New Hobbies You Could Start This Autumn

The dark nights are drawing in and staying in every night is getting more and more appealing. Whilst there is undoubtedly enough content on Netflix to see you through until Easter, you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) spend every spare hour in front of the screen. So how about taking up a new hobby? Change is good for everyone! These hobbies won’t cost the earth (if anything at all) and you can get started straight away.

Home brewing

If you drink beer, brewing your own is easily the most rewarding hobby you can take up – it takes minimal effort, your mates will be dead impressed and you’ll save plenty of cash – less than £50 outlay on your first kit and basic equipment will yield 40 pints. Raid your recycling bin for beer bottles to reuse, just make sure you sanitize them first! Starsan Sanitizer looks pricey but is reusable. All in one kits these day are pretty fool proof and come in a wide variety of styles – as long as you follow the instructions you’ll have something drinkable in under two weeks. Once you’ve got your equipment you can easily be churning out beers at 50p a pint, so what are you waiting for? Wilko has everything you need to get started at very friendly prices.

Cost: From £45 for the basics – and you’ll be saving money

Cooking

Granted you probably haven’t go this far in life without being able to feed yourself, but if you’ve never really learned to cook it’s easy to end up throwing together the same bland meals week after week, only mixing it up with an expensive takeaway. Widening your repertoire has clear benefits – so grab yourself a couple of recipe books or find a youtube channel you like and get into it. Add the ingredients to your weekly shop and take some time at the weekend to follow a couple of recipes. Some things will always be too much faff for the home cook – it’s unlikely that you’re going to start making all your own bread or pasta from scratch, but keep trying different recipes and you’ll find some that stick, like making your own sauces instead of buying them pre-made. Videos are much easier than traditional recipes if you’re not confident – we like Foodwishes.

Cost: As much or as little as you like

DJ’ing

Fact: a good DJ gets a lot of party invites. If you love nothing better than putting together the ultimate party playlist, why not take it one step further and give DJ’ing a try? As long as you’ve got a computer all you need to get started is some free DJ software. There’s a limit to how much you can do without decks, but if you’re just testing the waters it’s the perfect way to start. If you want to take it to the next level, ebay is awash with second hand decks. Check out this guide for everything you need to get started.

Cost: Free to start

Upcycling

Producing something with your hands is very satisfying, and it can be very easy if you don’t have to start from scratch. Anything you can think of in your home can probably be upcycled – from furniture to plant pots, even something like a computer keyboard can be sexed up no end (yes really – you can buy keys in different shapes and colours to make typing more exciting. Now that would be a talking point in the office). You never know, if you’re a dab hand it could even be the start of a business – people will pay crazy money for things they could probably make themselves. Projects can be as simple or as complicated as you like, check out this article for a few ideas to get you started.

Cost: From free to big bucks