If you are like me and many others, we enjoyed buying all sorts of things to add to our hobbies supplies. We add new stickers, cutouts, papers for our scrapbook hobby. We purchase supplies and tools for our photography hobby. We buy music for our music hobby. We buy gear for our exercise hobby. We buy DVDs and CDs to add to your movie/music collection. We buy Xbox games to add to our collection. Need I say more, we purchase a lot of stuff for our hobbies.
But, because of this, the extra stuff creates clutter in our homes. So, to help combat the piles of hobby supplies, I propose you find an alternate way to splurge on your hobby.
Here are 15 hobbies and a clutter-free way to splurge on them.
Scrapbooking: Instead of buying new scrapbook scraps, cut up the scraps you have into small squares and rectangles and store in a shoebox for future use.
Antiques: Instead of buying another antique, determine a place in your home for the ones that have no home yet.
Playing Musical Instruments: Instead of buying another instrument, clean and repair the ones that you have been neglecting.
Exercise: Instead of buying another exercise piece of clothing, get rid of some of the ones that are worn.
Video Games: Instead of buying new video games have a swapping party with friends that like gaming too. Exchange the games you don't care for or finished for other games that others have.
Lego Building: Instead of buying more Lego pieces, sort the ones you have into a useful system.
Cooking: Instead of going out and buying more tools and gadgets, go through your supply and clear out the ones you don't use.
Baking: Instead of buying more sprinkles or toppings for cakes, review what you have and write the date you purchased each one on the lid for future reference. Then, replace only the ones that are running low or are older 3-5 years.
Calligraphy: Instead of buying more ink for your calligraphy pen, buy Platinum Pens Mixable Ink so you can mix whatever color you want.
Reading Books: Instead of buying physical books, use iBook or Barnes & Noble app to store books you are reading.
Sewing / Knitting: Instead of buying more supplies for your sewing or knitting hobbies, organize the thread and yarn you already have by color or type. If you need particular tools, try renting them from Zilok.
Jigsaw Puzzles: Instead of buying more Jigsaw puzzles have an exchange puzzle party, donate them, or you can even glue them and frame them to display in your home.
Buying Movies: Start buying digital copies of movies. For a small fee, you can convert your Disk to Digital in VUDU.
Listening To Music: Instead of buying CDs, you can buy a service like Spotify so you can download any album you want and listen to it on the go.
Photography: Instead of buying lenses, you can rent them.Borrowlenses.com allows you to rent equipment for different package events, like weddings, sports, wildlife, landscaping, travel, etc...
I hope these clutter-free suggestions give you inspiration on how to keep your hobbies under control. What is your favorite clutter-free way to splurge on a hobby? Please leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you.
Regina Sanchez
Very, very helpful. I'm a scrapper myself and have soooo much scraps. I do try to utilize them but there is nothing more fun than buying new paper. Great tips for other hobbies.
Hilda Rodgers
These are great tips Sabrina! Hobbies can take up so much space in our homes and sometimes when we declutter our supplies we can find things we'd forgotten about, which is even better than buying something new!
Sabrina
I totally agree, Hilda. Thanks for commenting.
Melinda
I have gotten rid of all my scrapbooking supplies and make digital ones on line. Then print it. So much less mess and clutter!!
Sabrina
Great tip, Melinda! Thanks for sharing.
Sarah Soboleski
I'm a baker, so I liked your tip about labeling the sprinkles and toppings with the date of purchase. We do this with spices so why not sprinkles! Thanks for the tips!
Sabrina
Thanks Sarah for stopping by and commenting.
Jamie Steele
Having a 9 year old who only wants to play video games, I love the idea of a video game swap party!
Sabrina
Great, Jamie. Let me know how it goes.
Erica Duran
I kinda gave up on all these hobby type purchases when I started traveling full-time. This article makes me realize how much "stuff" I used to have. How much time was spent shopping, maintaining, and then selling/donating/trashing and how much money was spent on it all. For years now, I've been opting for experiences and digital products. I do like "real" books, but a kindle makes so much more sense for me. What gets me know is that many of the "real" books are ONLY a $1 or less on Amazon! Makes it hard to resist 🙂
Sabrina
That's great, Erica. "Real" books are hard to resist. I can relate too. Thanks for commenting.
Linda Samuels
Lots of great tips here for clutter/hobby management! I think twice the next time I go to add more to my ribbon collection.
Jill Robson
I love the Lego idea, I did something very similar for my sons lego several years ago, and it is still working.
Sabrina
Lego hobby is tricky because there are so many pieces and so many ways to use them. We tried at least 3 other ways before finding this one.
Hazel Thornton
I love this list! Here's another one. Genealogy: Instead of buying more books, sign up for a class or conference, or order an Ancestry.com DNA test.
Sabrina
That's a great suggestion, Hazel! I want my husband to do the DNA test. His family says he has some German in him but I haven't found that in the research. =)
Andi Willis
Great list! I'm guilty of buying new exercise clothes too often. Of course we get a new T-shirt every time we run a race, but I'm better about getting rid of those. I recently cleaned out my craft closet and got rid of a TON of craft items that I was holding on to for the kids. They are now teenagers and very unlikely to use them so bye-bye beads and kids scissors!
Sabrina
That's true, I think we moms keep things way longer than the kids use them. I got rid of craft supplies recently as well since my daughter is in high school and rather draw and write music on the computer instead of making small craft projects with glue and glitter. I guess it was wishful thinking that she wasn't growing up. But she is and I need to admit it.
Ellen Delap
Love this list! It's true that we can repurpose our hobby items and find new fun in them!