40 Fun And Inexpensive Hobbies for Stay At Home Moms

I had my first baby when I was 23, and became a stay at home mom shortly thereafter.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that if I was going to stay home, then I needed to find a hobby.

Being a stay at home mom is wonderfully rewarding, but it turned out to be very important to me to have something for myself that’s totally separate from my identity as a mom.

I needed something to do during nap time that was more life-giving than cleaning the bathroom or scrolling Instagram and cheaper than online shopping.

I got hooked on blogging early in my motherhood career, and it’s been amazing. But if that’s not your thing, I’ve curated a list of dozens of other hobbies that might suite your style.

Read on!

Money-Making Hobbies for Stay At Home Moms

Teaching english online

If you have a bachelor’s degree, you can make good use of your time by teaching english to kids in Asia! You’ll have to show up for scheduled classes, but you don’t have to leave your house or get child care, and the pay is pretty good. So it’s not a bad gig!

Tutoring

Former teachers can charge a hefty fee tutoring kids one-on-one. You can choose the time and location and only take on as many students as your schedule allows.

Become a virtual assistant

Interested in making money at home online with a flexible schedule? Reply to your favorite blogger’s newletters and ask if they’re hiring. They often are!

Become an organizer

Love organizing? If you’ve organized every nook and cranny of your own home, reach out to your community and offer up your organizing talents. Lots of people need help in this area!

Start an MLM business

MLMs get a bad rap for taking advantage of stay at home moms, but I personally know plenty of women who’ve been successful with MLM businesses. The key is to choose a company with products that you truly love and can’t stop talking about. Share it with people in a natural way! Just refrain from cold-messaging people you haven’t talked to since high school about the “amazing opportunity” that you have for them.

Become a freelance writer

If you want to earn and little money and keep yourself occupied during nap time, freelance writing is a great activity! You can find jobs on websites like Upwork.

Start an Etsy store

Already have a crafting hobby you love? Take it a step further and start an Etsy store to sell your creations.

Start a blog

Blogging is an amazing hobby for stay at home moms. It doesn’t cost much to start a blog, and you can easily do it during nap time. You can write about something you enjoy or something you want to learn about, and some people even make money doing it (although it’s a ton of hard work)!

Creative Hobbies for Stay At Home Moms

Make candles

Love candles but hate the fake fragrances and how expensive they are in stores? Buy some candle wax in bulk and spend an afternoon making your own scented with essential oils! They make great gifts aroun the holidays, too.

Crochet

It’s a little cliche for a mom to take up a hobby like this, but that doesn’t make crocheting any less awesome. You’ll never be short on afghans or baby hats if you take up crochet as a hobby.

Knitting

Crafting is even better if you have two needles to work with! Your family will be so warm this winter with all the scarves and blankets you’re going to make.

Sewing

I’ve often envied people who can whip up whatever they want out of a few pieces of cloth. You’ll save money on clothing and have a fun way to occupy yourself all at the same time.

Baking

A chocolate cherry mascarpone cake isn’t hard to make, but your friends will be so impressed. If you master a few good cakes or pies, you could start selling them and earn a few bucks with your new hobby!

Cookie Decorating

This is a fun and relatively inexpensive hobby to get in to. Offer to make them for friends and family around the holidays and they’ll go nuts for them. Here’s a tutorial to help you get started!

Make jewelry

Grab yourself a jewelry making kit and go to town making bracelets and necklaces. If you want to get fancy, you could learn how to work with leather as well.

Soap making

You can save money and avoid chemical-laden store bought products if you get into soap-making as a hobby. A few bars of beautiful homemade soap makes lovely Christmas gifts, too!

Wood working

It might require some tools that are a little pricier and a dedicated work space, but nothing beats spending your free time creating something beautiful out of a piece of wood.

Cricut crafts

Cricut machines are all the rage now in crafting. You can pick one up for a couple hundred bucks, and then you’ll be able to make alllll the paper flowers and wine glasses.

Coloring

This low key habit is fantastic if you just need to spend a few minutes relaxing your brain. Or if your kids love it when you color with them, you can grab your grown up coloring book and join their fun!

Makeup

If you’re like me, maybe you somehow missed the memo in your teenage years about how to properly apply make up. Not to worry, there’s no time like the present! Find a couple of beauty Youtubers to follow and get started experimenting with a few new products in your free time.

Educational Hobbies for Stay At Home Moms

Study the Bible

Meditate on the scripture, read commentaries, look up the original Greek words, read about the historical context…there’s so many things to learn about what’s written in the Bible.

Read books

Reading is the perfect hobby for stay at home moms. Always having a good book on hand helps keep me away from mindless scrolling on my phone, and your example of always having your nose in a book will encourage your kids to become readers as well!

Take a course on Coursera

Learning something new is the perfect way to counteract the mindnumbingness of spending every day alone with a tiny baby. Sites like Coursera and EdX offer courses on practically every subject imagineable, and the best part is that they’re totally free!

Learn to draw on YouTube

You can learn anything on YouTube, and drawing is no exception. If you think you’re bad at art, think again. There are some YouTubers out there that can make an artist out of even the most artistically challenged of us.

Learn an instrument

If you took piano lessons as a kid but now you can barely play Mary Had a Little Lamb with one finger, now is the perfect time to brush up on those skills! Hire a teacher to come to your house once a week, or use an app like Yousician to learn on your own.

Learn to code

A hobby like this is perfect for stay at home moms because we’re physically exhausted, but our minds could use a little more stimulation. Learning to code is a perfect way to exercise your brain at the end of a long day with kids. And, as a bonus, it’s a marketable skill!

Learn a new language

Nothing keeps the mind sharp like learning a new language. You can take courses on Courera, or use an app like Duolingo on your phone for daily practice.

Fun Hobbies for Stay At Home Moms

Gardening

A little vegetable garden can bring so much joy. This is a great hobby to do with your kids if they’re old enough to play in the dirt. They’ll be in awe and wonder that a tiny seed can grow into an enormous cucumber, and you’ll have so much fun watching them experience it for the first time.

Working out

Hobby or not, we should all be getting a few minutes of movement at some point during the day. But you can always take it a step further by becoming a work out enthusiast.

Volunteer Your Time

If you’re craving being back in a work environment but can’t commit to a paying job, volunteer work might be just the hobby for your during your time as a stay at home mom! You’ll get out of the house, interact with adults, do meaningful work, and many places with volunteer opportunities won’t mind if you bring the kids along!

Train your pet

Having more time at home is the perfect chance to give the puppy in your life a little extra attention. You can learn training techniques on YouTube or buy an inexpensive dog training course online.

If you get good at it, maybe you’ll wind up being able to charge others for your services!

Photography

Photography is an amazing hobby for so many reasons. It helps you appreciate the beauty around you, it’s a marketable skill, you’ll be able to take beautiful images of your kids as they grow, and all you need ot get started is your phone’s camera. Learn online at a place like Digital Photography for Moms.

Learn to dance

You could sign up to take classes at a live studio! But if childcare is an issue or if you’re embarrassed for anyone to watch your two left feet, try taking classes online at home.

Listen to podcasts

Podcasts are a major lifeline for me as a stay at home mom. Especially in those early days of being home alone all day with a tiny bay. Podcasts helped keep my brain active and provided a sense of pseudo-adult interaction. You can find a list of my favorite podcasts here!

Geocaching

Geocaching is like a treasure hunt right outside your door! There are millions of little hidden treasures all over the world. There are probably a number of them at your local park, or even in your neighborhood. All you have to do is download the app and start searching. If you have slightly older kids, they would probably enjoy doing this with you!

Write letters

In this age of email, texting, and video chat, writing letter is a lost art. But most people I know still love getting a little happy mail in their mailbox! Make a habit of writing a few notes a week to people in your life and drop them in the mail. It’ll make their day!

Coffee

Most stay at home moms love their coffee, but you could always take it a step further and invest in some more serious coffee equipment. Learn to roast your own beans and make your own espresso. Then you can make all the fancy drinks for your friends when they come over and they’ll be so impressed.

Beekeeping

If you chose beekeeping as a hobby, you should feel extremely good about yourself because it’s great for the bees and it’s great for the environment. Plus, you might get a jar or two of free honey out of the deal!

Journaling

Standard “Dear Diary” type journaling is cool, but there’s so many other types of journaling that you can get into as well. Start a bullet journal, a gratitude journal, an art journal, or a traditional scrapbook. The possibilities are endless!

Genealogy

If you’ve always been curious to find out more about your lineage, nap time is a great time to dive into finding out about who your ancestors are!

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