Everybody needs a hobby, right? Even me, the super frugal guy has hobbies. Of course I try to keep it as inexpensive as possible.

This is just some ideas for your hobbies, as always YMMV. For those curious, I am currently into toy trains.


Find ways to make the items you collect, instead of just going out and buying at current retail. As for me, I buy old toy trains that need love and repair on ebay, especially pre-war metal trains. I get the pride of building my train cars, and having a little more invested emotionally into those train cars.
Find a local organization to join. For me, I joined a local modular club. We set up at many non-profit events during the year. Now I get to go to all of these things, enjoy myself, and I can enter these events for free! Of course there is work involved, but so what, it beats paying for a ticket at the door.
Be sensible. I mean, really, who needs 100s of {fill in the blank}. Even for me, while I like trains, I try to keep the collection sane. And in doing so, I keep my expenses down.
Find something similar to what you like. I used to be into baseball cards big time. Thankfully I didn't drop too much money into them. Anyway, I found a lot of fun with sports pocket schedules. They're similar to cards, and the cost is minor compared to cards. For other hobbies, maybe there is an inexpensive substitute?


OK, those were just a few ideas, I'm sure there are more out there.

And now a lil bit of good news: I was reading various financial forums, and someone wrote about a good tax deduction I was probably able to take in 2003 and didn't. I need to pull out my paperwork and see if I would qualify. It looks like if I did I should be able to get a few hundred back. Well that would certainly be nice for a change!