering the value of my time; a decent (actually wearable) yarn is far more expensive than most people think.
I would consider it a waste of my time to spend a couple hundred hours on a garment that’s barely wearable because it’s uncomfortable and borderline not washable. That’s what you will get with any yarn that won’t cost you over $50 in materials.
Cheap yarns are fine for beginner projects that aren’t made to be worn, but if you’re putting that much of your effort into a garment meant to be used, you should not be using bargain yarn. Your effort is worth too much to sabotage yourself that way.
Natural yarns are almost always best for wearables. It doesn’t need to be fancy (other than ooo pretty, which is my biggest criteria, too). I’d avoid 100% polyester, or high blends.
Personally, I love knitting with bamboo blends, and they’re quite affordable. They’re not suited for everything, but many feel like silk whilst wearing like cotton. And they’re often more sustainable.
It doesn’t always wear as well in all contexts, but it’s affordable and pleasant to knit with. I’d say it’s miles better for a beginner than polyester, and often comparably priced.
It depends.
It isn’t that yarn in itself is expesive, but if you’re knitting/weaving, you’re not doing it to save money on socks, you want to make something cool and unique. If you really get into it, you’re going to eventually want that specialist wool/bamboo/elastane blend with a super specific colour grade and maybe a specific manufacturing method too. And that’s expensive.
Similarly, if you’re spinning your own yarn, you can get boring old for about half the price of boring old yarn, and even less if you dye big batches yourself. You can get a pretty nice wool for about a quarter of the price of the yarn, so far so good. But of course, if you’re spinning your own yarn, you’re going not doing that for production purposes, you want to make something cool and unique. So you’ll want to blend in specifics, like glitter nylons, or maybe even metalic fibers, and that long-fiber, ultra-fine angora will go great with a slightly thicker cairngorn, etc etc. And before you know it, you’re making yarn that costs maybe ten times what they sell at the local hobby shop.
And spinning wheels aren’t exactly cheap either. Mine was something like 800 euros, but you can easily spend four times that on an electric wheel. You can buy a LOT of yarn for that money. And lets not talk about how much wool I’ve ruined due to lack of skill.
Writing (free)
Maybe if you only write in dirt with your finger. Orherwise you need writing implements and something to write on.
Actually free things you can do:
Walking/running
Stare
Singing
Collecting rocks
Stare
Sleeping
yhea, but it takes years to develop your foot skin to be tough enough for that.
met someone who lived barefoot, his feet were something else.
let’s just say, it isn’t trivial to go back to a life without shoes.
D&D costs $90 for the hard cover core book set and $0 for the pirated pdfs.
Biking can have a high upfront cost, but I’ve been using the same bike for 20 years with tune-ups and replacements running in the low three figures over that time.
I’m a big fan of podcasts, particularly ones that cover old movies. Criterion collection films are everywhere and they’re classics for a reason.
finding workable clay in nature is stupidly easy if you know what to look for
Workable clay may be hundreds of kilometers away, depending on where you live.
I mean, I’m in the Netherlands, i literally can’t avoid the stuff, but not everyone lives in a giant river delta.
So I’m stretching the term “nature” here because when I was posting this I actually completely forgot about real natural clay by rivers. You can also get workable clay from any large amount of sand over dirt that’s gotten wet enough times. The water pulls silica out of the sand and into the earth over time, then you can wash it to get the extra crap out, decant off the water, dry the slip, and boom clay.
Some of the best clay I’ve used came from under an old school playground.
IMO piracy and self hosting has great cost benefits.
Sure it costs money to buy a mini computer and a hard drive, but after, you can spend a long time building that library and it won’t cost you a dime.
And the computer and hard drive is more like an asset, you don’t really lose money when you buy it.
And it kind of pays you back, eventually you get a little tired of building your library but then you can use said library and integrate it into your lifestyle while you get a new obsession.
Basic concepts like property or ownership make absolutely no sense in the digital world.
By letting people hoard files like a greedy dragon those files are infinitely more available to everyone, in a decentralized network that is free to use and is superior (in content, efficiency, speed, cost) to every for profit company that streams content.
I see some influencers bragging about why you’d need quality markers like posca to improve your drawing skills. My bros fell for it and beg me to buy some for them.
It’s like thoses ads telling you you need product to do thing better. Even if it’s quality, it doesn’t work this way.
I bought a 25$ set of 8 for them. They used it 2 times then stopped because they couldn’t make what they wanted. They are now asking for a light tablet to “draw better”. They will have to buy it themselves if they really want it.
People somehow always find a way to make the simplest thing expensive with half-useless material.
Amen. You have to stay away from that toxic commercialisation. It messes with your brain and stalls your progress in any hobby.
I think one of the best things about arts, crafts, sports, music and the like is that it has a built in resistance to that kind of commercial takeover. Having good pens will not make you better at art, good shoes won’t make you better at soccer, a fancier gym won’t give you bigger muscles. These things come from hard work, perseverance, dedication. You can’t buy skill no matter goes much money you have, I love that.
every hobby can be as expensive as you want it to be. the cost ceiling is however much the richest person doing that hobby is willing to spend.
if 2 billionaires want to get into drawing as they are willing to spend a million for a box of fancy cryons, those products will appear in the market. even though they’ll be marginally better than those 500$ onces
but the question was about the cost of entry. and with drawing, the cost is negligible
There are plenty of hobbies where you can happily enjoy it and only ever spend little if anything.
On the other hand, I’ve found it’s pretty uncommon to find a hobby where you can’t optionally fall down an expensive rabbit-hole of some kind, usually around any kind of equipment or tools you might need as part of some hobby.
Thankfully for most hobbies that kind of thing is not required to enjoy it. You don’t need a fancy guitar to enjoy playing; you can read books from the library, you don’t need to collect your own; in most big enough cities (in Europe at least) you don’t even need to own a bike to go for a cycle (though regularly using bike rental schemes might be a sign to try and get a bike, doesn’t need to be fancy)
Any art or craft or sport is pretty much free when you weigh up the hours vs the outlay required.
Except skiing and motorsports. That eats money.
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