How do you spend your free time?

[Tanks]

I got the following from Amazon in an email, a summary of my Kindle reading in the last 90 days.

Made me think of other things I do on a regular basis. Here are some of them for the last 90 days.

-- 30 hours, hunting.
-- 36 hours, Argentine Tango dancing.
-- 36 hours, shooting at the range.
-- 12 hours, dry fire practice pistol.
-- 96 hours, working out (rowing and resistance training with a trainer)

What are some of yours?

 

[MontanaGrant]

Basically cruise on here. A few scattered breaks here and there I peruse here and a few other decent forums that are left

Taking over the family ranch, me and wife having our first kiddo just hit a year old, I work basically all the time and use what I can scrounge for family time.

When I can carve out some time I try to get some shooting done.

 

[Ontario Hunter]

Last 90 days = December, November, October. I hunted birds almost every day from 27 October to December 8 so that kinda makes this a not average period to assess "free time". Ordinarily a lot of my free time is used helping my daughter with her taxidermy work. I will expand my skills during the coming year. Really enjoyed building my 404J two years ago and contemplating more of that. But I am hesitant to expand my gun collection at this stage in life. It's hard to sell stuff I put my heart and soul into making.

During the summer I'm shooting skeet or clays a couple hours every week.

 

[NIGHTHAWK]

Well, I retired from my Union gig, only to be retained by my company as a Construction Manager, so my plans have changed because I have not stopped working…

I’m hoping to:

Hunt more - Locally
-Plan some hunts too
Fish more
Shoot more
-Sporting clays/trap
-long range
Train my dogs more
Travel more
Finish personal projects that are lingering
Train to get in better shape for alpine hunting
Visit family and friends more frequently
Visit more local places - museums, parks, historical points of interest.
Camp more.
Load more ammo.

Find a ranch to buy and enjoy my retirement!

 

[Jason Miller]

Free time? What’s that?

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I don't have time breakdowns but I suspect my reading would be similar. I run about 4-6 novels a month.

Other than that: taxidermy, painting, working out, time at the range, hunting, handloading, snowmachining (winter), time at my cabin (summer), camping...

 

[Aiden204]

I'm much younger than the average fella on here (25)
I also unfortunately work quite a bit as the cost of living in Canada has consistently & rapidly gotten steeper. I generally work around 3000-3100 hours a year on the road. After work I usually hit the gym and go to bed. On my days off I usually mess around with some guns, I bought a house that needs a lot of love so lately I've been in the crawlspace fixing random things. My Fiancee is 8 months pregnant as well with a child that is going to be moderately disabled so when I'm home we usually have a few Doctors appointments.

I suppose after writing this out ive realized I do not really have a large amount of free time. I try to shoot my guns a bit and take time off in November to hunt deer.

 

[Boela]

Between working full time and running a business part-time, I do not have much free time at all. I therefore reserve that precious time for my wife and our three sons. Be that spending time at the beach, hunting for the freezer or simply hanging out with family or friends.
Looking back at life and seeing all the hard work done to achieve the financial success that society expects of you is one thing, but not seeing my family grow and having fun with joyous memories of us doing things together will not do for me.

 

[skydiver386]

I read quite a bit and practice with air rifles nearly everyday. Every morning I try to read the good book for at least 30 minutes before leaving for work.

When I'm on vacation my time is spent hunting, or working on my land in preparation for hunting.

 

[Elkeater]

Im 36 years old with a wife and two kids 10 and 12. I don’t have much free time that doesn’t involve the family. What free time I do have is spent split between the reloading bench, working out, the rifle range, a bit of time on a couple different forums, and some reading and increasingly leather work.

 

[Tim Blackwell]

I don't have any
I have a pile of unread books next to my bed, and I'll (sadly) often go months without firing a shot.

I work full time, 4 on/4 off 12 hour shifts. In addition I run a busy taxidermy business that consumes most of my rostered days off. Then I play drums in a band, I try to get to gym 3 times a week, and I have a wife & 2 daughters.

It's a busy lifestyle, and I don't do much local hunting any more. BUT it's allowed me to travel and hunt in cool places, and my debt levels are very manageable.

 

[Beck]

Spending time with my wife, reading, exercising, playing volleyball, looking for guns that I don't need, tooling around on this website, shooting, cooking, playing with my dog, and I do love to watch a good football game

 

[mdwest]

I very intentionally stay very busy… but I honestly don’t track how many hours get spent on each activity…

I’d guess the day job takes about 50 hours a week..

Then my wife and I own a couple of small businesses… my role in those is minimal (her level of effort is a lot greater)… I’d guess that’s another 5 hours on average…

We founded a non profit in 2022… that’s a roller coaster.. some weeks that’s another 5-7 hours… some weeks there’s no work at all…

And I currently sit on the board of two different organizations… maybe 1 hour gets spent on each of those per week (2 total)…

So “work” gets maybe 60 hours on an easy week… 65 when things are busy…

I’d guess during the “off” season hunting related activities can take anywhere from 5-20 hours a week depending on what I’m up to… the last 3 years we’ve put a lot of effort into doing improvements on our hunting property.. it’s not unusual to spend an entire weekend out there and work 12-14 hours a day… during hunting season we’re pretty much in the woods every weekend from Sept (dove) until Feb (deer) unless there is some other big event going on (hunting convention, kid graduating from school, Christmas, etc)…

Then there’s the hobbies… I’ll make 10-20 knives a year… time spent can vary greatly.. but typically no less than 3 hours to make a knife… no more than 6… it just depends on how complex of a project I make it.. I also dabble in leather work (I suck at this), wood working (better than leather, but not great), and recreational shooting… between pistols, rifles, and shotguns shooting I’d guess gets 60-80 hours a year…

And then there’s this place lol…

 

[Firebird]

My time is mostly spent at my full time job.
I am fortunate that I can operate my second job as a taxidermist business from home, so I can drop kids to school and scoop them up as well. I usually walk 4-5 miles after I get them all where they need to be.
I read alot while waiting for my kids at school or during their sports practices.
Like most of you I reload and shoot bullets and arrows and keep dogs and fish and hunt as often as I can! Love to garden in the summer time.
I also try to keep my wife content in there-we make time for at least one date every week. So no spare time, just make the most of the time I do have!

 

[Rifleman97]

I play video games, watch movies, go hunting, cut down and cut up trees for firewood and for safety, play violin and piano, do more woodworking for hobby projects (my full time job is woodworking)

 

[Tanks]

Wow, a lot of guys do taxidermy as a hobby.

 

[JeeperCreeper]

I play the lottery so maybe one day I can have free time!

I have a lot of hobbies, but with long shifts (hospital) and 2 beautiful girls (3 and 1 y/o), I'll be offloading lots of them soon because family is most important.

Guns, jetski, lifting, camping, hiking, hunting

Maybe I can fit sleep in there at some point

 

[458JCE]

What is this "free time" that you speak of?

I had 44 flights in 2025 - 40 for work and 4 of them were for hunting. In the last 3 months of 2025 up to Christmas I had 9 individual nights in my own bed. A holiday for me is to spend time at home.

 

[BourbonTrail]

Daily- I am at work/commuting 11 hrs a day. At home I try to read almost daily, exercise when I remember to shoehorn it in, and spend most of the time after work with my wife and kids.

My weekends- I spend a large amount of time playing handyman around the house (I have only outsourced foundation work, roof and HVAC replacement - I do everything else, including all auto repairs). I also help my wife’s parents out a lot because her father has dementia. I help out as church security which also eats up my weekends especially around the holidays.

My free time- it ebbs and flows, but I have lots of hobbies that I sprinkle in: hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, reloading, gardening, reading stuff here, cooking, woodworking, rebuilding my FIL’s machine shop, learning new languages (not to fluency, but enough to get in trouble). However, I can go months without doing some/any of them.

I do purposely try to take my family hiking on my off Fridays, and I make my wife and I cappuccinos every Saturday morning where we discuss the books we’re reading.

 

[gbflyer]

We have a small family owned civil construction business in Alaska. In other words we have bought ourselves a job. When I’m not working I’m doing something else thinking about work. It’s taking its toll.