Can You Afford to Sustain Your Hobbies?

We all have at least a hobby and some of us have many hobbies. We collect items like stamps, coins, key chains or we make items like cards, origami or we engage in activities like gaming, horse riding, scuba diving, gardening and the list goes on.

Hobbies are something we enjoy doing. Not only that we’re willing to do it for free, we actually spend money to enjoy our hobbies. There are hobbies that don’t cost a lot but most of it cost us money and in the long term when it comes to the point of realization where we spend too much money and time in our hobbies, we stop enjoying them altogether.

What if there’s a way for you to sustain your hobby regardless of how expensive it can be? There are so many ways! If you do it well, you probably don’t even have to spend a single cent in your hobbies anymore and the best thing is that you could very well make money out of it.

Here are 2 ways you can sustain your hobby without costing you too much of money and time and another 2 ways you can monetize your hobby:

DIY, Recycling and Upcycling

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

If you’re into making arts or crafting, you just need to innovate a little to save some material costs. Instead of buying new materials all the time, are there ways you can potentially still do what you love by finding inexpensive alternatives such as using recycled materials?

Take for example, Kimekomi, which is a Japanese craft that involved tucking fabrics to make dolls or ornaments. You don’t need to get new fabrics. The cheaper alternative is to buy scraps or collect your own scraps lying around your house.

There are quite a number of artists who solely make their sculptures through upcycling old items.

Exchange or Trade Your Collectibles

If you love collecting items, you can always find others with similar interests and exchange the additional items you have. If you have two similar key chains, stamps or coins, you can trade it with a different one.

Your hobby is a way for you to get in touch with your inner child. It’s a great way for you to escape and experience joy in doing what you’re most passionate about. It’s sad to let it go because you have no time or can’t afford to sustain it. Don’t let it happen to you. If you have any more ideas that can help one sustain their hobby, please feel free to share it here.

Sell Your Items or Offer Services

Photo by Zhen Yao on Unsplash

If your hobby involves creating something, sell them so that others can enjoy your creation. Trust me, if money is not an issue here, you still need to think about where you’re going to store all the dolls you make or how are you going to consume all the cupcakes you bake?

My partner loves Amigurumi, a Japanese art of crocheting stuffed dolls. She enjoys making different dolls. The question is, where is she going to store all these dolls when it gets to hundreds or thousands of them? What good will it do? It will do a lot of good if she shares them with others. That’s when she founded Babe’s Creation and started selling it as gifts. Not only that she makes some money to cover the cost of the raw materials, she found the satisfaction in seeing how happy people are when they receive their Amigurumi dolls.

Another example is my scuba diving instructor. He has stopped scuba diving but when he used to do it often, the smartest thing he did was to start offering people scuba diving lessons. Money aside, I think his greatest satisfaction was to share his love for diving with many others.

Create Online Content

Photo by Volodymyr Proskurovskyi on Unsplash

This is my favourite way to monetize what you enjoy doing. You can choose to make tutorial videos to teach others on your hobby or simply create related content about your hobby as a way to share the joy with others who enjoy the same interests.

As an avid gamer, I constantly put my gameplays and favourite gaming cutscenes on my YouTube channel. I don’t monetize it but it’s sort of my gaming journal. However, if you want to monetize it, you can do so as long as you fulfill certain requirements of YouTube. I do monetize my gaming blog through Google Adsense. I make enough to sustain my hobby in gaming but there are so many content creators that make a living out of it.

I hope the suggestions above can help you get some ideas to sustain your hobbies. Please don’t give up on something that bring you joy just because you think it’s too hard to sustain. You just need to be a little creative and innovate ways of doing things.

Feel free to share with me what you enjoy doing and if you’re using any of the suggested ways above to keep you going. Remember this! Your hobbies don’t have to drain your wallet.

Putrajaya Royal Floria 2024

We visited this event known as the Putrajaya Royal Floria which happened from August 22nd to September 1st, 2024 at Persisiran Tasik, Presint 2, Putrajaya. It was drizzling during our entire visit as we forgot to check the weather forecast of the day. We were glad we were still able to visit the entire place. It was a really nice walk around the entire park. The bonsai area was particularly interesting with so many art pieces displayed.

 

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Apart from the flowers arrangement at different corners, they have activities throughout the entire event duration. This event happens every year. You can check the details further at Perbadanan Putrajaya website.

Hill Rise Cafe at Canning Garden, Ipoh

It was tiring to drive back to Kuala Lumpur after our 2-day training and then having to get stuck in a traffic hence we decided to stay an additional night. As usual, we were looking for a new place to visit and we drove past this cafe two days before.

This is Hill Rise Cafe at Canning Garden, Ipoh. It looks beautiful at dusk so trying going in late evenings. We initially were seated inside but decided to move to the yard for better views.

 

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7 Warna Kopitiam at Greentown, Ipoh, Perak.

We headed to Ipoh a day earlier to get ready for our training the following day. Since our friends haven't arrived yet, we headed to this nyonya kopitiam at Greentown. We were surprised there were just us. The place was super cozy and we just loved the classic decors.

The menu selection was pretty decent too. I ordered the 7 coloured rice nasi lemak. I can't remember exactly on the flavours. I guess there were pandan, turmeric, bluepea, tomato, etc. 

On the day of our training, we went back to this place for dinner along with our friends to try out more items on the menu.

Company Trip at Lexis Hibiscus Port Dickson

My gaming blog hasn’t been updated quite consistently for the last 6 months especially on the LifeAfter game guide which is the most visited section. The reason was that I was super busy witha new job. I haven’t been playing much of LifeAfter either. Anyhow, I have resigned from the job and is serving my notice.

This company trip to Lexis Hibiscus Port Dickson was bittersweet. I got to spend time with these people I have worked closely with for the last 6 months but it could also be our last trip together. You know how it is when one leaves the job. Most of us will lose contact as in this case, I didn’t get the chance to really get to know most of them as friends since we were so busy. However, I did make the most out of my 6 months or so learning new things, getting to know new people and I hope some of them stay as friends after this.

A selfie I took while I was on buggy ride from the hotel lobby to our pool villa. Depending on the type of rooms or suites you book, it can be quite a long walk so thank goodness for these buggy cars.

Due to social distancing measures, we couldn’t go for breakfast with the entire team in the company. We had to choose a time so the four of us opted for the earlier slot. Incidentally, these are the closest people I knew since I joined the company.

A group selfie on buggy ride to check-out on the final day of our trip. Below is a video compilation I made of the place. It’s quite an experience. If you like what you see and have the opportunity to visit Malaysia (if you’re not already staying here), you can find out more from Lexis Hibiscus Port Dickson website.

Pantai Tanjung Rhu at Carey Island

This is no white-sand beach with a fancy resort like the Tanjung Rhu in Langkawi. This is a fishing spot with the same name in Carey Island, Selangor located in the South of Port Klang.

We had a planned lunch at the restaurant nearby so we thought we would just drive past the plantation towards the seaside to….well, look at the sea of course…just for the heck of it since I love seaside. There’s really nothing much to do so we just stood there for a while. It’s always relaxing to hear the waves crashing sound and also the clear blue sky.

From here, you can look out and see the huge tankers and ships in the middle of the sea.

As we were leaving, the stray dogs we spotted earlier were running towards a cat. I had a strong urge of petting the puppies but I was worried the bitch will bite me for touching her offspring, ya know. A friendly fisherman whom we referred to as only “uncle” because we forgot to ask for his name, showed up from his hut and told us we can pet the dogs.

Uncle started to tell us that the dogs are loyal companions of the fishermen there but they’re actually strays. He asked if we would like to adopt the puppies. I politely declined because we already have two dogs at home. He said he’ll feed them whenever he’s there or they won’t be fed. Note to self: bring food for the doggies next time.

Look at how cute this fella is. You can actually drive there and bring him home if you want.

Anyhow, Uncle said he’ll go fishing in the noon and will be done by 3pm so we should come by that time if we want to get fresh fishes and crabs. We bought some before our lunch date with our friends just to support him. Not much of a support as 1kg of mix of fish only cost us a mere RM10. 

Note to self: Buy fruits for Uncle next time and bring an icebox so he doesn’t have to give us extra ice. Extra note to self: Bring more cash to tip him because fishermen by the seaside don’t have e-wallets and credit card machine.

Vain-pots need a selfie before we leave la.

Tommy Le Baker at Kampung Attap, Kuala Lumpur

I got to know about Tommy Le Baker after viewing a France in Malaysia‘s video shared by my partner who loves sourdough bread. Tommy Lee, the founder of the bakery café, is an amusing character. He sort of reminded us of a dear friend. We told her to watch the video and refer to him as the male version of her. She went to the café one day and met Tommy Lee. Unfortunately for us, he was nowhere in sight the first 3 times we went and we did see him on our 4th visit.

At the time of the visit, they were renovating the café so we entered from the back door (as seen in the image above.) Parking was easy as you can just pull right in to any empty spots by the roadside. If all the spots are occupied, there’s a carpark (RM5 per entry) next to the building with an attendant.

Since we entered from the back door, we saw this stunning street art. Dragon Ball fan anybody? (Update 31/10/21: On our recent visit, this beautiful street art was vandalized by some first class A-hole.)

We sat in the courtyard which was pretty cozy and with the nice jazz and classic music playing in the background, I could just imagine I was having breakfast in Europe.

The courtyard

We were given the menu to look at and orders are placed at the counter.

They specialized in sourdough bread….obviously.

You can place your order at the counter directly.

The kitchen is just next to the counter where you place orders.

This is the wall menu next to the kitchen. We chucked when we saw the description of the sandwich. Okay, let’s zoom in.

You’ll probably understand this if you speak Hokkien (a Chinese dialect.) Kiap is directly translated to mean cramped or stuffed.

My usual coffee order is long black but here they serve Café Allongé (Espresso Lungo) which I had no clue what it was. A friendly staff overheard me when I was trying to pronounce Allongé. He explained that it’s like Americano but after the two shots of espresso, instead of adding hot water, they pull an extra long double shot of Espresso. It’s stronger in terms of taste and aroma. We love it!!!

For first-timers, we highly recommend that you order a platter. We went for the Sourdough Toast Platter with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

This is the oven-braised chicken sandwich. They just placed it with the platter we ordered so don’t mistaken it as part of the platter. This is so good!

Onion soup served with cheddar cheese melt toasties.

Mixed vegetable and pesto sandwich we tried on our 2nd visit.

Tuna baguette (pronounced buh-get, not bah-kut-teh ok?)

I tried this Roast Ribeye Steak on our 3rd visit. It was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had!

Garlic and herb cream cheese on sourdough toasts

This could be just my personal taste but I want to say that Tommy Le Baker’s sourdough breads are the best I’ve ever had so far. I wish I live near the city so I could have it everyday for breakfast or brunch. You guys who either live or work nearby, lucky you! You can also place orders online for delivery or takeaway. Do follow them on Facebook for updates and also some entertainment from Tommy Lee himself!

Steamboat Dinner at Bug’s Paradise Farm, Puchong

 

Bug’s Paradise Farm is an organic farm run by BMS Organics where you can enjoy a unique farm-to-table experience with your family and friends. It’s all vegetarian though so no carnivores allowed. Hah!

There’s a guided Organic Farm Tour available at noon if you’re going there for lunch. Last Saturday, we went during dinner so no guided tour but okay la… we could still roam around the area on our own and take pictures. Guided tour we’ll need to pretend to hear them talk talk talk. With my short attention span, I’ll tune out within seconds.

After our own “misguided” tour, we sat down for steamboat dinner. We can choose from 2 different type of soup flavours: Kombu (seaweed) or Miso. There are two compartments in the pot so obviously we took both flavours. There’s also an array of sauces to choose from; steamboat chili sauce (medium spicy and very spicy available), teriyaki sauce, mala chili as well as crushed peanuts. After we’ve done eating, we’re required to help them clean up by taking all the dishes to the designated area.

Overall, it was a rather pleasant experience although I’ve never been a big fan of steamboat or hotpot. I prefer to grill stuff.

Rán 冉 @ The Canvas Hotel, Bandar Bukit Tinggi

Rán is a small cozy cafe that operate as a lounging area for the guests of The Canvas Hotel (next to The Landmark) in Bandar Bukit Tinggi Klang.

A rather minimalist and chic designed counter top where simple meals are prepared.

Cozy seating area ideal for small group.

Seating area with charging station suitable for remote or mobile workers looking for a change of working environment.

Their simple menu that still comes with a nice variety of food and drinks selection.

Caffeine dominated our drink orders.

Americano which is my usual although I would go for Long Black if they have it available.

Iced latte. They do have milk alternative if you don’t take milk.

Ginger lemon kombucha.

Breakfast set. Just nice for small eater like me. The smoked duck slices were amazing. They also use sourdough bread.

Greek toast topped with strawberries and honey.

Pillow wrap with scrambled egg, bonito flakes, mozzarella cheese and you can have a choice of smoked duck or salmon or both. They took a while to prepare this but it was worth the wait.

We ended our visit with a slice of lemon cheesecake to share. It’s non-baked. It was amazing.