20 Productive Things To Do With No Money

Bored at home and have no money to actually go and do anything?

Never fear. There are still lots of activities that you can do that will improve your quality of life, your brain and your health – all totally free.

Here is our list of 50 Productive Things to Do When You Are Broke:

1. Start a Budget for Your Finances

When was the last time you sat down and worked out where all your money goes every week? Setting a home budget is a great thing to do – and it costs you nothing but time.

2. Clean Out Your Filing Cabinet

Your filing cabinet is a treasure trove of information that is super important. Ensure you have all your receipts, insurance policies, rates notices and other important documents in order.

Once your filing cabinet is perfect, it is much easier to file documents as they come in.

3. Ring Your Insurance Companies to Ask for a Better Deal

You can now easily grab your insurance documents because hopefully, you cleaned out your filing cabinet! Going through all your insurances and calling them to ask for a better deal should be something you do every single year.

Not sure what to say to them when you call? Check out our article on ‘How to Save Money on Insurance‘ for some words on how to persuade them to give you a deal.

4. Backup Your Computer and Phone and Laptop

When was the last time you did a proper backup of all your digital files? Well now is the time! It only takes once to set up an auto-backup to ensure if the house burns down or something happens, you still have access to those files.

You can save your backup to the Cloud or grab an external storage device.

Here is how to do a simple backup to a hard drive:

• Connect your computer to the hard drive via a cable
• Go to ‘Start’, then ‘Settings’, then ‘Update and Security’, ‘Backup’
• Click ‘Add a Drive’ and a separate window will open showing you the connected drive.
• Click on your drive in the list and the ‘Automatically Back Up My Files’ option will switch on.

5. Unsubscribe to Emails You Don’t Want Anymore

Is your email box huge? Do you get up in the morning, check your email and just ‘delete, delete, delete’? Then go into each email you don’t want anymore, scroll to the bottom and hit the ‘Unsubscribe’ button.

Enjoy a clean and tidy inbox.

6. Sort All Your Photographs Into Years

Sorting photographs is the sort of thing you always think about doing, but never really get around to. Now’s the time. Whether they are old-style photographs or digital – start sorting them into years.

Ensure you grab all the images in one place – so laptops, phones, tablets etc. Also, collect photographs from other members of the family.

The best way to backup digital copies is via a portable external hard drive that is then uploaded to the cloud.

7. Take a Free Online Course

There are so many free online courses available now – that are still awesome.

See our list of 48 Free Online Courses you can Take Right Now. Costs you $0!

8. Visit the Museums of the World – Online

This is a terrific thing to do with the kids. Many of the major museums of the world have gone online thanks to Covid. You can now do online virtual tours and see all the great works of art, antiquities or even see how man went to the moon.

Some of the Virtual Museums you can visit include:

• The Louve
• The British Museum
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Van Gogh Museum
• The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
• The Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Nasa Glenn Research Centre

9. Do Some Once a Month Cooking

Freezer cooking is bulk cooking in advance. It’s fabulous because it means you only have to cook occasionally, but you still have a delicious dinner. In fact, we wrote the book on Once a Month Cooking (seriously – you can buy it from Angus & Robertson).

We also have a heap of recipes that are perfect for freezing for later:

• 50 Big Batch Cooking Recipes for the Freezer
• 50+ Freezer Friendly School Lunch Ideas
• Once a Month Cooking Freezer Meal Plans

10. Sort Out Your Wardrobe

When it comes to our wardrobe, typically, us gals have three different wardrobes. We have our skinny clothes, our fat clothes, and the rest is what we wear day to day. Let’s sort it out – ditch what we don’t wear, sort out what we do and make it easy to find a particular piece.

Here are 5 Tips to Declutter Your Wardrobe Once and for All!

11. Learn Another Language

Learning another language is a terrific skill to add to your resume. And you only need time, not money, to do it.

Some free language learning websites include:

• Live Lingua (Learn Spanish)
• Learn a Langauage
• Open Culture

12. Clean Out Your Fridge, Freezer and Pantry

There is nothing more wasteful than food spoiling. And if your fridge, freezer and pantry are in a disarray – that’s exactly what can happen. With half the world starving and the other half throwing out up to 30% of their food, change it and save money at the same time by keeping it clean.

13. Join an Online Book Club

Book Clubs have now gone online – and they are a great way to find fantastic books and also meet with like-minded people from the comfort of your own home.

Some of the best Online Book Clubs include:

• Goodreads
• Reese’s Book Club (Reece Witherspoon’s very own Book Club)
• The Girly Book Club (Australian based)

14. Start Writing an Ebook That You Can Sell Online

Ebooks are perhaps the most perfect product ever. Because you write it once and sell a copy over and over again – no storage, no postage.

Ebooks are a great passive income. We even have an ebook on ‘How to Write an Ebook for Profit’.

15. Sort Out Your Jewellery Box

Your jewellery box could be a great source of income if you find pieces that you no longer wear or care about – you can sell them via weight.

Clean each piece of jewellery before storing it correctly.

16. Download a Savings App That Will Monitor Your Spending

Just like setting a Budget, there are now Savings Apps that will link to your bank accounts and will tell you just where your money is going each month without you having to log every transaction.

Some of the best Savings Apps we love include:

Raiz: (Formerly Acorns)

Raiz links to your bank accounts and then ’rounds up’ all of your transactions and invests that money for you. You can take it out at any time and is a nifty ‘silent’ way to save money without noticing. Plus if you recommend the App to others, you get a kickback of up to $5 per sign up.

17. Weed Your Garden

There is a lot of mental therapy in being in your garden, and weeding is one of those jobs where you can just bliss out, put a podcast on and weed for hours. It makes your house look better, improves the value, and it’s good for your head.

18. Do a Deep Clean Of Your Home

Spring Clean any time of the year. It’s free and decluttering your home and getting rid of the junk is good for your head.

Sell or donate any items you no longer use.

19. Try a New Recipe

Have a look through all of our recipes (we have thousands of them) and choose a brand new recipe to try. You may just find a new signature dish!

We even have a dedicated Christmas Recipe area!

20. Start a Spotify List of Your Favourites

Does a song ever come on the radio or television and it transports you back to being a teenager…. Why not save that on a Spotify list and preserve your musical history!

We will keep adding to this list as we come across ideas!