No-money fun
I first heard about the concept on no-money fun in
The Knowledge Project Ep. #181
where it is said that the term was coined by Mike Myers:
Somehow the concept stuck with me. As a kid I did not have a lot of money to spend, but I was happy because the place where I lived and my parents allowed for a lot of no-money fun: we would go the nearby creek and fish (with out bare hands!), play civil engineer and build dams or canals, just explore as upstream as we could go, play soccer in the freshly mowed fields, ride our bikes or a trike (with as many as 5 of us on it!).
You build whatever life you want to build. What I learned for myself, it’s what the actor Mike Myers… Mike Myers …, and they’re writing… Austin Powers, beautiful thinker, great comedian. In an interview, he talked about what he called “no-money fun,” no-money fun. He said, “When I was a kid, we would sit out by the airport, my dad and I, and we’d watch the planes land.” He said, “Because we had no money.” He said, “And we would watch the planes land and we would guess what kind of plane they were. And then we’d go to the lake and we would skip stones, and we’d watch cars and guess what color they were.” He said, “We grew up with not a lot of money.” He goes, “But I was always happy.”
With my kids I always wanted to give them all the opportunities I could afford and maybe I focused too much on paid activities. So, recently I'm trying to be more intentional about no-money fun also because I find this is something that they can pass on.
For example, we were recently vacationing in the Alps, and crossed a creek while on a walk. We stopped there and they just loved to play in the chill water, while we could relax watching them.
One of my kids loves to explore the woods, so we go on hikes nearby and then just follow a faint trail and see where that takes us. I taught them how to make a trebuchet with sticks, etc.
I hope they're as happy as I was. From my side, I'm just happy and grateful that I can spend time with them.