Welcome back to another post!

I am an avid actual treasure hunter in my spare time, hunting for coins and rings on the surrounding beaches with my metal detector. Metal detecting is peak simple living if you ask me, being out in nature, hiking the beach, finding cool little things and cleaning up the environment a tiny bit while we are at it - all for cheap if you buy one of the entry level machines and don't get sucked into thinking you need the multi-thousand-machines that you'll never earn the money back unless you find heaps of gold jewelry. A good one costs 250€ where I live and I find lots of cool stuff with it - highly recommend the hobby.

Over the years, I realized that there are several ways to turn everyday life into a treasure hunt, to the tune of several thousands saved and earned every year. I figured that was worth writing a post about, so here goes:

Discounted food

You know what is more fun than eating in restaurants? Cooking your own cheap meals for pennies on the dollar compared to eating out. You know what's even more fun? Getting heavily discounted food because you got out of your comfy seat and into the saddle (or car seat for that matter).

In my area, the Too Good To Go app is very much worth it, providing me with still-fresh, healthy and satisfying food every single week. I cut my food budget by like 200 per month just by installing the app and experimenting until I figured out what works best for me. On Friday/Saturday, I check if my local farmer's market has an offering, and get fresh fruit, vegetables and even meat for 4 bucks per bag - it is hard to fault that kind of savings. Then I cycle there, head back home, call it an evening trip until I get home, cook some rice and fry the vegetables, or the meat if I got some - that's always the best day of the week with a full meal and usually two or three additional servings.

The local bakeries all participate, and so does our supermarket - I can get a different rescue bag every day of the week here, and it's always fun to just ride around town collecting them.

In the same way, I noticed that reading the weekly on-sale-fliers from the supermarkets in town is surprisingly fun, and needless to say, you can save some serious money here as well.

Just in general, it is a lot of fun to have these offerings dictate where I spend my evenings - you know it can be boring to cycle the same few paths all the time, to the point where you might shrug and just not do it, then spend the rest of the day on the couch instead. But having money on the line means I actually get out and come back home, and then I need to fry up the meat that day because it would spoil otherwise. So even on the laziest of days, I am just forced by the circumstances to get my butt up and do stuff - and my life is always better for it.

Scrap metal art

One of my favorite hobbies has been making art pieces from scrap metal, and these things also sell quite well on flea markets and craft fairs, and I run an Etsy store that gets the occasional sale as well.

It doesn't take much to set this up, just a cheap stick welder from eBay, a mask and gloves. Now, obviously not everyone will want to deal with welding or has the garden space to do it, but I had zero clue about welding before I started and it took me just a few hours before I had my first finished piece. Nowadays, I sell these things often enough to feel it in my bank account, and it's the nice kind of feeling where the number is higher than you thought it would be.

As soon as you learn to think in the lines of scrap metal art, every trash day becomes a treasure hunt, old rusty tools become birds' beaks, and pliers become the legs. Old bicycle lamps become the heads of little figurines, and people enjoy seeing them on flea markets and will dish out some money every now and then to take one home.

Riding around on a bicycle collecting old metal pieces is a great time being out and about, and you don't spend a single dollar, with the potential to earn a nice side income if you put your mind behind it.

River stone art

This is almost the same as scrap metal art, only that it revolves around taking a rock about as large as your fist, and drilling holes into it for the legs and neck.

A lot of people buy these for garden decoration, and they are really not hard to make if you have a drill and a stone drill bit. I usually couple this with the welding method because I need to get the head on the neck somehow, but there are various methods you could pick that don't require welding. Wire or JB Weld could do the trick as well.

No matter the method, what you gain by doing these pieces is that every trip to the beach, lake or river near you gives you an opportunity to go rock hunting, picking out the ones that make for a good bird body, then taking it home. An easy trip out and about, some fresh air in your lungs, and a piece that you can sell, or gift to friends and loved ones.

Book swap boxes as travel destinations

A lot of towns have book swap boxes in old telephone cells, little huts, or a hole-in-the-wall kind of deal where you can go and leave a book to take a book - I love those places.

Apart from being a great way to read books for cheap (free is cheap), they also make for great travel destinations when you want to take a day trip, but don't quite know where. Just find a list online and pick one near to you, then head there and see what you can find. In fact, what I enjoy even more is bringing my own books there, knowing that someone else might take them out and smile as it's exactly what they hoped they would find. Maybe that never happens, but in my mind, someone else lives a better life, just like my life got better with a free book in my hand that I probably wouldn't have bought at today's prices.

Another thing I like is that they make great destinations for motorcycle trips where you can't carry much, but a book or two always fit into the backpack or the saddlebags.

Collecting fruits and berries

I love nothing more than going out into the forest to collect blueberries, or going out during fall to collect edible chestnuts. Even if they aren't of huge monetary value, the savings should not be underestimated, especially when you also make your own juice or jelly from it.

We have blueberries, blackberries, elder berries and various nut trees around where I live, and I spend several days each year in the brutal summer sun getting scratched up by blackberry bushes - that's what I call a good time.

Just this weekend, I headed out to the tree that has edible chestnuts - I love them because they are tasty, but also because most people today don't even know that you can eat them. After every storm, you can find me cycling there and picking up the freshly fallen once - and I just never have any competition.

Takeaway: Turning life into a treasure hunt is a cheat code to life

Between saving money, earning money, and just having a solid good time doing it, I just think that turning our lives into an ongoing treasure hunt is an amazing way to gain some serious life enjoyment.

If you read this far, maybe sign up to the email list and get notified whenever I publish a new post? I write about one post per week, so you won't get spammed - and new post notifications is all I'll send you, I have nothing to sell to you.