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The Frugal Family: The Price of Memories
By Crystal.RitchieGuest Blogger(view all posts by Crystal.Ritchie)
at 10:00AM Monday March 8, 2010
under
Money Saving Tips
I remember spending hours upon hours as a child leafing through shoe boxes full of photographs. My mom collected hundreds of photos of people and places over the years, yet she often forgot the stories behind the snapshots. She also started baby books for each of her three children, but the books were left blank halfway through when life or another child demanded more attention. The child archivist in me became a scrapbooker as an adult in an attempt to record memories in writing as well as on film. Of course, I hoped that I would find more time to catalog my adventures than my mom did...
Thanks to the digital camera, film development is mostly a thing of the past. Printing digital photos is fairly inexpensive, partly because photographers are saved from printing out of focus shots. Unfortunately the materials for scrapbooking are costly and a completed scrapbook regularly rings in at $100 or more. That $100 looks extravagant when compared to the need to feed and clothe a child. All of that is aside from the actual time it takes to complete a scrapbook--anywhere from a few weeks to several years! I'm always lacking time and money as a parent, yet I am still set on documenting important memories. I feel lucky to have found a service perfect for the multi-tasking, time and cash-strapped mommy in me: Shutterfly. The online service allows me to upload digital pictures, create and maintain a free website to keep out-of-town family updated on my little guy's development (saving me money on postage and long distance calls), and publish everything in a photo book with as much journaling as I want. Furthermore, in contrast to the extra time and materials it would take to assemble multiple scrapbooks at a time, I can order several copies of my photo books and use them as personalized gifts without the extra work. Last year another benefit to my online photo account came to light when my computer's external hard drive got corrupted. I seriously thought I might have a heart attack when I thought of losing all of my son's baby pictures! Luckily I remembered that every picture I had ever taken of my son was stored in my Shutterfly account and could be put onto a disk at any time. Thank goodness for that! The best part? The backup photo storage was free…as opposed to the money I slapped down on that failed hard drive. Shutterfly, Snapfish, Picaboo, and Blurb are just a few of the many custom book publishing services. Some services are completely web-based whereas others require users to download (usually free) software. For those who are less creatively inclined or just very pressed for time, look for an option to let the service do all the work of assembling your digital album of photos into a photo book for you with just the click of a button. Busy families can create photo books in a matter of minutes! Does your family use online photo services to save time and money? Are there other benefits to these services, as well?
Thanks to the digital camera, film development is mostly a thing of the past. Printing digital photos is fairly inexpensive, partly because photographers are saved from printing out of focus shots. Unfortunately the materials for scrapbooking are costly and a completed scrapbook regularly rings in at $100 or more. That $100 looks extravagant when compared to the need to feed and clothe a child. All of that is aside from the actual time it takes to complete a scrapbook--anywhere from a few weeks to several years! I'm always lacking time and money as a parent, yet I am still set on documenting important memories. I feel lucky to have found a service perfect for the multi-tasking, time and cash-strapped mommy in me: Shutterfly. The online service allows me to upload digital pictures, create and maintain a free website to keep out-of-town family updated on my little guy's development (saving me money on postage and long distance calls), and publish everything in a photo book with as much journaling as I want. Furthermore, in contrast to the extra time and materials it would take to assemble multiple scrapbooks at a time, I can order several copies of my photo books and use them as personalized gifts without the extra work. Last year another benefit to my online photo account came to light when my computer's external hard drive got corrupted. I seriously thought I might have a heart attack when I thought of losing all of my son's baby pictures! Luckily I remembered that every picture I had ever taken of my son was stored in my Shutterfly account and could be put onto a disk at any time. Thank goodness for that! The best part? The backup photo storage was free…as opposed to the money I slapped down on that failed hard drive. Shutterfly, Snapfish, Picaboo, and Blurb are just a few of the many custom book publishing services. Some services are completely web-based whereas others require users to download (usually free) software. For those who are less creatively inclined or just very pressed for time, look for an option to let the service do all the work of assembling your digital album of photos into a photo book for you with just the click of a button. Busy families can create photo books in a matter of minutes! Does your family use online photo services to save time and money? Are there other benefits to these services, as well?
Crystal Ritchie lives and blogs in San Francisco with her preschooler son Jack and her partner in crime/fiance David. She loves to share stories, tips, and tricks related to the parenting gig. When she is not parenting, writing as the San Francisco City Guide Editor for Savvy Source and on her personal blog, Ewokmama.com, or scoping out awesome deals, she can be found working at a software company in her favorite city.
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I can't even keep up with easy digital scrapbooking! I'm holding out for someone to invent a way to scrapbook using the power of my mind.
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I love Shutterfly and use it to do a yearly calendar for our whole family. My aunts and grandmother (all in their 70's and 80's) take the calendars to the beauty shop and everywhere else to show off the photos. Around Thanksigving, they offer 10-20% off calendars (savings.com posts these) which saves me TONS of $$.
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I've been torn about which service is best to use. I chose Flickr in the beginning, but they don't have the easiest options when it comes to printing or scrapbooking. I have been thinking of switching over to shutterfly but unfortunately, the task of moving all of those photos is very daunting.
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I've used Flickr and then printed with Qoop.com and found it so extremely easy - for the project I was doing it was perfect. Then I tried to move the project the next year to a different service and found the printing much harder to do. So, I'm back to using Flickr to Qoop. It works great because you can choose the option to print the picture descriptions you put into Flickr as well. <br> <br>
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We use Picasa (the photo mgmt software, not the web app) to organize our home photos. It works pretty well for us, and allows us to do basic editing and fixes when we need to. Since we have had some computer problems, we backup our hard drive pretty regularly on an external, USB hard drive.<br> <br> We've made a few iPhoto and Shutterfly custom photobooks -- they make good gifts.
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I haven't done a photobook yet, but since I signed up with My Publisher (http://www.mypublisher.com) they always send me coupons for buy one get one free, or 40% off, or free shipping, etc. It's just a matter of time for me to sit down and decide to "drop" my photos in the the slots of the premade layout and hit send. I'll tell you what though, I better get going soon or else my photos will get out of control!!!!<br> <br> Thanks for all the good info, Crystal! :-)
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My photo organization - physically and digitally - is all out of whack. I have several photo boxes full of photos and memorabilia. When I look through them to try and get them organized I just get overwhelmed and pack them back up and put them back on the shelf. And I've stopped printing photos at least a couple of years ago. When it comes to my digital photos, I have pictures on my external hard drive, on my actual computer, on discs, and stored online. But online, I have some pictures on Snapfish, Costco, Shutterfly, Flickr, etc. Even Photobucket I think. If I have one goal this year, it is to get my photos organized. <br> <br> I have found that if you want photos printed up quickly, Costco is good quality, reliable and cheap (comparatively). When I know I will order in bulk, I go through Snapfish because I find their prints to be just a little nicer and if I order more than 50 5x7 prints, they're cheaper than Costco. Plus, you can always find a coupon online for free ship
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Daniella and c - <br> Shutterfly will totally help you. They have a feature that will throw all of the pictures into a photobook for you. It is quick and easy and you can change any layouts that you want. I'm not sure if other services have that but it has saved me GOBS of time.
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Cool. I've been considering photo books. I have a friend that documents each year of her life with her husband that way.
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We have a flickr account to share with family. For N's first two years we have used snapfish for books.
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