I live in NYC, where there are many free events as well as plain people watching.
One thing that may apply to your location is volunteering – not just the obvious hospitals and the elderly, but organizations the appreciate the occasional helping hand. You meet people, you get out of your regular world – for free.
If you own a GPS receiver already, Geocaching is a cheap thrill.
This suggestion is a bit different than the others but here goes:
If there is a local beauty school or massage school near you, you can get services for free or very cheap. Are you male? I’ll bet they’d love to have a guy to practice on. Manicures and pedicures feel great, and it’s not risky to have an inexperienced person do it for you.
And if you can get a massage…wooeee! A big local school advertises hour-long massages for $30, which is certainly reasonable. But I’ll bet you could get one for free if you found a smaller school or a college course or something. I’ve gotten some very good massages from friends who were taking courses and looking for someone to practice on.
People-watching is one of my favorite ways to pass time. I’ve even been known to drive an hour and a half just to watch people walk up and down the boardwalk at Seaside Heights. I see someone, and I make up a story. This guy looks so angry because his ten-year-old put itching powder in his underwear drawer. That woman is really a paid assassin who’s kicking ass on the clown-balloon-water-gun game because she’s been trained by the government. It’s fun. (I must admit, however, that sometimes the stories I make up are more in the morbid and dysfunctional area than the lighthearted family fare genre.) I get myself a cup of coffee, find a bench, and proceed to daydream my afternoon away.
I like the suggestion of walking around nice neighborhoods and looking at houses and the like, too. I’ve been doing this from the car for ages (my friend and I call it house-hunting … like we can actually afford the houses), and it’s another fun way to exercise your imagination without having to shell out any money.
My suggestion: learn to knit. Like many hobbies, you can go over the deep end on equipment and materials, but you can also get started quite inexpensively with aluminum needles and acrylic yarn. It’s fun, and you feel productive while you watch TV and DVDs.
If you’re at the stage of life that I am, with someone in my general peer group having a baby or adopting a baby every couple of months (it seems like) it’s great to be able to knock their socks off with a handmade baby shower gift. It can be something very simple, made with very inexpensive yarn, and they’ll still go bonkers over it.
I’ve heard of pay-for-play RPG groups before, and that they’re the norm in some places, but I still find it deeply weird. I mean, I know that the GM puts more effort into the game than the players and all, but, gee willikers, it just creeps me out somehow. It seems like it would set up a really strange dynamic.
OTOH, I usually end up shelling out something like $10 a session on communal munchies. And dice. I own far too many dice . . .
It sounds wierd, but I like wandering around old cemetaries. You can learn a lot about a city’s history from the tombstones and they’re just cool.
StG