Your Raspberry Pi is actually capable of helping you save money if you put it to use in the right way. If you’re currently paying for cable with a DVR service, your Raspberry Pi can take over that task. Still paying for a password manager? The Raspberry Pi can handle that, too. Need to track prices for Black Friday? Yep, your Pi is fully capable of doing that, as well. So, here are three projects you can do this weekend on your Raspberry Pi—and none of them will take long to set up.

The Raspberry Pi is a fun little computer, but I have a habit of collecting accessories that turn out to be more useful than the device they were designed for. Some of them stay connected to the Pi, while others find their way onto my desk and become part of my regular setup. The official Raspberry Pi USB 3 Hub is one such accessory.

The difference between a battery-powered sensor that runs for a few days and one that runs for a year comes down to what the board does when it's doing nothing. Most DIY projects, like weather stations, mailbox alerts, or plant monitors, spend 99% of their life idle. In those scenarios, idle draw matters far more than peak performance.

Remember when phone chargers were straight up garbage? The Micro-USB standard defined a generation of devices, but it was notorious for both its fragility and its toxic "hey, I just bent your phone's pins, now I'm the only charger that'll ever work with it" attitude.

Most of us have outdated electronics and gadgets sitting around—an old TV, some nice old speakers, or a slightly bulky monitor. They often work just fine, but they just haven't aged well because either connectivity or software left them outdated long before they break.

A Raspberry Pi and a mini PC have a lot in common, but most mini PCs can outperform Raspberry Pis for traditional computing tasks. They're intended for different purposes, however, and there are plenty of things that a Raspberry Pi can do that a mini PC can't match.

While many undertake ESP32-based electronics projects for fun, because they find building rewarding, or to learn, saving money is another valid reason to DIY a solution. It could be argued your own time has a price too, but if you find the build enjoyable, then you’re probably not going to mind the time commitment.

Are you looking for a fun weekend project with your Raspberry Pi? I recently picked up a few extra Pis for my homelab, and instantly started spinning up new things just for the fun of it. Here are three projects that you can have up and running before Monday arrives.