Maggie from Smashed Peas and Carrots shows you how to make homemade pizza sauce.
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it here.
Summer Bucket List
Classic View
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Shared Aug 3, 2011
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How to Make Money Blogging: 5 Ways to Use Your Blog as a Springboard to Earn Additional Income (Part 1)
How to Make Money Blogging: 5 Ways to Use Your Blog as a Springboard to Earn Additional Income (Part 1)
Not only are there many ways to earn income directly from blogging, but blogging also opens up a host of other ways to earn money indirectly. Here are five ways I’ve used my blog as a springboard to earn additional income:
1) Teach an Online Class
I taught my first online course back in 2006–way back when I was just learning about online marketing and blogging and really didn’t have much of a clue what I was doing. That first class was successful, so I taught another and another and another. Not only did I learn so much through teaching (and hopefully imparted some helpful information to my students!), but it was a great source of side income to supplement our family during a lean season.
With just a few simple tools, you can teach video or audio courses online. Or, you can put together a package with video and/or audio plus a course handbook like Carrie’s Grocery University.
Consider what are your areas of expertise and what questions you are asked most as a blogger and then see if there’s a way you can turn these ideas into a marketable online class. Offer the class very inexpensively the first time around as you learn the ropes, ask other bloggers to promote the class for you (you could write a guest post for a few blogs on a relevant topic and then link to your class in your bio), and make sure to include testimonials from those who have gone through the class on your sales page.
2) Write an Ebook
Writing and selling ebooks is one market that is untapped by many, many bloggers–and there’s tremendous potential to earn a few hundred (or even a few thousand dollars!) each year by selling ebooks.
In the early days of blogging, selling ebooks was the bread and butter of our business. As our business has grown and our income has increased, I’ve moved away from selling ebooks, but I’d still highly recommend this to other bloggers–especially if you don’t mind dealing with the occasional difficult customer service issue.
There are a few things you must know about successfully selling ebooks, though:
::You need to write on a relevant, practical topic. The best-selling ebooks are those that tell you how to make money, save money, lose weight, cook better, get organized, or somehow practically improve your life. Unfortunately, an ebook comprised of poems is probably not going to sell well.
::Your cover and salespage are everything. You can write a killer ebook, but if your cover is cheesy and your salespage is pathetic, it probably won’t sell. Hire a designer to do your cover (it’s worth the expense, I promise!), and make sure that your salespage has a clear-cut call to action, includes specific details on why someone should buy your book, and has testimonies to back up your claims.
::You must exhaust every marketing possibility. People need to see things again and again and again in order to consider buying. Write guest posts, get every blogger possible to review your ebook, run ebook giveaways on dozens of blogs, and find every other creative free way to get your ebook out there.
If you are planning to write an ebook, I heartily recommend Sarah Mae’s ebook, How to Market and Sell Your Ebook. It’s packed with helpful information and advice and is worth every penny. Also, be sure to read her article on how to sell $20,000 worth of your next ebook.
To be continued next week…
How have you used your blog as a springboard for earning additional income? Tell us in the comments!
Fun & Frugal: Playing with biscuit dough
The heat wave continues here (though it’s only around 100 today, so the children are actually able to play outside for more than 15 minutes at a time!), so I’ve been trying to come up with one special indoors activity to do each day using things we already have on hand.
Earlier this week, I added some milk to some of the Homemade Baking Mix I still had in the freezer and we whipped up some biscuits.
They took their job of making biscuits very seriously at first.
But then someone started snitching a little dough.
And the next thing I know, I turned around from making lunch to see that Kaitlynn had made a hair piece with her dough. Needless to say, that piece went straight into the trash after she was done playing with it! 🙂
The finished batch of biscuits looked a bit interesting, but the children had so much fun making them that it was totally worth it!
Q&A Tuesday: Advice for becoming a stay-at-home wife?
Any advice you can share on becoming a stay-at-home wife would be greatly appreciated. My fiance and I are getting married in two weeks, and we’re thinking about having me stay at home. I’m a little nervous as we live in LA (high cost of living area), and he works freelance in the entertainment industry.
We’ve prayed a great deal about it, but as I don’t know any stay-at-home wives, I’m having a difficult time seeing how this works in “real life” not just how I think it’s going to work out. -Rhiannon
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, Rhiannon! What an exciting time in your lives! Everyone’s situation is different, so it’s hard to give clear-cut principles that will apply to everyone, but here are some suggestions I thought of for you:
1) Be on the same page as your husband.
I made this point in last week’s Q&A post, and it bears repeating again here: if you are not in complete agreement with your husband on decisions like whether you stay at home or work, it can cause serious friction in your marriage. This decision must be made mutually, with both of you realizing the sacrifices it will mean if you choose to stay home.
2) Get on a strict written budget.
I believe that if God calls you to something, He will also provide a way to financially pull it off–even if it doesn’t always work out on paper. However, it’s important to put feet to your faith. Thus, you need a clear plan of action.
Sit down with your soon-to-be-husband and make a detailed, written budget that includes every single category. There are free downloadable budgeting forms available here if you need help getting started.
Commit together to live on this written budget no matter what. If you are going to be a one-income family and you want to avoid debt, a budget is imperative.
3) Hold regular Budget Accountability Meetings.
Not only is a budget a must, but you need to regularly review your budget and see where you stand. This is why I heartily recommend monthly Budget Accountability Meetings. Schedule these on your calendar and make them a priority.
During these meetings, you’ll go over your budget categories and make sure you both stayed within them during the past month. If you didn’t, or you struggled to stick to them, discuss why and what changes can be made to help you adhere to the budget during the next month.
This is also the time to talk about tweaking, eliminating, reducing, and/or raising budget categories. Remember, a good budget isn’t set in stone; it will change somewhat as your priorities and situation in life changes. The ebb and flow is healthy, so long as it’s something you’ve both planned and communicated about.
4) Make sacrifices to achieve your goals.
If your desire is for you to stay home, it’s going to require sacrifices. In the early years of our marriage, it meant that we went for months at a time without buying anything but the bare necessities. It meant making most all of our food from scratch, planning our menus based upon what was on rock-bottom prices at the store, not eating much meat, being a one-car family for three years, shopping at thrift stores, not buying gifts for Christmas or birthdays for a number of years, and looking for any possible way that we could earn additional income on the side.
I won’t tell you that it’s always been easy, but I feel beyond blessed to be a work-at-home mom. Our mutual decision for me to quit working outside the home when I was pregnant with my first is a decision we’ve never regretted.
Do-It-Yourself: Homemade Ginger Syrup and Ginger Ale
Carissa from Carissa’s Creativity Space shows you how to make your own homemade ginger ale from homemade ginger syrup.
Save Money By Trading Goods and Services with Friends
Guest post by Amy Gabriel at Gabriel’s Good Tidings and The Quiet Little Ladybug
I have many friends who have a wide variety of skills and talents. Over the past year, I’ve been able to “trade” things with these women on many occasions. We mutually benefit from one another – I enjoy sharing my sewing skills with friends, and I am elated when a friend shares her talents with me.
For example, last fall Tonya posted a round seasonal tablecloth in our church newsletter. She no longer needed this shape, so I converted the fabric into napkins for her. In return, she made a batch of dough and posted about this trade on her blog. This provided publicity for my new sewing blog, and allowed our family to enjoy a dinner with her homemade pizza dough.
Stephanie makes beautiful cakes and offered to supply the cake for my daughter’s birthday party. In exchange, I am making her daughter a handmade blanket. I love good coffee creamer, so Esther made me a jar of homemade vanilla creamer and I sewed an Osnaburg bread bag for her.
Although mending clothing is not my favorite sewing project, I will often do it for friends. Such is the case with Sarah, who makes gorgeous jewelry. She has offered to repair some broken necklaces for me in return for mending some torn jeans.
Here are a few guidelines I follow when trading goods and services with friends:
Make sure all the terms are clear before the trade.
Talk about specifics of what you will trade, when it will be finished, and any other details before you start. Even with close friends, it’s important to know what is expected from both parties.
Recognize abilities in your friends.
Encourage those you know by saying, “I love your home décor. What can I offer you in return for helping me remodel my bedroom?” This will make your friend grin from ear to ear and she will be more than happy to find something she desires from your abilities.
Make sure you are compensated for your time and investment.
Even though you aren’t exchanging money, make sure both parties are receiving their fair share. It may help to think about what you would charge for such a good or service, and compare that to what you are being given.
Think outside the box.
Maybe you love to clean and can offer cleaning services in exchange for babysitting your children. Perhaps you love to cook and could offer a meal to a friend who could iron your husband’s shirts. Or, consider sharing flowers from your garden in return for washing and waxing your vehicle. Another idea is to share some of your stockpile with a friend who knits beautiful scarves and mittens. Even if you don’t consider your skill a true talent, it is surely valuable to someone.
Trading goods and services is a great way to “splurge” on something you may not typically have, build stronger relationships with friends, and share your gifts with others.
Amy is a wife, mother, seamstress and pediatric nurse. She blogs about her sewing projects at Gabriel’s Good Tidings and about her daughter’s verbal apraxia at The Quiet Little Ladybug.
Note from Crystal: Please note that according to the IRS, the fair market value of bartered services must be reported as income.
Cardboard Dollhouse-Making Trumped My To-Do List
{Yes, gulp, that’s my laundry pile! Gratefully, it is all folded and put away now — at least for today!}
I recently joined the MomLife blog team as a monthly contributor. My first post is up today and I thought it would be an encouragement to some of you young moms:
It was Monday morning. My to-do list was massively long, the house was a mess, the laundry pile was enormous, and to top it all off, I was recovering from being sick over the weekend.
I got the children up and fed, bathed, dressed, and helped them do their morning chores. All the while, I was thinking of a fun activity they could do that wouldn’t make much additional mess and would occupy them for at least an hour or two so I could tackle my ever-growing to-do list.
Inspiration struck as I picked up an empty cardboard box. “Hey, children,” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “do you want to make cardboard dollhouses for your little dolls?”
Today’s Walgreens Shopping Trip
6 Wexford Pocket Folder with Prongs — $0.11 each
1 Acco Paper Clips — $0.33 each with in-ad coupon
5 Wexford Legal Pads — $0.33 each with in-ad coupon
3 12-packs of Colored Pencils — $0.59 each
2 Fiskars scissors — $0.79 each with in-ad coupon
3 Pentel Lead Refills — $0.90 each with in-ad coupon
1 Mini Stapler — $0.69
2 Sandwich bags — $0.99 each
Total with tax: $12.47
This Week’s Menu Plan
Blueberry Banana Smoothie
We made it through our busy week last week and are looking forward to a bit more of a relaxed week this week. We are hosting another smaller baby shower tomorrow for my sister, but I’m just providing the home to have it at and my sister-in-law and sisters are doing all the prep work. So it should be pretty simple for me to pull off — especially since my house is already clean from last week’s shower!
Oh and did anyone notice I completely skipped posting about last week’s Freezer Cooking session? Um, that would be because I didn’t get it done. When my to-do list started becoming a little overwhelming on Thursday, I decided that was something that just get skipped since we still had some meals in the freezer. But I promise I’ll do my best to actually follow through with freezer cooking and posting about it this week!
My sister and her husband and children are in town this week, so that means there will be a lot of family get-togethers and meals shared together. Which means we probably won’t follow this plan, but we at least have a plan:
Breakfasts
Granola bars, fruit
Peanut butter & homemade jam sandwiches, Orange Cream Smoothies
Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Smoothies
Scrambled eggs and toast, fruit
Oatmeal, Blueberry Ginger Smoothie
Fried egg sandwiches, Pick-Me-Up Smoothies
Blueberry Yogurt Pancakes, scrambled eggsLunches
Leftovers
Homemade biscuits, fruit, scrambled eggs
Salad with hard boiled eggs, fruit
Peanut butter & homemade jam sandwiches, fruit, carrots
Macaroni & Cheese, peas
Refried beans with cheese & salad, fruit
Tuna salad sandwiches, fruit, carrots
LeftoversSnacks
Banana Almond Smoothie
Frozen Banana Bites
Banana Cocoa Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Fruit/VeggiesDinners
Dinner with family (we brought Au Gratin Potatoes and leftover cheesecake from Saturday’s shower)
Dinner with family
Sloppy Joes, steamed vegetables, fruit, Au Gratin Potatoes
Crockpot Barbecue Chicken, Bread Machine Bread Sticks, green salad, fruit
Lasagna Casserole, fruit, Bread Machine Bread Sticks, green salad
Hamburgers, Oven Baked Parmesan Seasoned Fries, steamed veggies, fruit
Dinner at extended family’s houseFreezer-Cooking-In-An-Hour Plan (I’ll share pictures/details on how this goes on Thursday!)
Homemade Pancake Mix
Honey Pizza Dough
Frozen Banana Bites
Crockpot Barbecue Chicken
4 Tips for Saving Money on Camping
Guest post by Beverly Bennett from Busy Mom’s Tips and Ideas
Want to go camping but don’t have a large budget to buy all the supplies you need? Here are some suggestions for buying camping gear on a budget:
Borrow from Family or Friends
See if any of your family members or friends will let you borrow some of their camping gear. Some people are very particular about this and may not be comfortable about letting you borrow, but you never know until you ask.
Join Freecycle
Join your local freecycle group and watch the everyday ads. Post a request for camping gear and see if anyone has any they’d like to get rid of.
Buy from eBay
You can often find items new or used for great prices on eBay. We recently picked up a great tent for a bargain price off eBay. Just be really cautious of shipping fees, if you aren’t careful you can pay more than you would at the store new because shipping fees can be so expensive.
Use Leftover Firewood
We bring firewood with us when we go camping, however, while camping we make it our goal to not purchase any more campfire wood. We usually arrive at the campgrounds on Sundays soon after most of the weekend campers have left. We immediately go and look at the empty camp sites for firewood left behind. By doing this, we usually have enough firewood to last most of the week.
What ways have you found to save money on camping gear?
Beverly Bennett is a mom who enjoys writing. She enjoys sharing her journeys, tips, and passions on her blog, Busy Mom’s Tips and Ideas. She is blessed to have a hard-working husband and three beautiful girls.
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Super Savings Saturday
Life was more than a little busy this week with me finishing up the final edits for my book, Jesse prepping for a big case, two of my children being sick, and all of us preparing for the big bridal shower we’re hosting this evening. So other than buying things for the bridal shower tonight, I didn’t buy any groceries and we just ate from the freezer and pantry.
We did get some great deals at Office Max, though.
And we bought a bunch of strawberries to make chocolate dipped strawberries for the bridal shower. They were $0.88 at Aldi this week, so we price-matched at Walmart and got 10 packages!
We also got two fun freebies in the mail yesterday: the free sample box of Honey Nut Cheerios and the free Pantene Shampoo or Conditioner coupon.
Would you like to know what the best deals and coupon match-ups are for your local stores? Be sure to check out the Store Deals section of our site where we post the best deals and coupon match-ups each week for over 100 different stores across the country. You can sign up to receive the top deals in your email inbox each week as soon as they are posted!
Did you snag any great deals or bargains this week or save money in other ways? If so, be sure to post about them on your blog and leave your link below. Please remember that this weekly round-up is to share deals you personally got and/or money you were able to save this week. In order to keep this weekly round-up focused on helping and inspiring others in their efforts to save money, links which have little-to-no content other than promoting affiliate links, etc. will be deleted. Also, to make it easy for everyone to navigate quickly through the links, your link must link directly to your Super Savings Saturday post.
Fun & Frugal: Recycling magazines
We’ve been experiencing weeks of intense heat here in Kansas. With three young and active children, the heat has provided a challenge as they can’t go outside and play for long stretches of time.
So, everyday has been exercise in creativity (and sometimes patience!) as I wrack my brain for new and interesting indoor activities to keep them occupied. Earlier this week, I was feeling rather uninspired when I spied my stack of magazines. I pulled out a few issues that were getting ready to head to the recycling bin, got out scissors, glue, and other craft supplies and told them to make a page of all their favorite pictures.
They had a blast and it kept them busy for quite a long time. Best of all, it cost me nothing as I used things we already had on hand.
What fun & frugal activities have you been doing with your youngsters recently? I’d love get some new ideas to add to my list!
Shared Jul 29, 2011
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Free one-year subscription to AboutOne (and why I might win the Worst Mom of the Year Award)
Free one-year subscription to AboutOne (and why I might win the Worst Mom of the Year Award)
AboutOne — an online organization tool for home managers — provides one place to organize your family’s health, education, and possession records and precious memories and syncs your information with its calendar, address book, document filing, and reporting tools.
You can access your information from your phone, a computer, or any other device with Internet access, no matter where you are, whenever you need it. All your information is stored with bank-level security.
Always forgetting things? You can set up your account to give you alerts and reminders. Plus, you don’t have to worry about losing your information in case of a computer crash; AboutOne expertly handles backups and security for you.
My favorite thing about AboutOne is that you type in little daily memories. I’m not very good about keeping journals or baby books (okay, confession time: I don’t have baby books for any of my children. I tried with Kathrynne and never even finished the first few pages, so I finally gave up and now just stick with doing photo books!), but I always wish I had an online place to keep track of the funny little things my children say, the milestones, and all those things I don’t want to forget as a mom.
I was excited to see that AboutOne can be a sort of online baby book–I can type in a short little memory or funny saying or milestone from the day every day on AboutOne. For someone like me who can’t seem to figure out how to pull off the baby book thing (all you moms who update your child’s baby books consistently are my heroes!), this is a wonderful way to still not forget and feel like I’m at least doing something to remember these precious moments!
Want to try AboutOne yourself? You can get an absolutely free one-year subscription right now. Just use coupon code MSMFREE and it will take off the purchase price of $30. This code is good for one free AboutOne subscription and doesn’t expire until August 12, 2011.
We Paid Cash: A New-To-Us Swing Set
A testimony from Melissa at Far From Flawless
Last fall, I sold the Little Tykes backyard playset that we were quickly outgrowing. We needed (and used) the cash for a Thanksgiving trip to visit family who live far away. I was hopeful that we could save enough for a larger, sturdier, wooden playset this spring. It took us a bit longer because of unexpected medical needs, but last week we were thrilled to have our new-to-us swing set and fort installed.
How We Saved
Great Grandma gives each child $20 for their birthday and we had three birthdays from January to May. My oldest son opted to give his birthday money to the missions project at VBS, but the rest was saved for the swing set. Great Grandma sent us a bit extra, too, which was also applied to the fund. Thank you, Nana!
In the ongoing effort to purge, I listed and then sold several knick-knacks around the home on Craigslist. We capped off our swing set savings fund with $55 earned when we included items at my mother’s garage/moving sale.
How We Found a Deal
After watching all the sales and pricing swing sets at home improvement stores, Walmart, and Sam’s Club, I determined that purchasing brand-new was just too much for this single mama’s budget. My next step was to scour Craigslist, which I did. The very few that came available in our area were overpriced extremely worn and needing repair, and/or looked overwhelming to relocate and construct myself.
I had just about given up the idea (and almost convinced my children the park was just as good), when a friend made a passing commenting about her children getting a new trampoline because they had outgrown their swing set. *Ding *Ding *Ding!
Sure enough, she was willing to sell at a great price because she was grateful for the yard space. And to top it all off, she convinced her husband to haul and set up the new-to-us swing set at our house!
We are just thrilled!
Surprised to find herself in the role of single mother, Missy is a hard-working optimist doing her best to enjoy life and demonstrate Christ’s faithfulness in this not-so-perfect world. Three little ones provide joy and purpose along with many “growth opportunities.” Missy blogs about the adventures and pitfalls of life at Far From Flawless.
Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.
