literally did not spend money on my hobby (writing) for yeeears until i got on 4tw and wanted to support the site, and that was totally optional. half the time i typed directly into the ao3 textbox
elaborating on some of the suggestions and adding on a few of my own in case anyone else has been struggling with boredom as much as i have (assumes you at least have a phone or laptop the way the person replying to op does, and that you are poor):
free, do-it-on-the-bus time investment: youtube. if you access it through a browser with an adblocker, you don't even have to watch ads. i love watching people do diy construction projects or landscape aquariums or talk about science. people also upload audiobooks there, if the library isn't an option for you for whatever reason. also, you can find just about any music you'd want to listen to on there (the adblocker trick works here too). also, oldtimey movies—sci-fi, horror, film noir, mystery, romcoms, adventure, comedy.
free, do-it-on-the-bus time investment: there are quite a lot of literary classics in public domain! frankenstein, dracula, moby dick, the great gatsby, the odyssey and the illiad, anne of green gables, alice in wonderland, peter pan, the wizard of oz, sherlock holmes, all of jane austen's works, all of shakespeare's plays...
free, 1+ hour time investment: research and contributing to wikis! i can especially recommend tvtropes for this. tvtropes is good as a hobby because you don't need to rigorously vet your sources to spot tropes and add to pages yourself.
free, do-it-on-the-bus time investment: gaming! if you're on your phone, your phone's "store" has free games, 100%. if you're on a laptop, i can recommend looking at abandonware (higher time investment). on either, here's a database of clicker games, which can be filtered by platform and whether they're paid/free.
free, 1+ hour time investment: giving constructive criticism to free game demos that ask for it on itch.io. look at how they react to others giving concrit if you're unsure! and remember to be nice! but in my experience most devs are really happy that a) someone is playing their game and b) can help them find bugs and refine the experience, especially seeing as most want to sell the finished product.
free, 1+ hour time investment: reviewing books (ARCs) on netgalley! help new authors get a leg up by reading unpublished novels and reviewing them. there are some shenanigans involved in signing up (they act like they need you to be famous but they don't) and you need to actually review most if not all of the books you're given, but i've read a couple of hauntingly beautiful books from there that i never would have known about otherwise. if you're okay with committing to read a possibly janky book, it can be very satisfying.
low cost (<$10), 1+ hour time investment: baking! you can go for the slow stuff (yeast breads), the fast stuff (quick breads), the low effort stuff (no knead sourdough), the high effort stuff (flour tortillas), but almost all of it is going to be super cheap, and some recipes can get as simple as flour and water if you need to, though salt, oil, sugar, and yeast/baking powder are advised. has the added bonus of food at the end, which is very nice when you're poor.
low cost (<$10), do-it-on-the-bus time investment: sketching! dollar stores have journals and pens/pencils, and there are some great free courses on youtube. you can also just do it freehand and enjoy making what you make.
low cost (<$10), 1+ hour time investment: mending! all you really need is a mending kit from the drugstore and a bit of fabric for the backing (could come from the craft section of the dollar store, the "scraps" rack at the craft store, or old sheets or clothes you're okay with cutting up). has the added bonus of keeping your clothes in working condition. i really liked the channel Repair What You Wear for learning the basics.
mid-cost ($10-20), 1+ hour time investment: decorative mending! I've really enjoyed fixing rips and tears by weaving embroidery floss. It's basically the same as mending, but you need needles with bigger eyes and embroidery floss or sashiko thread, which are slightly more expensive.
mid-cost ($10-20), 1+ hour time investment: cooking! you can do this cheaper if you need to (or if you have a solid pantry), and it feels pretty good to make something from raw materials and get to taste it too. it can be an expensive hobby, but a) you need to eat whether you're cooking or not, and b) if you stay away from expensive cuts of meat/fish and esoteric ingredients, it shouldn't add up to more than this. That Lisa Dawn and Dollar Tree Dinners are great resources for stretching very tight budgets.
might add more as they come to me. hopefully this helps someone else!
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