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Ideas for a Dwindling Budget

With the current state of the economy and many people getting laid off from their job or getting hours cut, budgets for many are getting tighter and tighter. Even if the current economic crisis hasn’t much affected you personally, you may still be taking proactive measures to be more frugal. You may be wondering how you can start saving some money in various ways that will allow you to free up some space in your budget. Believe it or not there are a variety of do it yourself ideas that you can easily incorporate into your life that don’t cost much at all. Here are some great ideas to try out that will help your budget and free up some money for you.

Learn to Sew your Own Clothes
One excellent do-it-yourself idea that can be a huge help if you have a tight budget is learning to sew your own clothes. Purchasing new clothes is not cheap these days. This is especially true if you have children, who need new wardrobes nearly every year. However, if you learn to sew, you can make clothing yourself and save big time. Even if you have to take a sewing class, it will be well worth it if you are able to sew your own clothes and some clothes for your family. If fabric costs are a concern you can always design new clothes using thrift store finds. For example, you can buy a couple cheap tank tops at a thrift store and sew a twirly fabric skirt onto them, creating low cost sun dresses. If you need new clothes and you don’t know how to fit it in your budget, consider sewing and you may be able to save some money.
Grow Some of Your Own Food
Groceries are getting more and more expensive as well. It’s so difficult when you go to the store and you find that simple food items have doubled in price. Shopping for groceries really costs quite a bit of money, but there is something that you can do to save. Growing your own food can help you to save on your grocery bill. Planting some food in a garden or in a container garden is not expensive at all. You can easily purchase seeds or even plants that have already been started. Start growing them and you’ll soon have some produce of your own. Lettuce, tomatoes, and strawberries are all easy crops to start with. This can provide some nice savings on your weekly shopping bill.
Do More Cooking Yourself
Another simple thing that you can do yourself that will make some room in your budget is to do more of the cooking yourself. If you aren’t a great cook, you can learn. You can read articles and easily get recipes online. Ask friends to share their favorite, simple to make, meal recipes. Instead of spending so much money eating out or spending a lot on pre-made foods at the grocery store, you’ll find that it is a whole lot cheaper for you to buy raw ingredients and make the meals yourself. Not only will it save you quite a bit of money, but you’ll be eating healthier meals as well.
Make Use of Used Objects
Making use of used objects in your home can be helpful. Get creative with making things yourself. Do you have an old pair of jeans lying around your home? If so, use your sewing skills to cut them off and make shorts. Do you need a new handbag? Simply cutting the legs off a pair of old jeans and using the top of the jeans can be used to make a cool handbag that looks like a designer bag. A tin can will look good as a pencil holder or planter. A glass pop bottle can be a flower vase. Look around your home and find things you don’t use. Figure out how you can use them for another use to save some money.
Julianne Alvarez-Wish is a military wife, mother, business owner, professional writer, blogger and legislative advocate. She is the Director of Communications for Our Milk Money, the Colorado State Leader for the National Association for Moms in Business and the owner of Buy By Mom and Buy By Mom Blog. She is the Colorado Springs Stay-at-Home Mom Examiner for Examiner.com. She also blogs at A Wishful Thought. Her passion, purpose and goal is to help parents work from home so they can be home with their children.

The Hottest New Business Trend is Modesty

Ally Loprete, Community, Direct Sales, Resource Articles

In case you haven’t noticed, “Less is more” is not only economical, it’s the latest trend. With good reason. With the unsteadiness of the economy people are beginning to feel more comfortable with those who are also behaving with frugality. Your clients want to know that you appreciate the need for living within tighter budgets and that their hard earned dollars are not supporting frivolous spending or unnecessary expenses for flashy arrogance.

Where the high rise office in the business district once may have appeared impressive to clients, it now may appear unmindful to the financial challenges of our current society. Setting up your place of business in a home doesn’t necessarily indicate a flailing business as it once did, but instead, it indicates common sense and that the business is smart for making the choice to conserve.

We are a quickly evolving culture, and the one thing that we all have going for us is the ability to empathize with one another. It’s the primary reason we need to make the decision to support those who have chosen to provide products or services out of their home. Small businesses need you as much as you need them. By working together and utilizing our power as consumers, we can rebuild an economy that works in our favor.

Trendsetting! Parents Lead the Way!

Direct Sales, Member Contributions

It’s fascinating, the phenomenon of trends.

Who sets them, and how do they come about? Are they really just a result of our current social progression?

We can chew over what came first, the product or the current. Or we can create our own trend based on what our current society is in need of…or um, ahem…what we are in need of! Imagine the power we have to create a global movement simply by working together and using our commonality as parents to drive our ambitions.

You already know that I am on a mission to bring 1 million parents home…but I am also on a mission to support the ones who are already at home. In the past, I’ve given specific steps that will help you see yourself and value that you were intended to bring your community. But lets go a step further by implementing a simple method that could begin a sweeping new trend immediately.

Stay-at-home parents make up the largest group of consumers in America today – so by catering to their needs, you have a greater chance of success. Our most valuable asset in our modern society as parent entrepreneurs is each other. Why? Because we sell to one another. We are not only networking to grow our businesses, we are each other’s target demographic!

It’s Our Turn to Shape Social Influence!

Community, Resource Articles

Parents, our generation is not over, it’s just beginning!

We are radically reshaping the world we live in, not only by creating new business practices and the economical climate, but for the first time in decades, thanks to the booming home business trend, our children have the opportunity to watch us in our professional elements.

An effective and innovative way to educate, today’s youth is no longer oblivious to what will be expected of them once they hit adulthood. For this reason alone, it is important that we embrace, and not deny, the human condition and all the emotions that go along with it.

Our children have the opportunity to experience first hand how acting with courage will reward us at the end of each day, and that the reward is not the money, but the journey itself. By maintaining at home presence, they are able to see the importance of having courage and perseverance without the vulnerability.

It’s important that our children fully realize the pride that comes with being able to behave fully human.

Everything worthwhile comes with hard-work and tenacity. Nothing is a guarantee in life, and furthermore, it’s simply not healthy to live with a false sense of entitlement. Besides, those who have earned greatness appreciate it the most.

Now go make the world a better place!

Five step process of fail proof permission email marketing

Uncategorized

iContact’s Five Step Process of Fail-Proof Permission Email Marketing

At times, throwing together an entire email marketing campaign can seem daunting. How does one even know where to begin? Well, the best place to start is by learning. Once you know the simple 5-step process for fail-proof permission-based email marketing you have the road map that you need to simplify the email marketing process and execute successful campaigns.

Step 1:
Begin by using permission-based email software (such as iContact) that allows you to easily create newsletters, automatically manage subscribes, unsubscribes, and bounces, and view reporting statistics like opens and click-throughs.

Step 2:
Decide on the type and frequency of the email communications you will be sending. We recommend sending at least one newsletter per month. You can send multiple newsletters if you sell different types of products. You can also send promotional messages offering a discount or a coupon for a product or service.

Step 3:
Add a sign-up form to your website so you can start collecting subscribers and import any existing lists of subscribers that have already requested your communications. It is generally also safe to import the names of anyone who has done business with you in the past year, provided you will be sending content relevant to what they purchased.

Step 4:
Choose a good email template by using the templates provided within the email software, having your in-house team create one, or by using the custom design services of your email software company. iContact provides over 300 design templates within our software that can be used free of charge, and we can also develop custom templates for a nominal charge.

Step 5:
Develop relevant and high-quality content for your newsletter or message, and send it out to your list. Continue sending your newsletters, announcements, or promotions with consistent frequency. As your list grows, you will notice increased traffic (and if applicable, increased sales) on the day of and the days following an email send.

So if you are ready to start benefiting from email marketing without having to worry about where to begin or how to progress, then sign up for a free trial of the iContact email marketing software today.