Last year and this I kept track of how many containers I filled from a $30 compressed bale of professional growers mix. Last year it was 200 gallon-size milk jugs from a 3.8 cu. ft. bale which came out to 15 cents per container. I'm guessing it would take a whole lotta potting mix to match that altho' I haven't done a side-by-side comparison. Like quilt_mommy I don't have space inside to start plants other than a small tray table in front of my south-facing bedroom window. I can't be bothered with that since WS is so much better all around for growing everything, including trees and shrubs. I still have the 4-5 unopened bags of seed starting mix I bought 3 years ago before stumbling onto the winter sowing method. That said, I realize not everyone has a nursery supply business close by as I do where I can buy the compressed bales, have them loaded into my car and set them inside my garage until they're needed. I've got 1/4 left of bale #3 this year + a dandy array of WS containers lining both sides of my breezeway.

I know I'm not saving money in the short term. I've only had my community plot for three seasons, after a long break from gardening. My start up costs were "re-start" up costs. And still, I'm building soil, learning what plants work well in this microclimate, finding my way… I'm not taking the least expensive route. I have to say that the other benefits mentioned ARE a cost factor. We pay dearly here in CA for organic produce with the water shortage, and it's only going to get more expensive. But I know I am not gardening efficiently enough to maximize the space for production and savings. If I concentrated more on actively succession planting and intercropping, I would. I think over the long term, I will save money eventually. In the mean time I am content to save on therapy and anti-depressants.

Anne- Thank you for your kind words; and I hope you don't find my answer discouraging. Even though I'm certified to teach home canning, I no longer use canning as a method for food preservation for a number of reasons. Cost of utilities. Not only the heat processing for the canning, but also the air conditioning necessary to cool the house off because you are talking about peak summer months are also peak canning months. I don't have enough produce from our small garden to have the quantity needed at any one time to fill a canner. If you can't process a whole canner full of jars, it's not cost effective. If you have to purchase the produce you can, you are losing money. I doubt that you can compete with the prices of canned goods at Aldi and finding good sales and stocking up. I find home canned foods nutritionally inferior for the time and money you invest to prepare them. By the time people harvest and process produce, nearly half of the vitamins may be lost within a few days unless the fresh produce is cooled or preserved a.s.a.p. Do you have an extra refrigerator for keeping produce while you get enough accumulated to process a whole canner full? The cost of the extra refrigerator and the utilities to run it should also be factored in. The heating process during canning destroys from 1/3 to 1/2 of vitamin A and C, thiamin, and riboflavin. Once canned, additional losses of these sensitive vitamins are from 5 to 20% each year. Do you have a stove you can safely do canning on? Some of the smooth glass-top stoves are not capable of canning (check the user's manual or the manufacturer). In some cases the canners have fused to the surface. Article: Home food preservation may be more expensive than expected. http://apps.caes.uga.edu/gafaces/index.cfm?public=viewStory&pk_id=3499 Article: Cost of Preserving and Storing Food http://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/cost-of-preserving-and-storing-food-8-704/ Article: What You Should Know About Preserving Food at Home http://www.uaex.edu/publications/pdf/FSFCS02.pdf --- I'd like to suggest you take the Self-Study Coarse for home canning at the National Center for Home Food Preservation - http://nchfp.uga.edu/  This will help you get a better idea of what you are needing to do for successful and safe home canning. --- I currently do a lot of dehydrating for food storage, which is inexpensive. There is a learning curve for making and using dehydrated foods, and it doesn't appeal to everyone. ---What I would suggest, and what I'm going to do, is to save money and purchase a home-style freeze-dryer like a Harvest Right: https://harvestright.com/#sthash.ENrByuNZ.dpbs I'm hoping there are more companies entering the market and the prices go down. Until then.... I'm saving my money, and these are the ways I save my cash: The 52-week savings plan where you save $1 the first week of the year, $2 the second week, $3, the third week, etc. At the end of the year you have $1,378. If you Google - 52-week savings plans - you will find charts you can copy and follow. I save my $1 bills. I've always saved at least $500 and as much as $1,000 each year. We are "cash" people when it comes to day-to-day spending, and this plan works best if you are. I cut my own hair, and so I REALLY save the money, I budget and pay myself $20 a month - so that's $240 a year added to the Christmas/Emergency Savings Account where my savings are deposited once a month. I'm up for more discussion or questions, so fire away. ;-) -Grainlady

BIRDS Yes on the cheap bird toys, and saving money on diet, too! :D TOYS: Get a 1 qt. stainless steel bucket (google for it) on the web for less than $5 and it will last forever and go in the dishwasher for cleaning. Hang it where he won't go potty in it, and cross your fingers. 1 qt. is a fine size for an Amazon. The big macaws and such can do a 2 qt. bucket. Just use the SS, no other metal, as other metals can contain zinc, which is toxic to birds. For a little bird like a 'tiel or 'keet, you can use a clean yogurt container, cut vertical slits in the side, and fasten it to the side of the cage with an electrical cable tie. Then fill the bucket with his "used" safe broken toy parts, new toy parts, smooth cleaned beach rocks he can pick up but not swallow (fun to drop on the cage floor for the noise), and SAFE branches, flowers, leaves, and pinecones from the yard. If you don't know which plants and trees are safe for birds, you can google for the info. If it's not nesting season, you can also put in balls of wadded up paper... but don't do that during nesting season. If your bird loves to undo screws with his feet (cockatoos love this), get some stainless steel washers, nuts and screws and thread them through a small block of wood, or some plastic disks. That'll keep 'em busy. They're expensive to buy, but they last forever. At night pick up the toys off the cage floor and wash them (I put the plastic stuff in the dishwasher, but not the wood or rope), then return them in the morning. My birds all LOVE their buckets. I love them because I don't have to string a bunch of stuff. Another toy my birds love: grab a few drinking straws, cinch them in at the "waist" with a cable tie to form a pompom. My 'zon also loves those plastic easter eggs, but watch hard plastic as it can be sharp if broken. You can hide goodies in those plastic eggs, too. I also buy plastic chain at the hardware store and run it through the dishwasher to sterilize. Then I cut fleece in 1/2" to 1" wide strips. Don't make the strips long enough to wrap around a little neck. Thread the fleece through the chain, knot it once, and tie beads, blocks, Mirabella beads and hoops, and bird toy parts on the ends of the strings. It's very colorful, very interesting, and the fleece and chain are indestructible (provided you use heavy enough chain for the bird in question). You can replace the toy parts when they're chewed off. I save a ton of money by going to the bird fairs and buying toy parts there. Never take your bird to those places, and carefully sterilize everything you get there before giving it to your bird. If you have any local parrot stores or breeders, they can probably tell you where and when the shows are, or watch your local newspaper in the classifieds in the Birds For Sale column. If there are no bird fairs in your area, watch eBay and you can pick up bargains there. Again, sterilize everything that might have come from where other birds are. To sterilize things, I use Avicine (google for it), since it's recommended by the top avian disease researcher in the country. There is also a great section called "The Toymaker" at birdsnways.com. But use your head, as there's no guarantee everything there is safe for every bird. I strictly avoid all cotton rope for my 'zon as he gets too into his toys, and he once got his foot caught in it. We were lucky he wasn't hurt. He snaps bird-tanned rawhide immediately in two, so that's no good for him either. But they can't bite the fleece in two, and the fleece doesn't unravel dangerous threads. You can also sometimes find cheap baby toys at the thrift shop, but be careful they're safe, and clean them well. My birds LOVE their buckets! I think it satisfies the need for them to forage as they rummage through the contents trying to get to the bottom. You can switch the toys out to keep it more interesting. One set is being washed, so you use a different set. I swap buckets between my 'zon and RFM, and also between my G2 and TAG. But I don't give the medium sized bird's toys to the big birds or they would destroy them in a heartbeat. I usually soak the dirty toys in the bucket in water for a while, then hand scrub them with a stiff brush. Then I soak them in Avicine water for a few minutes, then rinse thoroughly. I don't soak the toys in Avicine first, as I want them to absorb water, not chemicals. BTW, if you're handy with a saw, you can pick up chunks of 2x4 (pine or fir) free out of a burn heap at a new building site, but ask their permission before you take anything. With wood stuff, you can sterilize it by baking it in an oven at 200 degrees for 1/2 hour -- but double-check me on the temp and time, please, by googling for the info (that's just from my memory). Then cut it into suitable sized chunks and drill holes in it if you want to string it, or just toss it in the bucket. NEVER give them treated lumber, as it will poison them. Or, just buy a 2x4 at the lumber yard. You don't have to dye the wood. FOOD $ SAVINGS: Seeds are not good for birds; but if you sprout the seeds they're one of the most nutritious foods in the world. Invest in a decent sprouter (I love my EasySprouter). Learn safe sprouting methods. If you only feed organic, there are mixes you can buy on the web. If you can't afford organic, there are lots of safe things in a good health food market bulk department that will sprout -- ask the clerk. You can sprout lentils from the grocery store (very cheap). You can sprout pigeon mix from the feed store (my birds get these every night). That is very inexpensive! You can sprout parrot seed, but it's expensive and it often contains other junk you have to pick out like dried fruit, nuts, and pellets -- no good. Feed the sprouts when the tails are still just teensy nubbins, don't let them grow long. That's the optimal nutrition, and the longer the tails, the more bitter the sprout. The birds just snap the tails off and drop them anyway. Birds LOVE sprouts -- that's mostly the way they eat seeds in the wild, if they can. Of course, they need fruits and other veggies, too, so shop for bargains. Do feed organic if you can; otherwise wash very well and peel most stuff (they peel their own grapes). And your 'zon needs the equivalent (in size) of two peanuts (out of the shell) in nuts per day. More than that can give him fatty liver disease. I vary which kind of nut my birds get every day -- all UNsalted and preferably raw. You can sprout raw nuts, too. Just soak them over night and rinse well. They don't grow tails. Macaws need more nuts than other birds. My RFM (mid sized macaw at 1 lb and 2' long) gets about 6 nuts a night. Almonds, btw, are loaded with calcium, which Greys need. If you're nervous about sprouting, just soak your seeds overnight in hot (bath temp) tap water. Then drain them in the morning, rinse well and refrigerate. That is vastly better for your bird than seeds that aren't sprouted. The old farmers used to always soak their chicken feed in a bucket overnight. They knew! On diet, your bird also needs a wee bit of cooked egg or meat every other day or so. My 'zon gets 1/2 HB egg. I slice and dice fruits and veggies for my birds every morning. They get sprouts and frozen veggies at night... plus anything healthy and not salted that I'm eating. I thaw frozen mixed veggies in a strainer run under hot tap water for a few seconds. Don't nuke their food. Forget the dairy, as they're not mammals -- but a wee bit of yogurt every few days is okay. I also sprinkle just a wee bit of powdered health food store vitamins over their breakfast each day, just to make sure they're getting their nutrition -- you know, the kelp, barleygrass, powdered carrots, etc. type mixtures. Like lightly "salting" their food with the vitamins. Remember, variety is the ticket to good nutrition, and it's better to pay the grocery store than the vet (and cheaper). A good vet will tell you that about 90% of a bird's longevity is in good nutrition and in cleanliness. I hope this helps the bird owners out there. :D