The hullabaloo over the Fifty Bucks a Week bloggers brought up the fact that there are many, many interesting blogs out there focused on cooking on a budget. Here’s a round-up of a few other blogs that are at least vaguely concerned with saving money, shopping smartly, and preparing great dishes at home.
Divorced couples are living under the same roof because it’s too expensive to really split up right now. There are either more people around the house (because they’re out of work) or fewer people around the house (because they’re working second and third jobs to pay bills and get health coverage). More people are doing their own chores and giving maid services and landscapers the boot. And other big and little ways the recession is affecting home life.
One thing the recession has made clear: Living large is totally not necessary. The waste and added expenses of huge cars and enormous homes seem silly right about now. For many people, downscaling may literally mean shrinking the size of those two mainstays, cars and homes.
Everyone would love to eat well without spending a fortune. So how do you do it?
Fifty bucks. It could get you a single steak at a fine dining establishment. Or it could feed you—and feed you pretty darn well—for an entire week. A trio of writers from around the country is proving just that with the recent launch of their experiment and blog Fifty Bucks a Week.
A bunch of stay-at-home moms in the Dallas area have banded together and organized what seems like a simple, easy, and inexpensive way to enjoy the summer: Instead of sending their kids off to pricey summer camps, the moms have created something of a camp themselves. They take turns arranging themed arts and crafts days based on books or science experiments, they go on outings to free playgrounds with splash parks, or they just head to someone’s backyard and let the kids run around in the sprinkler for a while.
Here are ten things to do this summer that are free or cheap, and that are at least more productive than loafing on the couch. You’ve got the time, right?
Marketers may even be better than moms when it comes to using guilt—especially when they’re using guilt on soon-to-be moms. The message, sent implicitly or sometimes quite overtly, is that how and what parents purchase for the children are direct reflections on them as parents.
