If you are a renter, you may think gardening is not possible for you.  After all, if you do have a yard, it is not yours to dig up and create a garden.  Often, you may not even have room to garden.  However, there are other ways you can garden even if you are a renter, and you’ll reap the rewards of much lower grocery bills during the growing season.

Community Garden

Many urban areas offer community gardens for the residents.  You will have to follow some rules such as keeping your garden free of weeds and not using pesticides as well as picking the fruits and vegetables when they are ripe rather than letting them languish on the vine, but these rules are what you should be doing anyway.  We signed up for a community garden this year for a $20 refundable fee.  Our kids are excited about watching our plants grow and I am looking forward to the many benefits of gardening, especially getting organic vegetables for pennies.  I am looking forward to a substantial drop in our grocery bill.  To find a community garden in your area, try to search the Internet with the terms “community garden” and your city and state.

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)

If you prefer not to do your own gardening or you can’t find a community garden, consider a CSA (community supported agriculture).  When you join a CSA, you pay up front at the beginning of the season for your fruits and vegetables for the summer and fall.  (Many CSAs begin in early June and run through early October.)  You do take a risk with the farmer; if the farm floods or the weather affects the crops, you may not get a full season’s worth of produce.  However, these events are usually rare or the farmer can replace the damaged crops with other crops.

A CSA typically costs $500 to $800 upfront, which can be quite a bit for a family to come up with at once.  However, a few CSAs allow you the chance to work for them to pay for your fruits and vegetables.  In this bartering arrangement, you either work a few hours a week on the farm or you work a few hours a week at the farmer’s market where the farm sells their crops.  In our area, the bartering “wage” works out to about $8 or $9 per hour.  For your labor, you get organic fruits and vegetables.  If you have more time than you have money, this is an excellent arrangement to take advantage of.

A great place to find local CSAs is localharvest.org.  The farm may openly advertise a bartering arrangement, or you can call them and ask if they have such an arrangement.

Organic produce, while good for you, can be very expensive.  Growing a garden or using a CSA is an excellent way to afford organic produce, even if you rent and can’t create a gardening space in your backyard.

Mother’s Day is right around the corner! You forgot didn’t you? Well have no fear! In today’s post I’ll share some money saving ideas for inexpensive Mother’s Day gifts so you don’t show up empty-handed.

1. Flowers. What mom wouldn’t love a beautiful bouquet of flowers? You don’t have to spend a fortune either. You can order flowers online and have them shipped right to your mom’s front door for as little as $30 to $50.

2.  A Family Portrait. Get the whole family together and have a professional portrait taken.  It won’t cost much if you split the cost.  Another option is to gather a bunch of old pictures and make them into a personalized photo album.

3.  Home Movies on DVD.  If your mom has old home movies laying around on VHS or 8mm tape you can have them transferred to dvd so she can enjoy watching old memories whenever she wants.

4.  Have her grandchildren make her something. It could be as simple as a card made with construction paper, crayons, glitter, and glue.   Or it could be a do it yourself project like the ones offered at Home Depot.  I take my kids to Home Depot on the first Saturday of each month for the Kids Workshop.  This month they made little planters with pretty flowers for their mom.

5.  Burn a CD of her favorite tunes.  You can download free legal MP3 songs and then burn them onto a CD so your mom can listen to them at home or on the road.

6.  Make her dinner at home.   How many thousands of meals did your mom cook for you while you were growing up?  Well guess what…now it’s your turn!   Grab a cookbook and some groceries and prepare a homemade meal for your mom.  She deserves it!

Do you have any more suggestions for inexpensive Mother’s Day gifts?

In just a few short weeks, school will be out for the summer.  While your kids may be counting down the days to summer freedom, if they are like most kids, within a few weeks, you will begin to hear the dreaded whine, “I’m bored!”  This summer, keep the whine at bay with some of these fun, affordable activities:

Visit free museums and other attractions.  The site FreeAttractions.com helps you find free activities in your city and other surrounding areas.  I found several new activities that I did not previously know about using this site.

Go to factory tours.  Most kids love to know how things are made.  Take advantage of their natural curiosity and take them on a factory tour.  Use the site Factory Tours USA, which lists 560 tours, to find local factory tours; many are often free and sometimes offer freebies.  For instance, in Chicago, you can not only tour Eli’s Cheesecake Factory for free, but you can also get a free piece of cheesecake.

Get a pool pass.  In the heat of the summer, nothing feels better than a cool dip in the pool.  Many community pools offer passes for the entire season for $40 to $50.  If you will be going to the pool once a week or more as a family, it may be worthwhile to buy the pass.  The best part about the pool pass is that the more you go, the more valuable it becomes.

Send the kids to summer bible camp.  Many churches offer summer bible camps for a week.  Increasingly these are offered in the evening hours to accommodate working parents’ schedules.  A typical bible camp includes activities, crafts, and some fellowship.  When I was young, our church didn’t have one, but my friend’s did, and I always looked forward to going.

Take the kids horseback riding.  If you live in the city, chances are your kids have not gone horseback riding, at least regularly.  Find a nearby farm that offers horseback riding and take the kids for a fun afternoon.  It will be an experience they won’t soon forget.

Set up your own slip and slide.  Get a long tarp, lay it on the ground and spray with water and some baby soap.  Then, have fun sliding down while also getting refreshed on a hot summer day.  Kids can do this activity for hours without getting bored.

Take advantage of museum adventure passes.  If your library participates in the Museum Adventure Pass program sponsored by Macy’s, you can check out the pass and visit a participating museum for free.   This is a great way to visit a museum that costs more than you can afford or would like to spend.

While most kids can’t wait for summer break to begin, after a few weeks, they are often bored.  Keep them entertained with a few of these activities.  Not only will you avoid (or certainly lessen) the cries of “I’m bored”, but you will also be able to share fun adventures with your kids that don’t have to cost a lot of money.

The temperatures are starting to rise, flowers are blooming and the grass is green.  You or your neighbors may even begin outdoor barbecuing.  Summer is right around the corner.  Many people take their vacations in the summer, but what happens if you won’t be one of them this year?  Maybe you can’t afford a vacation or you are saving for another goal.  Whatever the reason, you can still have fun, right in your own neighborhood with a staycation.

Staycations don’t have to be boring.  Simply look at a staycation as a way to explore your own city—you become a tourist in your own hometown.  Consider some of these staycation activities:

-Set up camp in your own backyard.  There is no need to drive to a campsite and pay to camp.  Instead, set up your tent in your own backyard.  Let the kids pitch in and have a campfire where you can cook a meal and roast marshmallows and make s’mores.  Then, spend the night in the tent (and the house is nearby if the little ones get scared.)

-Explore tourist destinations you have not visited.  Your hometown may have many tourist destinations, but chances are you haven’t visited them.  You may even drive by them every day, but you have not stopped because you are so busy living your own life.  Look at your town through the eyes of a tourist.  What destinations are the must-visit spots for tourists?  Visit those places.

-Take the kids somewhere they have wanted to go.  Maybe your kids have been begging you to take them to the water park, but you could never get time off from work.  During a staycation, take them to the places they have wanted to go.  You’ll enjoy spending time with the kids, and they will enjoy getting to go some place they have always wanted to visit.

-Try a new restaurant.  If you were a visitor coming to your city, what restaurant would be on your must-go to list?  Splurge a bit on your staycation and go with your spouse and hire a babysitter for the kids or take the kids if it is a family-friendly restaurant.  Since you are having a staycation rather than travelling, you can afford to spend a little bit of money for a fun night out.

-Indulge in foods you wouldn’t normally eat.  Hot dogs may not be on the menu regularly in your everyday life, but for your staycation, consider giving the kids foods they enjoy but don’t normally eat such as hot dogs or ice cream or whatever treat they don’t regularly eat.

If you are planning your own staycation, make sure to treat it like a real vacation.  Take time off from work (and that means not doing any work at home either—this is not the time for home improvement projects), make your arrangements in advance, booking restaurant or other reservations you must make ahead of time, and include the kids in the planning.  While having a staycation may not be as exciting as visiting a new locale, it can still be a lot of fun, and, more importantly, it will give you the time to both relax and spend time together as a family.

Years ago, when parents decided to stay home to raise their child, they had very few options to make extra money.  Usually, the best option was to care for other children during the day.  Now, thanks to the Internet, stay at home parents have plenty of options to generate extra income.  I have stayed home with my kids for the past two years, and now I make as much money working from home as my husband does in his 9 to 5 job.

While there are plenty of ways to make extra money from home, these four suggestions will be possible for many:

1.  Blog or run a niche website.  Admittedly, building an income stream this way takes both time and money.  You won’t get rich quickly with blogging.  However, with serious effort, you can begin to generate an income stream.  Part of my monthly income comes from blogging, though that is only one small part of my monthly income.  Mostly I blog because I love to write.  If you try to blog just to make money, you will probably have a difficult time because it often takes several months before you make any money.
2. Teach others your specialty. Did you formerly work as a teacher?  If so, consider working as a tutor.  If you don’t have the flexibility to leave home to meet students, consider tutoring online. A site like tutor.com can help you become an online tutor.  You just have to be able to dedicate a certain number of hours per week to the job.  Likewise, if you are an accomplished musician or singer, consider giving lessons to those who want to learn.
3. Become a virtual assistant.  Thanks to the growth of blogs and the online industry in general, many people need help with administrative work.  If you are able to work independently, get work done within a designated time frame, have administrative skills, like to work with others, and have good communication skills, you may be well-suited to work as a virtual assistant.  You can find jobs as a virtual assistant at sites like odesk.com, but the pay is generally low.  Instead, you may want to consult sites like workathomemomrevolution.com or theworkathomewife.com, which regularly share virtual assistant job openings.
4. Join focus groups.  Marketing firms are regularly looking for people to share their thoughts and impressions about certain products.  To be picked for a focus group, you must apply by answering a series of questions.  Then, if you are chosen, you will often earn $100 or more for two hours of your time.  A good place to look for focus group openings is on Craigslist.org, especially if you live near a large city.

If you are a stay at home parent, there are plenty of ways you can find to supplement your family’s income.  Most of these jobs have flexible hours, allowing you to work when the kids are napping or asleep for the night or when they are at school.  With diligence, you may find yourself making a nice supplemental income while caring for your children at home.

If you are a stay at home parent, what are your favorite ways to earn extra money?

This is a guest post by Libby Balke, head staff writer for Smart Money Focus. There she writes about finances and family life as a full-time online entrepreneur. If you enjoy this article, feel free to jump over to Smart Money Focus and check it out.

Do you want to know a secret?

Promise not to tell?

Come a little closer…

My name isn’t really Libby Balke.

Nope, not even close.

Why use a pseudonym online? The answer’s simple: I’m guarding my online privacy. My husband works as a sheriff’s deputy, meaning he comes into contact every day with society’s ne’er do wells – armed robbers, rapists, the occasional murder suspect… you get my point. My husband and I protect our personal information not only online, but also by having an unlisted phone number, using my maiden name (nope, still not Balke) when we register our children for extracurricular activities, even routing our mail through a post office box.

Our extreme caution stands in stark contrast to the relatively minor practices employed by my good friend, Tammy. Tammy launched her blog in 2010, hoping to become the next MckMama. But she made one critical flaw: Tammy created a domain name that uses her actual name, first and last. Tammy does try to maintain her family’s privacy online, using her children’s first initials instead of their names. I’ve argued that it’s a moot point, since she’s already done her children the disservice of broadcasting their last name and their pictures online – and let’s be honest, how many names for a girl can you think of that start with the letter “Z”?

As my online presence has expanded over the past few years, however, I’ve had to step up my Internet safety measures, beyond using the right anti-virus software on a secure network. Here are the security essentials I use, and would encourage the Tammy’s of the world adopt as well.

Blogging

Forbes estimated the Internet was home to 156 million blogs in 2011 – that means that one out of every 50 people on the planet is using Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, or one of the dozens of other sites that gives regular Joes like you and me the ability to spout off online. My guess is that most of those bloggers aren’t doing enough to protect their personal information online.

• Read the terms of service, regardless of which platform you publish on. You can’t know what information you’re sharing if you don’t bother to read the fine print. Know your legal rights as a blogger as well – check out the legal guide for bloggers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
• Sign up for another email address specifically for your blog. When you register this email address, don’t use any of your personal information. Not only will this keep your personal inbox clear of blog-related mail, it’ll also add an additional layer of Internet safety. Use this email address for everything related to your blog, including registering for your domain name, which will keep your real name out of the WHOIS registry.
• If you want to publicize your blog, but still want to maintain online privacy, consider using a third-party website to edit your blog. Websites like Tor use something called overlay network to keep your IP address private.
• Employ ping servers to broadcast your latest posts. These services get your blog post out quickly while maintaining your privacy – great for spreading news but not necessarily your name. Joe The Web Guy has a great list of ping servers on his website.
• Don’t let search engines find your blog. Google can’t search blogs embedded with Robots Text Files, or robots.txt. This isn’t a fool proof way to keep your blog off a search engine’s listings, but it’s a good start.

Social Networks

My cousin, Angel (nope, that’s not her real name either), made a lot of bad decisions when she was in college – including posting pictures of her drinking and doing recreational drugs on Facebook. (A side note here: Facebook’s official policy says it won’t publish pictures of illegal activities, like drug use, or nudity; but due to the amount of information uploaded on to the site by Facebook’s nearly billion users, the site’s had a hard time keeping up with this policy – my cousin’s account proves that if someone doesn’t report the indecent material, it will appear on a profile.) Now, post-graduation, she’s learning the hard way that sharing too much personal information can keep you from getting a job down the road.

• Facebook requires you to use your real name when you sign up for your account. That said, you can get around this by using variations of your true name, or changing your display name once you’ve completed the registration process. Other social networking sites like Twitter and Pinterest don’t require you to use your full name – so don’t.
• Optimize your privacy settings. If you’re a Facebook user, you’re probably already aware that the social networking site updates its privacy policy and settings every day – or at least, that’s what it feels like. Click on the down arrow at the top right of your Facebook home page and select “privacy settings” from the drop down menu to make sure you’re not sharing too much personal information.
• Limit your interaction with third-party advertisers and applications. While Facebook operates under one set of privacy rules, the web developers who create these applications often operate under a different set. When you connect with these apps, you’re giving them permission to access and – in some cases – share your personal information.
• This should go without saying, but if my own skin and blood can be so stupid to forget this rule, I’m sure others could: DON’T POST PICTURES OR INFORMATION YOU WOULDN’T WANT YOUR GRANDMOTHER TO SEE. Or your boss. Or your child’s preschool teacher.

Email

It goes without saying that you need to have a strong password for your email account; I use Hotmail for my personal email, and take advantage of the service’s automatic reminder forcing me to change my password every two months or so. Another one of my obvious security essentials is double checking to whom you’re sending an email before you click send – after all, you don’t want to reply to all when making a snide comment about your sister-in-law… not that I’ve made that mistake…

• It took me three years of sending personal emails from my company email account to realize that – aha! – my employer was allowed to access and read my messages. Employer-owned email systems are legally allowed to view your messages. In some cases, your Internet Service Provider, or ISP, can do the same. Know who can view your messages before pressing the send button.
• Be aware of phishing scams. These days, everyone seems to know about Nigerian scams, but these can come in all shapes and sizes. A scam can be as obvious as an email from “your bank” – rife with misspellings and a sender’s email address that doesn’t match the company’s domain name – but sometimes scammers are sneaky. When it doubt, call the company for verification.
• Don’t click on suspicious links. These can be as insidious as a message from a friend’s personal email account including a malicious link. I always ask the sender if they intended to send me the unexpected link – and if they don’t, I avoid it! Same rule applies for attachments.
• Avoid sharing your email address online. Hackers and scammers troll websites looking for email addresses and accounts to attack. If you must share your email address, write it like this: sampleemailaddress (at) gmail (dot) com. This prevents these trollers from recognizing it as an email address.

These are just a few of my go-to steps to maintain my privacy online – but there are countless other steps you can take to protect your personal information online.

What steps do you take to protect your Internet safety?

Are you and your significant other in need of a night out on the town?  Do you need to go to an appointment and can’t bring the kids?  If you are a parent, especially if you don’t live near family, you will inevitably find that you need a babysitter, at least every once in awhile.  However, babysitters are expensive; in our area they can run $15 an hour.  At that price, enjoying a night out is hard to do.  Yet with a little creativity, you can find ways to save on the cost of having a babysitter.

Swap with another parent.  If you have a friend with kids close in age, you may want to consider a swap.  She watches your kids for 3 hours one day, and you watch hers for 3 hours another day.  You each get some time away without spending the $45 it might normally cost to hire a sitter, and your kids get to play with other kids their age.

Start a babysitting co-op.  If you have a group of parents you are friends with, perhaps from an organized play group or preschool, consider setting up a babysitting co-op.  Every time you babysit kids from the co-op, you get a “credit” in your account.  Then, when you have someone from the co-op watch your kids, the hours are deducted from your account.

Consider bartering.  If the other party is receptive, you may be able to barter part or all of your child care costs.  If you love to cook, perhaps you can supply your babysitter with meals for a few days.  If she is single, you may need to supplement the meals with pay as your meals for her probably won’t add up to the equivalent you would pay her per hour.  If she, too, has a family, she would probably welcome taking a few nights off for cooking for her family if she watches your kids for two or three hours one night.  Another alternative might be to change her car oil when she needs it, assuming you know how to do this and already do this for your own car.

Set up a traveling “school”.  If you are a stay-at-home parent and live in an area with several stay at home parents with kids the same age, consider an educational swap.  Maybe on Mondays, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. you host the kids and have an English theme—you read them stories and play games with nursery rhymes.  Maybe on Tuesdays, another neighbor has a science theme and takes the kids on a leaf finding expedition and teaches them about how leaves lose their color.  If you have three families involved, you host one morning a week, and two mornings a week your kids go to a different location.

While hiring a babysitter can be expensive, there are creative ways to save on this cost while still providing your child with a good care experience.  The key is to make friends with other parents and set up a mutually beneficial situation.  Just make sure that you know the parents well and are comfortable with them watching your kids.

Baby pools are a fun way to get your friends and family more involved and excited about your new baby’s birth.  They’re pretty easy to run and you can even outsource the details if you don’t feel like running the pool yourself.  Here’s how to get your baby pool, also known as a pregnancy pool, up and running.

The exact rules of the baby pool are up to you to decide, but typically you allow your friends, family, and co-workers to guess on the date and time when your baby will be born.  For each guess they make, they have to chip in a dollar or two for the pot.  When your baby little one arrives, whoever’s guess came closest to the actual delivery time wins the pot of money.  Some baby pool winners are required to split their winnings with the new parents since they’re going to need lots of baby stuff!

Of course you can add lots of other details to your baby pool to make it more challenging and fun.  In addition to guessing the date of birth, some baby pools also let you guess on the baby’s gender, height, weight, or even how long labor will last.  If you have a lot of friends who like to gamble they might really enjoy this!

 How to Organize Your Baby Pool

In the old days, all that was needed to run a baby pool was a piece of paper.  The organizer kept a master list of all the guesses made and also tracked the total amount of money received for the jackpot.  The problem was that guessers were in the dark as to what everyone else picked.  Things improved a bit in the computer age as most baby pool organizers starting tracking everything in Excel.  Guesses and results could be emailed out to participants regularly, though that was still far from perfect.

These days there are websites that allow you to run your baby pool completely online and in real-time.  Participants can set up their own free accounts and log in to see what kind of guesses everyone else has made before making one of their own.  They even let you send an invitation email out to your friends so you can get as many people to sign up as possible.  This system is much more user-friendly and it almost feels like you’re taking part in a fantasy baseball league and not a baby pool.

Whatever method you choose to set up your baby pool, you’re bound to have some good laughs and enjoy spreading the good news about the new addition to your family.

If my son had his way, he would be taking tap dance, playing soccer and baseball, and taking piano and guitar lessons.  However, we simply don’t have the money or the time to put him in that many activities.  If you have children who want to explore many extracurricular activities, here are some ways to keep them active without spending more than you can afford.

1. Institute the one activity rule.  Allow your child to participate in only one activity that costs money at a time.  I instituted this policy because, while I want my son to participate in activities, I don’t want it to be a financial strain.  We have two little girls who will soon also be participating in extracurricular activities, and another motivation for this rule is so I won’t be spending my entire day in the car driving from one activity to another.
2. Pay upfront and save.  Some places allow you to pay for the entire season upfront and receive a discount.  My son is currently taking tap dance, and the dance class for nine months cost $500, but because we paid that all upfront, we received $50 off, bringing the cost down to $450.
3. Explore free options in school.  Even in elementary school there are plenty of free extracurricular activities such as choir, band and sports.  Of course, you will have to pay for the instrument or the personal equipment, but there will be no fee for the actual activity.
4. Look into park district services.  Our local park district offers many classes for kids from dance to karate to soccer at a very reasonable price.  However, I have found that you often get what you pay for.  In my experience these classes are best for small children who are just beginning to explore their interests.
5. See if you can barter.  Though many of us don’t feel comfortable doing it, bartering is alive and well.  Seeing if you can barter may be worthwhile.  When I was a teenager, I used to take piano lessons from a woman with three young kids.  I watched her girls for a few hours a week in return for free piano lessons.  At my son’s old dance studio, I used to clean the studio for two hours one Saturday a month in return for getting his lessons for free.
6. Use daily deal sites.  Many people are familiar with using daily deal sites such as Groupon and Living Social for restaurant deals, but these sites do occasionally have deals for kids’ extracurricular activities.  These vouchers can give your child the chance to try something new at a fraction of the cost for you.

Having well-rounded kids is important for both their personal development and their future college applications.  Most kids are interested in learning and practicing new activities.  As a parent, you can foster their interest without breaking the bank by using some of the strategies given.

What are your favorite ways to save on kids’ extracurricular activities?

There is an image of the 1950s housewife, complete with her red and white ruffle apron, presenting her husband a nice roast fresh from the oven after he has returned from work and had time to read the paper.

Obviously, we are now far from those days; in many families both parents work and the six o’clock hour is a busy one filled with tired, hungry kids and parents stressfully finding a way to put dinner on the table quickly.  Even if one parent stays home, life can be busy with extracurricular activities and other events.  While there are pre-made foods you can buy to feed your family, it is healthier and cheaper to make your meals from scratch.  By utilizing intentional leftovers, you can present a healthy dinner quickly, making both your budget and your family happy.

Intentionally using leftovers only requires a bit of advanced planning.  Often, you can do the prep work on the weekend, making weeknight meals even quicker

Rotisserie Chicken

Buy a rotisserie chicken on Sunday afternoon and remove all of the meat from the bone.  That night, place all of the bones and extras in a slow cooker with 10 cups of water, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 6 cloves of garlic, a quartered onion, and a squirt of lemon juice.  Let it cook over night and strain in the morning.  Put the broth in ice cube trays to freeze for quick, homemade chicken stock.

For one meal, simply mix some chicken with salsa, heat and serve on tacos with cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.  This meal can be on the table in less than 15 minutes, and it is cheap.

Later in the week, make a simple tortilla soup.  Saute a diced onion, diced red pepper and garlic in olive oil and then add the chicken, some of the chicken broth, frozen corn, black beans, a can of diced tomatoes and spices such as cumin, red pepper.  Simmer for 15 minutes and serve.

Pork

One morning, place a pork tenderloin in the slow cooker along with diced sweet potatoes and a diced onion.  Add a can of diced tomatoes mixed with some brown sugar.  Pour over the tenderloin.  When you come home, you have a complete meal waiting for you.  Save some of the pork for later in the week.

A few nights later, simply mix the shredded leftover pork with bbq sauce and heat on the stove.  Serve the pulled pork on buns with the side of your choice.

These examples are just a few of the infinite possibilities.  Eating healthy, homemade food doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive.  Take a little time on the weekend to do some prep work, always plan your first meal with an idea of how you want to re-purpose your leftovers for another meal, and take advantage of your slow cooker.  You may not be cooking for hours as a 1950s housewife might have, but you will still be able to feed your family nutritious meals in about as much time as it takes to go through the drive thru.