Money Saving Mom®

Guest Post by Samantha from Urban Girl Fitness

Do you want personal trainer rewards without the steep price? Do you want gym effects without the pricey membership fee?

Don’t worry! Just because your wallet may be tight, it doesn’t means your abs can’t be either. With today’s trendiest fitness offerings, it’s easy to be deterred from working out altogether because of the dollars and cents.

Here are some fitness tips for the fit Recession-ista on a budget:

1. Climb Your Way to Fitness — For Free!

Look outside. Look down the street. Look everywhere. You will see them. Stairs are everywhere and guess what? They offer the perfect workout.

Start with a warm up with five minutes of stair climbing at an easy pace. Then pick up the pace. Add a set of 5 to 10 pound weights for the ultimate workout. Try to find a set of stairs with at least 16 steps.

Having trouble finding stairs? Often local school facilities have a plethora of steps, just enough for you to climb to your fitness goal.

Also, whenever you have the chance, skip the escalator and elevator and take the stairs instead.

2. Team Up With a Friend

Everyone needs an extra push now and then to strap those sneakers on. Most turn to a personal trainer for inspiration and a reason to hit the gym.

However, if you don’t have hundreds of dollars, just ask a friend. If you know someone else is waiting on you to hit up a fitness class or a jog around the neighborhood, you are more likely to feel inspired.

3. Look for Opportunities in Your Community

If you look closely enough, you’ll find complimentary community workout classes everywhere. For example, Lululemon frequently offers fitness classes on Saturday or Sunday mornings with their brand ambassadors.

Check your local newspaper for fitness happenings in the fitness section. You’ll probably find area businesses that offer a variety of fitness offerings. For instance, there’s a restaurant in my neighborhood that has a running group that gathers to run around a local park and socialize afterward.

4. Find Motivation Through Online Networks

In today’s world of Facebook and Twitter, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use it to your advantage in the world of fitness. There are various networks, including my favorites Map My Run and Map My Ride.

These programs allow you to track your workouts and even rate how each workout went, so you can view your progress each week. They also allow you to set a fitness goal and connect with your friends to give each other motivation.

5. Track Your Successes

Just as social media helps, there’s an app for basically anything you can dream of, especially in terms of fitness. My Fitness Pal is a great resource, since it not only allows for you to track your fitness activity. It allows you to track your caloric intake and progress to reach your ultimate goal.

The best part is it’s a free app. For those who don’t particularly care for their smart phones, try going the route of a journal and pen to track your calorie intake.

6. Take Advantage of Fitness Discounts

With resources like Groupon.com, LivingSocial.com, Schwaggle.com and more, there’s a great way to try out a variety of fitness classes and gyms at a discounted price.

7. Work Up a Sweat While Whipping Your Home into Shape

Just walking into a gym doesn’t make you fit, it takes work. Hit two birds with one stone. You can get fit just around your house and make it spic and span.

Do you know how many calories you burn while deep cleaning your home? You can burn 73 calories alone while doing laundry! Get rid of those dust bunnies for 80 calories. Mop those floors for 153 calories. Break out the Windex and wash the windows for 105 calories.

These are juts a few of my ideas to save money on fitness. What are you best money-saving ideas?

Samantha Bryant is a freelance publicist at Samantha Bryant PR. In her free time she enjoys blogging at Urban Girl Fitness, snowboarding, biking, and playing with her St. Bernard, Charlie.

photo credit

Guest post from Jenn of Hang On, Baby, We’re Almost… Somewhere.

When a storm blew through the DC area and left millions without power the week before the 4th of July, we were among the millions. I am thankful that, for us, the outage ended relatively quickly — in 72 hours. Still, in three hot summer days, we learned some lessons that I think speak to my budget-aware side.

1. Without an Air Conditioner or Electricity, Our Day Revolved Around the Sun

Our awareness grew of the time of day, position of the sun, and maximizing light and air flow while minimizing heat.  We all pitched in to manage our environment, raising or lowering shades, opening or closing doors and windows, re-icing the food we kept in coolers.

The day seemed more purposeful, less “Where does the time go?” than when we rely on a thermostat to control our temperature. I am using some of these techniques now to try to lower our electric bill.

2. Cold Showers Aren’t As Bad As I Thought!

Even in the hottest part of summer, I’ve always taken hot showers. I’m cold-natured, I’ve thought for years, and I need hot showers to stay comfortable.

Turns out, I live in a chilly climate, albeit an electrically-powered one. You plop me down outside for three straight days of weather in the upper 90’s (mid-30’s in Celsius), and I like a cool shower as much as the next gal!

3. Storm Shades Really Do Work

We discovered that the pulley-run storm shades that are on the windows of our home are one of the best ways to manage heat flow in the house. We loved them already because we can make our bedrooms almost completely dark even in broad daylight, but they made an enormous difference while fighting the heat.

Installing them here in the U.S. would most likely be expensive (we’re blessed that the home we rent already had them installed!), but similar methods can be adopted using things like blackout curtains, window film, and wooden blinds.

4. We Survived Just Fine Without TV.

My kids don’t enjoy TV as much as I thought they did, but my 10-year-old son does love the computer as much as we thought he did. 

We talked more and were outside more, but we didn’t have to resort to major outings to manage to pass our time together. We just did simpler things, mostly at home.

All that focus on being kind to each other and building good relationships sure paid off when we didn’t have the distractions of TV, the Internet, video games, cooking, ironing, and laundry. That realization was the most valuable of all these lessons.

Jenn LeBow is a native Texan; lover of Jesus; happy wife of Honey, a Diplomatic Security Special Agent; mom of four (mostly) delightful kids: Cartwheel, 21; Einstein, 10; Blossom, 8; and Ladybug, 3; debt-free; and a voracious reader, whose appetite for books is reluctantly subjugated to other duties in her life.  She blogs at Hang On, Baby, We’re Almost… Somewhere.