My Favorite (Mostly) Low Cost Hobbies of 2024

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While there is still another chunk of 2024 left, I’ve been thinking a lot about hobbies this year. How they have transformed my mental health, but also how they’ve brought me such joy. 

When we are children, most of our time is spent creating and learning. It shouldn’t be any different as we grow up. Unfortunately, life gets in the way and hobbies can become inaccessible due to a lot of factors. Some being money, space, lifestyles, and accessibility. 

However, I’ve developed a few hobbies over the last couple of years and a few have actually stuck! So let’s chat about them.

Reading

This one is a kind of no brainer. I became so obsessed with reading in 2023 after having not read much for years prior. I went and started a book blog because I wanted to talk to other bookworms.

While my reading has slowed down, I am working on resetting my relationship with reading. Going into 2025, I plan to reclaim my love of reading. 

Life has put me in a bit of a slump, but acknowledging a slump is the first step in getting out of one. 

Some books I’m currently reading that are helping my slump are Phantasma by Kaylie Smith and An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson. 

Plants

I always loved the indoor jungle aesthetic, but never thought I had a green thumb. Turns out I was just trying to care for the wrong types of plants. *cough*Calatheas*cough*.

Once I discovered low maintenance plants that would thrive in simpler conditions, my apartment exploded with tons of (cat safe) plants! 

I love watching my plants grow and shopping for plants, but I especially love propagating my plants. 

It’s so fun to get more plants for free from my current ones!

Oven Bake/Air Dry Clay

Lately I have come back to my love of clay. Something I want to do in 2025 is find a local studio where I can actually throw clay. So I can create bigger items and food safe items like bowls and mugs. 

In high school, I was lucky enough to take a clay class two semesters in a row and absolutely fell in love with the process of throwing, putting it in the kiln, and then painting my pieces. 

While I admit I am absolutely shit at making clay items, it brings me such joy to create with my hands that I don’t really care. 

Revisiting Old Music

Okay, is listening to music a hobby? 

Listening to podcasts and audiobooks are hobbies, so I’m going to count listening to music as a hobby too. 

Lately I have been going back to bands I loved as a teenager and having a fantastic time. Just letting loose to music that is familiar. 

Bands like Paramore, A Day to Remember, Taking Back Sunday, Linkin Park, Sum 41, Yellowcard, and Fall Out Boy, to name a few.

Revisiting these bands and songs I used to listen to on my iPod mini in high school and on my walks home from school just brings me back to a place when life felt less stressful. When my biggest worry was where I would to go to college. Or if my friends and I would survive after high school. 

Blogging

Okay, this one is kind of shifting away from a hobby and more into a business as I continue to monetize my blog. 

But! I absolutely love blogging. I love writing and writing about topics that interest me. Mostly, I love that my blog is an expression of who I am as a person. 

Even when it may seem like I am posting randomly or I take a hiatus, that reflects me. Needing space, or taking time to figure stuff out. 

My blog is my favorite space to be online because it is like a small part of me. Like a piece of me living outside of my body/mind. 

So even though blogging is becoming more of a business and less of a hobby. I still find so much joy in blogging and feel so much excitement in the possibility of making a living out of doing something I love. 

Hobbies often take a backseat

I think as we grow older and experience new things, hobbies tend to take a backseat. Especially when things like renting your first apartment, graduating, or getting engaged take center stage and become a major source of joy. 

But sometimes it’s important to revisit the past and bring some things we used to love to do into the present. 

Hobbies have helped my mental health tremendously. More-so than journaling or meditation. Working with my hands and creating something helps me to focus and quiet my mind. 

Thinking creatively helps me feel less insecure and makes my inner voice stronger. 

Bringing past favorites into the present has helped me feel like a kid again. Getting giddy over an ugly clay bowl, or the joy of knowing all the words to a song I loved a decade ago, or the freedom of expression through a medium I love. 

It all helps my mental well-being so much.

Hobbies don’t have to be expensive

I only buy books if I read them and loved them. Primarily, I read through borrowing books from my library. I do also pay for Kindle Unlimited and have found tons of great books that way. 

I buy oven bake clay from Michaels and try to snag different colors or buy the big white blocks of clay when they are on sale and I love Michael’s because something is literally always on sale. 

While I do pay for Spotify, tons of music on Spotify is free to listen to, if you’re willing to put up with ads. There is also YouTube, if Spotify ads are a bit too much. 

Propagating my plants has helped me save money by not needing to buy more of the same plants AND helps me appreciate my plants more because my propagations always need a little extra tending to. 

I’d love to transition into throwing clay in a studio but have yet to find a studio that isn’t too expensive. So, for now, I am happy with my little trinkets made at home with bake/air dry clay. 

But I felt this bit was important because there have been plenty of things I didn’t try because I lacked the funds or accessibility to try. 

Blogging is by far my most expensive hobby as I pay for website hosting through SiteGround, but after two years I am starting to earn from my blog and that’s super exciting. So within the next year or two, my blog should grow from my expensive hobby to a source of income business. 

What about you? What hobbies are you looking to start or have found immense joy in?