Ask Lemmy

The trick in cities is to know things and people.

Know the guy with the swimming pool.

Know the woman who runs yoga in the park every Thursday.

Know when the museums have free or discounted events for the locals.

Know where the buck-a-slice pizza joint is - the one two blocks from your apartment that's almost tucked into an alley at the bottom of a brownstone's side stairs, and that most people would just walk past without noticing.

Cities have lots of free and cheap things, you just need to be a local to find a lot of them.

I go for walks in a nearby park, it's a great way to spend an hour

I'm not poor but most of my fun stuff is free, hanging out at parks (picnics with friends or just relaxing with a book or something), walking/cycling trails, free or pay as you feel shows and weekly food not bombs community dinners.

Nothing wrong with a 1 bedroom apartment tbh, and I don't understand why not living in a house means you can't buy and own things lol. I've got loads of stuff I can do here if I don't want to go out, I've even got plenty of private outdoor space. If I didn't have so much stuff keeping me busy I could very easily stay in my apartment for weeks at a time, only really leaving to get groceries, I've never gone mad from it.

Tbh I find this life is significantly cheaper given I don't have as much maintenance as a house, and I don't need to pay the absurdly high costs associated with a car.

Edit: looks like jerboa broke for me so I've got no clue if this posted or what anyone else is saying lol

Honestly I've found there's way more to do for fun that's free in cities compared to when I lived in a small town. The libraries, museums, parks, etc. are all much larger, more exciting, and easier to access - I don't even need to own a car to have fun anymore. There's also more social groups for more niche interinterests. Back when I lived in a town, the options for free(ish) fun were: go to a house, go to a mountain, go to the beach, and all were places you had to drive, god forbid you want to take a bus or walk somewhere, and then the people you would hang out with at those places were just co-workers or people you met in school, because there was no other way to meet people.

Fun is a Leftist conspiracy to distract you from producing more for your bosses at work

The issues is that you are GOING to the city. One you live there, you have all your stuff and do your normal thing. You cook at home and play videos games, then read books before walking your dog to the park by your friend's house. Basically: don't extrapolate from the perspective of a tourist.

A good city or town is a good one when they can offer things that don't require money. Parks, Events that don't charge anything and vice versa.

Your impression of a city is probably skewed by how you interact with it. If you drive in, pay for parking, go to events or attractions, eat out, etc. it all adds up. But that’s not necessarily the experience of someone who lives in a city. They’re living their life, not sightseeing.

Our parks, Zoo, and Science Center are all free. And the Botanical Garden is free on specific days, and the symphony and other similar orgs do at least 1 free event per year on average.

Walk. Just like I would hike when I lived rurally, walk. There are trails along the River and through the woods, even in the middle of town. But there’s also sidewalks. A town common. Parks. Several playgrounds have pickup basketball if your knees are better than mine, or there’s a track within an easy walk for some more regimented exercise. Our favorite activity starting during Covid is to walk around our city, seeing the sights. It was a great chance to talk with my kids for hours, before they went off to college. And yes we played Pokémon go as something to do while walking (and a game like that is much better in cities), and met several groups of people that way. If that game is too nerdy or childish, there are apps that gamify walking in various ways. If you’re willing to spend a little, sometimes we would stop at a convenience store for a soda or something, but not always.

When I lived in the major city, it was the same only much more. Every weekend had a festival (free). Every weekend had a band playing somewhere outside free. Every weekend had some big free event at multiple parks. Every Wednesday was free museums. Walking the waterfront is really cool and entirely free. Tourist areas sometimes have street entertainers, free. My city is very walkable and has many colleges: every weekend had some event at some college. My city has a lot of history and tourism, organized as a free “trail” and with most historic things free. There are things like a sailing ship that is free to see: you would have to pay for the museum and gift shop but why would you? Read the historic plaques. If a building or something looks historic, look it up.

For a relatively small amount of money, one of my favorite activities was the farmers market: it was huge and cheap (although I haven’t been in many years). Sometimes I just wanted to walk around and see everything (that shopping is selling whole goats?), or I could buy a week’s worth of veggies fresh from the farm for pennies on the dollar. And connect that back to food prep: when I didn’t have much money or time, I’d take all Saturday, goto the farmers market, come back and put together a giant salad for the week, a pasta salad for the week, maybe marinate some meat in some ingredients I bought- basically get half my cooking and shopping out of the way, dirt cheap

For a relatively small amount of money, much cheaper than operating a car, I usually had a subway pass. The core of that major city is very walkable, but the pass opened the entire city by just hopping on a convenient train without having to think about spending in the moment.

As far as staying in the small apartment goes, being in an urban area means gigabit fiber, which I guess a lot of people still don’t have. Being a first class citizen online is priceless and opens a lot of free (after your internet bill) activities involving sitting at your desk

When I was a student with a small budget in an expensive city:

• Basketball, softball, flag football, soccer, kickball, bocce, volleyball (free for pickup games, very cheap for organized leagues)
• Picnics/cookouts at the park with friends (same price as eating and drinking at home)
• Lifting weights and other fitness-oriented exercise at an indoor gym (relatively affordable monthly fees)
• Museums (cheap/free access for students, some memberships can be a good deal if you're going regularly)
• Volunteering (free, easy way to meet and socialize with people)
• Live events. Sure, an NFL game or a Taylor Swift concert isn't going to be cheap, but the thing with big cities is that there are literally dozens of small music venues, semi-pro sports leagues, comedy venues, theaters, etc., putting on small shows for less than $10/person (or maybe $20-30 after buying a few drinks at the venue). Some things are free, like plays or movies or concerts in the park.
• Festivals. There are always street or art festivals going down in big cities.

I'm not a musician or artist but I know plenty of people who get together to play music with friends, or do creative things together.

And even now that I have money I still do plenty of the cheap/free things in my city, and I donate a lot to the libraries and museums and park cleanup/beautification nonprofits around me in large part because those are great public spaces worth supporting.

I would like to kick this back to you, what do you do outside of a big city that is free?

Broke Ass Stuart had a lot of stuff for this. Also Craigslist has (or had) a whole section of free events. I never had problems finding free entertainment for the 10 years I lived in SF.

Check your library for local events, and local museums for resident free days.

Go to every park.

Go to every gallery.

Go to every neighborhood you've never been to and be curious about it.

House parties and board game nights, basically. Supermarket prices, and guaranteed to be around people I enjoy the company of. There's also normally events going on every week, so there's normally some kind of food fest/pedestrianized road with buskers/something going on that's either cheap or free.

Every city has free activities that happen from time to time. There are guides on entertainment online and in paper that will tell you what they are and when they will occur. For example, there is a spanish culture center where I live, and I've taken my kid there several times for free shows.

Going on walks in the city to take in the architecture is free. If you have a phone, you can try to improve your photography skills by taking pictures of things you see that are interesting.

There are places that are made for public well being that are free; like Museums and libraries. You can go to them to enrich yourself and learn new things, or even just see the artifacts (or replicas) you've learned about elsewhere.

As others have noted : parks and the like are free for the public to access. You can have fun being in a green space and in nature.

Meetups are organised online for free, for various hobbies in public spaces, sometimes even in pubs/restaurants/bars, or even specialist stores. Usually the proprietors won't mind if one or two people are not spending money if there is a large group there that is spending money.

By the way, for non-city folk, these things also apply to you. When I was living in a smaller town with population about 60k , I saw jazz performances, fun architecture and walked around in public forests and "meadows" for free.

For example, time out has a page dedicated to free things to do in London this week:

https://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/free-things-to-do-in-london-this-week

There are other locations available just through timeout, and meetups has things that cater to your individual tastes, and I'm sure your local metropolitan authority has a page dedicated to publically funded events I'm sure they want people to attend, and are probably free because they are paid for with taxes.

For example, I went to two official US Cities sites....

San francisco :

https://www.sf.gov/latino-heritage-month There's events listed here (some already finished) that you can attend for Latino Heritage month, it was on the homepage at sf.gov

https://www.sf.gov/topics--things-to-do-san-francisco more lists of things to do, which led me to :

https://sf.funcheap.com/free-events/ A bunch of free (some require early RSVPing) events you can enjoy in SF.

New York :

https://www.nyc.gov/main/events/?categories=Free

Here's a bunch of free stuff you can do... although the NYC stuff is a lot more... serious than the SF one, just ignore all the "Special Waste Drop-Off" events.

If you want to know more, just reply. I love living in big cities and I usually don't spend that much money there to have fun either. For most of my holidays, I literally just stay in my home city and walk around or have fun at home.

Other people already gave most of the answers, but

Parks. Go for a walk. Play a game with folks (Frisbee, soccer, whatever). Ride a bike. Read.

Meetups. I go to a tabletop RPG one. That's not unique to cities, but I can walk to this one and there are probably more people attending than you'd find in a less populous area. I also used to go to a basic neighborhood hangout one. There are many others.

The library is free. Many books and other media to enjoy.

This city has beaches. It's $3 for the subway ride there , or if I was really broke I could ride a bike.

There are free museums. I don't go that often but they're interesting.

But also

And to make it worse many of them probably have a 1 bedroom apartment so its not like you can sit in there all day long (at least i cant).

I realize im still spending money by being in my house out of town, but still, at least things I buy are owned by me, and im not paying someone else every time I want to do anything. If I want to stay at home all day I have tons of stuff to occupy my mind without going nuts.

I don't think I accept this premise. I stay home in my one bedroom without any more trouble than when I lived in the suburbs. A computer full of games doesn't need a lot of rooms. I have plenty of entertainment here. I don't see what's stifling about a one bedroom. Maybe a tiny studio I could see. But even so, when I lived in a whole house it's not like I went skipping from room to room.

Friends. Yes, you'll probably spend more to do events.

But the good friendships, you end up just hanging out - wasting time at a park, going for a walk around the neighborhood, having dinner together.

Pregame. Dive bars

Download SteetComplete. You can help to improve openstreetmap and you get around. I mapped my area and found it interesting, because the app made me explore the neighbourhood. https://streetcomplete.app/

use the library. I don't mean go to the library, I mean use it for free things. for example I can go to like 20 different museums for free through my library. disc golf is free at almost every disc golf course on the planet. parks are free, walks are free. bouldering is free. There's a ton. it's all about your imagination.

I would argue that cities have more free activities than towns, by far. Cost of living is higher but so are wages.

Also, I don't understand why living in a huge home is required to stay in. Certainly isn't for me.

Walk or bike everywhere if possible. Go down any side path that looks safe, explore, poke around, find the interesting things. Go to tourist spots and photobomb people. Pick your nose right outside the window of an incredibly expensive restaurant. Talk with strangers while waiting for stuff (but read the room obviously) they'll know about stuff to do you never would have thought of. Get engaged in the punk community they're always doing free things and dirt cheap concerts. Find local musicians in a genre you like that aren't popular outside regionally and see where they do a lot of smaller concerts, hang out at those places. Walk around community gardens. See what buildings you can get into and figure out if the roofs are accessible. Throw bricks at cops. Volunteer, a lot of times this is as simple as handing out food that someone else already made and you get to meet people and feel like you're bettering your area. Seriously walk and bike everywhere if you can and be open to taking detours you'll find so much stuff you'd never have found in a car

Cities want to be explored. They have so much to offer but you need to find it. Sometimes you can stumble into things, sometimes you have to know the right person, sometimes you specifically seek something out so you poke around related things until you work your way there. Keep an open mind and reserve some time whenever you can to just explore. The best stuff will show up eventually even if it takes a couple years

In my experience in Seattle, the people with money pretended to have the most fun. The punks, the poor people, they actually had the most fun. When people don't have money to throw at impulse happiness they put a lot more work into building a life and community that can stand on its own. This includes mental well being such as finding ways to have fun

Also mushrooms are a cheap way to have the time of your life for 6-8 hours

Minecraft was like $20 and I've probably put 10,000 hours into it

Walks (less nature, more architecture), go-out in parks. Free museums and cultural event (you have to know the city a bit to know place and times), librairies, charity work, outside sport in the park or the street...

I think you cannot do activities that requires a large natural space or absolue quiet or isolation but unlike small town or country side, you can do all the think that requires grouping lots of people much more easily.

I'm in a mid-sized city. Beaches are public, parks are free or $5ish per carload if you drive in, the library system is amazing, there is a Riverwalk.

I don't quite understand how you think being away from the stuff a city offers = having more stuff you can do at home. What exactly can you do in your house that you couldn't do at a home in the city? We have parties, a TV, a computer, a bed, and personally we have also a yard, food garden, pets, kids, but even in an apartment you can grow plants on the patio and have a cat, you just don't have to drive a long way to do anything.

if you already own an apartment in a city, the chances are that you'd grow used to the space and you'd feel at home, and anything lacking is made up for with closer proximity and easier access to stores and public facilities.

i live in hong kong, one of the densest cities in the world, and i'm able to live comfortably. there's very little noise where i live because it's in a less urban area, i get a fantastic view of and immediate access to a riverside park, a mall full of great food and boba just a 15-minute walk away, a library and a big transit hub just a short bus ride away, and from that transit hub, very cheap access to all of hong kong for museum visits, sightseeing, hella hiking and biking trails, exhibitions, etc.

i've also lived in berlin for a bit. it was also in a less urban area, in a very tiny apartment, and i was still fine because i had very similar access to amenities. short walk for groceries and transit, access to museums and parks, loads of architecture to admire, and hella döner.

if you've only experienced cities in north america... i'm sorry.

Just chiming in as someone not in a big city, I'm pretty sure we're more than 2% of Lemmy. But I have lived in a few big cities, and living outside the city is way worse. I have to drive to do anything. There are some free parks I can drive to, but that's about it. You can't even go for a walk or a bike ride without driving somewhere first. There is no old town to walk around.

Also for example, if you live in a big city you pay more for housing but jobs pay higher and you actually have the option of not owning a car. So you don't have to sit in traffic and pay insane parking prices everywhere you go. My one complaint about the city is that food prices are crazy.

i stay home.

The ducks in my local park are free

High-paying jobs come to cities, so a sizable number of people really are spending money for everything. Think of it like video game microtransactions.

Of course, to a small extent, it’s also nice that you’re not making car payments, including wear and tear, insurance, and gas.

Where I live, there are also city calendars that help you find the free festivals that cost less. These are often more scheduled rather than “all the time”, so they’re not convenient for tourists.

I think some people mistakenly think that being in a city means you have to go out a ton because there's all these cool bars, museums, etc.

But to me, I think of it more like, it's nice that if I want to do one of those things it doesn't require much effort, but I still only do it if I want to

Scenarios:

• You want to drink a lot and have an energetic night - One of the coolest things about cities is how close and accessible bars are. This makes it super easy to meet up with your friends and pregame a ton. Then you can walk over to a bar or club already hammered, and you only have to buy one or two drinks to keep it going.
• You want a cozy night - Then just get together with friends at one of your places and play board games or watch a movie or something. Now, if every single one of your friends has a really small apartment, then I understand this might be less comfortable. Maybe the apartment building has a common space?
• Daytime events - Parks, community events, festivals, etc. There's usually a few free events every day, check your local news

swinger orgies

what do you think makes social media so addictive? it's one of the few things people can afford

I know not everyone loves church, but my church has an open building day you can come and co-work or just read or sit and relax and chat or whatever, we put out good local coffee shop coffee and tea, and you can hang around as long as you want in an old building with beautiful stained glass windows and use the WiFi, etc. We were talking about how there's not really anywhere much else you can do that without spending money, you can sit in the library but it's not like you can heat up your leftover spaghetti and sit on a comfy couch. It's really a nice way to spend a day.

Not going places they charge you money for.

You can go to a park, or spent a lovely afternoon at home, cook your own meals and clean your own clothes.

Public parks, hanging at a friend's pad, just walking around, campfire on the beach, house parties, bike trails, free days at museums, free public concerts, block parties, political rallies, people watching

Are you having trouble picturing this because you've never been poor, or because you've never lived in the city?