Digitally entertained with zero money
Considering how much anything costs right now (bc of AI, blockchain, mining, or whatever the fuck is going on in tech), I have come to a point in life where I realized I can afford nothing. Add to that the fact that my main computer died and I'm struggling financially... well, what's a girl to do?
Use older tech and forget about the modern world is the answer, apparently.
Gaming
My old ass laptop can barely handle multiple tabs open on a browser, let alone a modern game.1 So I've decided to play what I haven't played in years: Pandemonium! and The Dig. Old games that you can get for super cheap/free and that won't crash my dying laptop.
Coincidentally, a dear friend also gifted me her old 3DS XL and that's what I've been rocking to game off the computer (I must confess I've been struggling to sit in front of a screen to game, I'd rather lie down and slowly nod off to sleep like the old woman that I'm becoming). I modded the 3DS and now I got a bunch of NDS games in there to play as well as the 3DS ones. Animal Crossing New Leaf, the old Tomodatchi Life, Zelda Ocarina of Time and a bunch of old stuff that I've never played in my life.2 Basically, stuff that have contemporary counterparts I'd love to play but absolutely cannot afford. lmao
(It's also super fucking funny that my main computer died AND the screen on my Nintendo Switch got all buggy and I can't play it handheld any longer, bc of course it has to happen all the once amirite)
Music
For music, that's easier to find for free. Other than scavenging Bandcamp for free stuff, we got back to good ol' downloading directly from YouTube, track by track. Like a maniac. (And sometimes torrenting a whole album/discography.) I still got an Apple Music account bc it's on a family plan, but I'll listen to stuff there and then look up the album/song for download. Thankfully that's still easy enough to do.
Also, old ass vinyls in thrift shops/second hand online retailers. I'm not super into collecting them right now (it costs money & I don't own a record player lol), but my sister is, and I've been keeping my modest vinyl stash (acquired pre-financial disgrace) at her place, which I visit constantly.3 So whenever I'm over we'll pop something on the player to listen to.
Movies and shows
Sister's also in possession of the DVD player. (Well. It's a PS4 that plays CDs and DVDs, but potato potahto.) My last re-watch of The Lord of the Rings was on it, popping disc after disc. It had been years since I'd touched those DVDs. It also included the BTS stuff, which I never watched when I used streaming. So yeah.
Once again, huzzah for old tech.
And torrenting. Torrenting is so back, you guys -- but I think that, whoever you are, if you're reading this you probably already know that. I can only watch contemporary movies bc of torrenting, but I've also been re-downloading my favorite shows. I used to have a huuuuge digital library back in the early 2010s, but I lost it all in-between computer crashes/upgrades. There's stuff that's pretty easy to find again (The X Files seasons), but other stuff I've been struggling to track down (my Brazilian dubbed episodes of Rupert Bear 
).
Books
And then there's books. Now that's the one thing that's really painful to me bc contrary to other countries, physical books now cost an arm, a leg and a kidney in Brazil,4 even used ones. Sometimes a used book will cost as much as a brand new one, which means it's really, really off the table for me most of the time. (Also no such thing as a good public library near me.)
And we're back to downloading ebooks. I feel kinda sad on this one tbh. Even though I've been reading far more digitally in the past few years, I love purchasing physical copies of my favorite ones. I got both an English and a Brazilian-Portuguese copy of Annihilation, for instance. One of my dreams is one day to have all of the Discworld novels on a shelf.
So yeah, books have been a bit of a mixed bag for me emotionally. Earlier this year I purchased a second-hand Boox Palma 1. I think it was my last purchase of anything non-essential, tbh. Or hobby-related. I'm using it almost every day, either to read books, fanfics, listen to audiobooks or music, or (drum-roll) to write.
In conclusion
Torrent stuff. Go for old versions instead of the new ones. Forget they exist even, so you won't feel FOMO. Instead, seek POMO, Pleasure Of Missing Out.
Wanna play Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX but absolutely cannot afford it? Download a previous one instead on your old console. Wanna read the latest trendy weird girl book? Use Z-Library/Anna's Archive. (Also jailbreak your Kindle!)
I'm using Archive.org a lot lately, which means I'm also gonna figure out a way to donate a little to them this year, even if that means selling a couple of books to get the money.
If you live in a place that has good public libraries, use them. I've only heard good things about stuff like Libby and Overdrive. Unfortunately, that's not my reality.
Pretend the Steam Machine isn't even real. You don't need a new computer. The modern world isn't real. It certainly doesn't want us in it. Now excuse me, I got a 200k fanfic to read that cost me $0 and will help me forget this world exists for a few hours.
It does run a few indie games that require but a potato to work, but even amongst the indie titles my laptop struggles.↩
Because until the Nintendo Switch I'd never owned a gaming console and also wasn't a big gamer growing up to worry about emulators.↩
She lives with one of my cats who absolutely did not adapt to my new place with my partner's four cats and also I miss her cats (and her, I guess).↩
Because of a mixed bag of reasons, but a lot due to Suzano steadily hiking up prices since 2020. As for the second-hand books, they were always on the more expensive side in Brazil. Idk what to tell you. It only got worse.↩