Sometimes it seems like my child’s school is a money pit. From school clothes and supplies to pictures and field trips, there is always something that will dent your budget. I am always looking for ways to stretch my dollar just a little bit farther, living on one income can mean lots of sacrifices but you don’t have to sacrifice everything, you just have to get a little creative.
Take school pictures, those packages are such a waste of money. You always wind up with more pictures than you need in sizes you don’t want, and to make matters worse, most schools now do fall and spring pictures. Yes I love having adorable pictures that capture my child at every age, but really, school pictures are not the way to do it. Those rigidly posed pictures against some horrid background are not capturing your child’s personality.
When Hailey’s senior pictures rolled around I did not have the several hundred dollars that everyone was asking for to take her pictures so I decided to get creative. Hailey got a few outfits together and we went into our front and back yard and took pictures of her. Doing her pictures this way let her personality shine though, she even had some taken with the dog.
Now since I am not a professional photographer I had to figure out how to fix all the problems in the pictures. The internet is a wonderful thing! There are many, free photo editing sites that will allow you to do almost as much as you can with some of the paid programs. My favorite is Picnik; it has really good tools and some great effects. Hailey and I played around with the pictures, choose her favorite ones and made a collage for her graduation announcement. I sent those announcements that we made to Wal-Mart’s web site and for under $5 ordered fifty announcements.
We also got an 8×10 for her graduation frame and I was able to send the picture electronically to her grandmother so she could order her own pictures. Hailey’s turned out so well I did my niece’s and when one of her friends saw them she said she wished I had done hers!
I wish I had done this years ago, you can order only what you need and the cost is so reasonable. Try it before you need really good pictures of your kids again. You don’t have to have a great camera either, a friend of mine who planned her wedding in less than two months had her daughter take her engagement pictures with a camera phone, then edited them, sent them to Wal-Mart to be printed. They turned out beautifully. Try it when you want some cute shots of your kids, it will save you a ton of money.