"I'd love to have hobbies but I'm too broke"
"Yeah sounds fun, if you have that kind of money"
"Lol out of touch. Like people just have the money for craft supplies laying around"
My loves. My beautiful humans of all varieties. I am kissing you on the forehead so gently and begging you
Do. It. Poor.
Humanity has existed for around three hundred thousand years. Money as we know it has existed for about five thousand of those years. Humans have been doing stuff without money for most of our history as a species.
Find out what resources are available in your area and get your hands on some and create something with them.
This can include things like "buy nothing" groups and construction rubbish and lengths of carpet in the dumpster behind the local flooring place. Free pallets and broken tiles and scrap fabric on marketplace and craigslist.
It can also include natural clay deposits you teach yourself to refine for pottery, and plants that can be turned into fibers and spun and woven, and minerals and husks and berries and roots and a thousand other things that can be used to make natural dyes.
I have made paper from the wood of a neighbor's tree that they had to cut down. I collected a good bit of it for my mom to do woodturning with as well and she made wooden cooking spoons and spatulas, and wooden hair pins, and pens, and some chairs.
I have knit bags made from yarn I spun from local cottonwood fluff I collected off the ground.
I have dyed paper and fabric and soaps and wood and hair using dyes made from local plants and kitchen scraps and mineral pigments I collected and ground and mixed myself. I have made my own paints and inks and paintbrushes and canvasses as well.
I have made beautiful mosaic topped side/end/coffee/bedside tables with broken tile bits and scrap wood or sometimes scrap metal.
I taught myself how to make butter and jams and bread and jerky and a plethora of other things from scratch through mostly trial and error and bothering people's grandmothers
I taught myself how to make fishooks from a variety of materials
I've made cat trees from carpet scraps and junk wood, and cat toys from feathers and fabric scraps and sticks and string (I did sterilize the feathers to avoid illness and mites and such)
I have made soap from scratch using table scraps and lye I extracted from wood ash. I have similarly made lotions, salves, balms, and tinctures from scratch from collected materials. I have made candles from both tallow and beeswax acquired for free or very low cost, acquired from local apiaries and butchers.
I have made clothes for myself and others, as well as shawls, bags, scarves, quilts and whole host of other things from free sheets, blankets, clothes, and other "trash" fabric people were either giving or throwing away because of holes or rips or stains.
I taught myself leatherworking to make bracelets and bag straps and sandals and fetish gear from scrap bits of leather, usually sourced from ripped or otherwise damaged leather jackets that were being thrown out.
I taught myself to weave wreaths cause we have pine trees here and what the fuck do you mean eighty dollars for some pine boughs and ribbon???
I spent 6 months travelling without purchasing a single night in a hotel room or purchasing a single travel ticket of any kind, picking up odd jobs and selling things I crafted from materials found along the way and ride sharing and camping (yes there was an element of danger there, but travel is always dangerous. Being alive is dangerous. Being a fat neurodivergent disabled queer afab poor person is hella dangerous. I refuse to spend my precious life isolated and afraid)
Sand paintings can be done with pine resin, natural dyes, and sand.
Makeup can be made entirely from things you can find around you in most parts of the world.
Felting can be done with pet hair.
Carving
Whittling
Cooking
Metalworking/blacksmithing
Hunting and trapping
A canoe can be made from...a tree
Please, please look at the world you are part of and realize *it will not charge you money for joy*
Look at how the native peoples of your area did the thing you want to do. Look at how other cultures have historically accomplished that thing. Pretend civilization has fallen and there isn't anyone to pay for materials and supplies. Pretend plastic doesn't exist. You are so much freer than you realize. Do it poor. Live your life. Your desire is the only permission you need in order to create, in order to have hobbies (Victor Frankenstein and Hannibal Lector I am not talking to you).
And for those of you worried about whether this applies to you, I am both poor and heavily disabled. I cannot stand or walk for longer than ten or fifteen minutes. I cannot lift more than ten pounds without *fracturing my spine*. My glasses give people migraines. I am AuDHD. You learn to work around your limitations, and accomodate yourself. I learned how to make myself a folding stool with 3 decent sized branches and some strips of leather or canvass. It is lightweight but holds all my medically obese self without issue. I put a strap on that sucker and now I have place to sit whenever I need, even if it's every few steps. I'm not on anyone else's timeframe when I am doing this stuff, I'll sit when I please for as long as I need. I learned how to make a travois for dragging stuff I can't safely lift. I got a cheap immersion blender because my shoulders can't handle the level of stirring required for soap making and several other things. I do almost everything, including furniture making, sitting down, often in my wheelchair (which I got for free and made a seat for cause it didn't have one and I couldn't afford an intact, functional wheelchair). These things can be adjusted for disability, for neurotype, for location (including inner city), for limited available time (I was working 3 jobs and raising toddlers for a good portion of this time, before I became too disabled to work). Human creativity is near limitless. Use it!
If you don't know where to start or how to find the info you need or how to accomplish your hobby for free or low cost, ask! Ask me, ask other crafty people, ask people with an interest in anthropology, ask local groups of indigenous artisans, ask the internet. Don't expect folks to construct a detailed, start to finish set of instructions for you, but they can usually point you in the right direction in terms of finding the knowledge you need, or to get you past a point you're stuck at (an affectionately exasperated older lady once emailed back with just "you didn't add vinegar to fix the dye did you?" I....had not). Not every craft or hobby will be able to done low cost (I do not know how to make a telescope sorry) but many can, more than most people think.
Capitalism is a cage for the human spirit. Slip the bars baby.

















