I do woodworking as a hobby. It doesn’t make money unless you invest in a full workshop and scale up production to the point where it would basically be a second job. Often the material costs alone are as much as it would cost to buy a completed item.

I’d still recommend it as a creative outlet though. There’s something satisfying about seeing that coffee table in the lounge and thinking “yeah I made that!”

I do:

Yoga

Gardening

Baking (sourdough)

Do occasionally draw or paint too.

I think you have to find something you actually enjoy. If you are good at swimming, triathlon is a great idea but the long distance ones do take a lot of training time.

I don’t try to monetize hobbies anymore, it’s a drag.

My theory also is to have 3 hobbies but a different take: One that you can do at home when you have free time, I play guitar. One that gets you out of the house, I fly fish. One that gives you something to look forward to, I used to go on monthly backpacking trips but as I get older they’re turning into fishing trips

Adding to the interesting lists here: As a sport for me I found bouldering and climbing. I don’t like sport but bouldering is not about sport but about getting up that stupid wall, and it feels amazing.

I have multiple hobbies, some require my brain (programming, electronics, engineering and stuff like that) Others not so much (music production/playing live sets, building dioramas, woodworking, metalworking, working on my motorcycle or cooking) And I can highly recommend to get hobbies that both require some concentration and creativity so you can have some balance :) Good luck!

I’m heavily into sport kites. These are controllable kites with 2 or 4 lines. It’s an outdoor activity that can get fairly physical depending on what you are up to. There’s a very small community, mostly focused in coastal areas, but it exists all over the world.

Once you get some basic skills, most people shift toward flying to music as a ballet individually or with a group as a team. If you get good enough, there are travel opportunities where kite festivals pay for all or part of your travel expenses to perform at festivals. I’ve been all over the US and to 11 countries across the world to fly kites in my 18 years in the community.

Past that, there’s also kite making that is a nice extension of the hobby. I build my own sport kites, and build them for others on occasion. There are open source sport kite plans out there, I’ve got a few on my website (https://watty.us), but there are even more at https://kareloh.com.

A good starting place to get into the hobby might be https://sportkite.org, or some Facebook groups like Sport Kite Pilots Lounge.

3d printing and role-playing. I print miniatures that my friends and I paint. Then we use them in our games.

Triathlon is 3 hobbies!

3D printing, maille, video games, board games, and bicycling.

If you work with your hands, rest with your mind. If you work with your mind, rest with your hands.

There’s a lot of crossover here but off the top of the dome:

Hand-based hobbies -playing music -cooking -woodworking -lifting weights, running, climbing -building dioramas/models -art (needle craft, drawing/painting, sculpting) -**casual video games **

Mind-based hobbies -puzzles -fast paced video games -programming -learn a new language

Those in bold are what I do. Also starting to learn art. It’s one of the lowest barrier to entry hobbies. All you need is paper and a pencil.

My hobby is reminiscing about the days when I had time for hobbies.

Hobbies are not for making money. That’s what a job is for. Hobbies are where you sink the money you have left from your job and all the other expenses are paid.

That said.

Hobbies for me include:

Hiking (lots of good trails nearby)

Making sounds on my Synth (I’m building a case right now)

TTRPGS (when you can wrangle enough folks)

Skirmish Games (mainly Gaslands)

Video games (slay the spire, and casual WoW)

Warning - do not make your creative/fun hobby the one that also makes you money. I’ve met several people who were into woodworking as a hobby, started doing it on commission for family, friends, referrals, etc, and it quickly became a job rather than a fun hobby. The timelines and demands that come with doing commissions killed it for them, they still occasionally do woodworking as gifts/favors, but very explicitly just for family and close friends without timelines, and only charge for materials

Electronics projects mostly.

Mostly smart home PCBs and interconnect boards and 3D modelled housings. Examples:

• esp32-C3 dumb doorbell (just a doorbell that sends an MQTT message and sleeps the rest of the time). It works fatastic except that my Proximus ISP modem/router completely fucked up and so the network is no longer usable and I had to set it in bridge mode to a router it can’t reach. I want to release it, but haven’t had the time to water - resistance test it or make assembly instructions
• esp32-S3 voice assistant satellite attached to an IR blaster, I2S mic, and PCM5102 to control and send audio to my old Yamaha RX-496RDS to control it via IR and can play audio (local or Spotify) via music assistant. Pretty much an Alexa echo attached to my speaker system. PCB link which I am planning on releasing.
• My unfinished Flight Stick with custom electronics, fully custom 3D printable housing, etc… It is almost done, but needs like 2 more small iterations, but we moved and started doing a full-strip renovation, so my 3D printer is no longer set up because it is too dusty inside, and I don’t want to spend another $100 doing a PCB test iteration to use a better ADC with less components. Eventually as firmware practice, I want to rewrite the firmware in Rust or something. I also just looked at the Repo and the quick logo I drew up has been modified somehow without any commit. I know for a fact it was correct before. Very weird.

I also have tons of new project ideas that I don’t have time for.

My other hobbies

• weightlifting, again completely dropped off due to every free moment renovating

• Running a home server with replacement services for everything I need

• Running (my motivation has been 0 recently…)

• cooking. I try to do a few new recipes per month

• gardening. With the renovation, I just grew a few courgettes, tomatoes, and squash this year

• video games (more of a de-stresser nowadays than a hobby, most recently casual rocket league with friends is fun, hadn’t played since 2018 or so)

Fishing has been great for me. Gives ya a chance to learn what’s around you by researching local waterways and what fish live in em. Then connect with them by studying their habits throughout the year and their diet. You plan your tackle box and rod set up around that and test your studies by trying to catch the dang things. And in the process of that you get some lovely, peaceful scenery and maybe a hike.

It’s fairly cheap, too. The fishing gear on Ali Express is damn good for the price and while I can see arguments on spending on a quality rod and reel, I’ll tell ya I prefer my $65 Pflueger President spinning reel, but I wouldn’t have paid that much if I had used the $12 one I got on Ali Express first. You’ll be replacing line, lures and hooks somewhat often when you start anyway so no reason to break the bank.

In the winter months, I do more model building and painting indoors. Gunpla don’t have to be expensive and you can go all out on learning new techniques to erase mold lines and seamlessly join parts and that kinda technique learning keeps me engaged. Plus, when you’re done, you have something you can put on display. I also give completed kits away to younger relatives when I get tired of it or I wanna try the kit again with new techniques.

As far as fitness, it’s not quite a hobby, but I hop on a stationary bike and watch star trek. I fucking love Star Trek!

I don’t care about making money with my hobbies, I do them to help me feel better and have some good time. As a whole we’re all already way too focused on making money, at least that’s what I think.

• Long walks. Daily. This is the (second) best change I ever made into my life. I would encourage anyone, even more anyone that is like I was (in a very bad physical and mental shape) to give steady walks a go. Start small but don’t give up even though It’s hard to begin with, and slowly increase the distance you walk and your steadiness. It’s so much worth it. I was a potato couch but nowadays I could not not go out for a few miles walk at least once a day (as much as possible I’ll go everywhere I can by walking instead of using any mean of transportation). It also helps in the head, immensely as far as I’m concerned.
• Writing &
• Reading. Reading and writing should never go without the other as far as I’m concerned. Read (like you write) widely, don’t be afraid to read stuff you don’t normally read, or stuff/author you don’t like (there is a lot to be learned when confronting your own thought to those of people you don’t agree with), or read unpopular stuff.
• Sketching/painting. I’m not an artist, I don’t care I just enjoy doing it. I try to do more of that outdoor, while I’m out walking)
• DIY, making stuff with my hands (book binding, woodworking,… those come and go along the years) & also
• Fixing stuff. Reducing the amount of waste we create by making our stuff last a little longer.
• I had to quit model making, but I liked that a lot.
• Music.