I just heard about this freebie being offered today, Wednesday, October 28th, in New York City. If you’re a Yankees or Phillies fan–or even just a fan of cheesesteak–you’ll want to know about this offer. Here are the details:

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) is hosting a Phillies fan party in New York City during game one of the World Series at Shorty’s, an authentic Philly cheesesteak restaurant/bar located at 576 Ninth Avenue (between 41st & 42nd). Starting at 4 p.m. you can enjoy free Shorty-sized cheesesteaks. The freebies last until game time.

There will be other chances are freebies throughout the night, including a $100 gift certificate for a Garces Restaurant Group hotspot in Philadelphia (Amada, Tinto, Chifa or Distrito) if the Phillies hit a homerun. GPTMC will give out other With Love, Philadelphia XOXO(TM) prizes, including the hugely popular “Dear World Champions, Oh wait, that’s us” posters that debuted last May. (I’ve seen these driving on I-95 on my way to Philly. They’re awesome!)

Shorty’s was selected as With Love headquarters because owner Evan Stein is from Philadelphia and his place has always been a haven for Philadelphia food and sports fans. He serves up his sandwiches Philly-style — “wit” or “witout” fried onions and with ingredients from Philadelphia vendors.

Know someone who contributes to the sustainable food world? Then nominate him/her for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Growing Green Awards 2010. There are four categories for people to enter:

1. Food Producer
2. Business Leader
3. Thought Leader
4. Water Steward

Winners receive $10,000. Not too shabby!

The panelists selecting winners this year include Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, California Secretary of Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura and others.

Nomination deadline is December 4th. Good luck to all the nominees.

So maybe I overreacted at the state of my current CSA farm and didn’t give the farmers enough credit for how hard it was to produce, well, produce during this difficult growing climate this year. To all the people who posted comments and sent me private emails–you’re right: I have no idea how difficult it is to work a farm (though my mother’s side was farmers–apples and dairy) 24/7. And I probably shouldn’t leave the CSA after one bad year but keep supporting the CSA financially by renewing my membership. To that notion I have two things to say:

1. Every year this (and all of the other nearby) CSA farm sells out. I know there’s a waiting list so my decision not to renew will actually benefit another local person who couldn’t get a subscription last year.
2. This experience inspired my fellow farm share friends and me to give our own garden a go. Maybe we won’t succeed. Maybe we will. But at least we’re trying to do something proactive to continue growing and eating locally.

And yes, if I ever get to the point of opening our garden to the public, I’ll make sure our fields are well weeded and the barn is clean.

When I was writing my Suddenly Frugal book, I found a spending figure that gave me pause: Americans spend billions (with a “b”) each year by hiring professional landscapers to spruce up their yards. Well, I wasn’t about to become just another spending statistic. After keeping the costs of our renovation project in check by doing the finish work ourselves, it only made sense to do the landscape the DIY way, too.

One of the biggest challenges we face in our “new” backyard is a hill and ensuring that we can direct water away from the house. To that end we had our contractor create a berm next to the new construction, and then it was up to us to plant, well, plants that would also hold up the soil as time went on.

We ended up getting a great deal on juniper–the blue rug and Bar Harbor kind–from Lowe’s: four for $10. And that’s what we primarily planted on the sloping part of the hill, above left. I think we ended up with 40 of them in there. Over time they’ll grow and spread, and their roots will hold the soil in place–so I’m told.

Practicality aside I also wanted some color back there, and to that end I bought other plants that were not only labeled “water wise” but “deer resistant” as well. These included:

yellow coreopsis (right)

purple sage (left)

big blue liriope (right, but it’s just green now; it flowers in late summer)

and moutain fire pieris, below left, which my mother informed me is also known as adromeda. (I love how the new growth on this plant is red.)

All told I think we spent about $150 on plants, which I know is a heck of a lot less than we would have spent if we’d brought someone in to do the landscaping.

Next up? Planting our new lawn.

Got benefits? Well, make sure that you don’t miss the open enrollment period that comes around every October. This is the one time during the year when you can re-consider your employer-sponsored insurance coverage and not be penalized financially for making any changes.

But guess what? If you don’t at least investigate your options during open enrollment, you could end up penalizing yourself financially. In fact, a recent survey of human resources managers from CareerBuilder showed that employees who don’t bother checking out their open-enrollment options could stand to lose anywhere for $500 to $2,500 a year in benefits.

When asked to identify which benefits employees typically don’t realize that their companies provide, human resource managers pointed to the following:

• Flexible healthcare spending – 43 percent
• Wellness benefits – 45 percent
• Tuition reimbursement – 38 percent
• Banking programs – 25 percent
• Discounts on personal entertainment – 24 percent
• Discounts on technology for personal use – 22 percent
• Discounts on travel for personal use (rental cars, airplane tickets) – 20 percent
• Transit programs – 10 percent
• Help with childcare – 10 percent

So how can you make the most of benefits-savings in the coming year? Here are four tips to consider:

1. Schedule time on your calendar to review benefit options. Make sure to schedule this review early in the process, so you’re not rushing to make a decision an hour before the deadline.

2. Leverage pre-tax dollars. In addition to setting aside pre-tax dollars for retirement through your 401(k), also look at how those dollars can be applied to the near future. Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) can help offset rising healthcare costs by putting aside pre-tax money for medical expenses that are not covered by insurance. You can also set aside pre-tax dollars to offset commuting costs through company transit programs.

3. Compare plans by working with your HR representative to compare your coverage to coverage offered through your spouse’s or significant other’s employer. It may make better financial sense to have the whole family covered under one plan. Remember to look for quality, not the cheapest option.

4. Don’t miss out on perks, such as discount programs for stores, technology, entertainment, personal travel, concierge service, dry-cleaning, etc. If your employer offers a wellness benefit, you can apply that to gym memberships, smoking-cessation, acupuncture and more.

Our big task during open enrollment is to figure out the amount of pre-tax dollars we put aside each year to cover out-of-pocket medical expenses. What about you?

One of the benefits I’m looking forward to from our renovation project in 2009 (besides the obvious new space) is the tax benefits we should be able to enjoy. For example, when we installed new windows, we paid extra for the contractor to buy the super energy-efficient version so that we can take advantage of the Energy Incentives for Individuals in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In plain English? We can take up to a $1,500 tax credit for energy-efficient changes we’ve made to our home.

This is just one of a number of tax credits available to Americans in 2009–many of which will not be available again in 2010, so says Harris Abrams, senior tax analyst from the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters. Here are 5 tax credits for which you might be eligible or tax tips for you to think about now:

1. Uncle Sam can help you buy a house. Through the end of November 2009, you can qualify for the maximum credit amount of up to $8,000 when you buy a new house.
2. Uncle Sam can help you buy a new car. Forget cash for clunkers. If you buy a new vehicle, including a light truck, SUV, motorcycle, or motor home, you can deduct state and local sales taxes paid on up to $49,500 of the purchase price, whether you itemize or not. You must buy the vehicle by December 31, 2009. (Those with higher incomes may not enjoy as much of a tax break, FYI.)
3. Uncle Sam can help you buy a computer for school. Many taxpayers have a college-savings plan through their state–known as a qualified tuition plan or a 529–and you’re supposed to use it to save for education expenses. Well, in 2009 and 2010 only, you can use funds from your qualified tuition plan to pay for computer technology and equipment, and Internet access and related services–and not just those that are required by a college. (This used to be the stipulation.) This new rule makes it much easier to use tax-free dollars to buy a new computer for any student in your family.
4. Uncle Sam can help you help others via charity. You can distribute up to $100,000 per year from your IRA directly to a qualified charity without paying any tax on the distribution. This exclusion is available if you are age 70 1/2 or older, but act quickly – this tax break is scheduled to expire at the end of 2009.
5. Uncle Sam can help small business owners. If you run a small business, you can elect to write off the cost of certain capital expenses when you make an acquisition, instead of recovering those costs over time through depreciation.

Have you taken advantage of any of these new tax credits in 2009, like I did with the energy-efficient improvements we made to our house?

P.S. Speaking of tax tips, the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles did a story on bartering, and one of the highlighted links that appears with that story is my post last spring about the tax implications of bartering. How cool is that!

This is an oldie but a goodie: a Google Halloween and energy-saving website that shows how much you can save when you take care of the “ghosts,” “monsters” and “vampires” in your house. I ran a link to this last year and enjoyed it so much I’m doing it again now.

Let me know how much money you can end up “saving!” Our lifestyle changes added up to $902 a year in savings. Not too shabby!

If you’re a parent of a school-aged child, then right about now you’re probably dealing with picture day. I can still remember the excitement I felt as a child about gearing up to picture day. Except for the holidays or my birthday, it was the one time of year when I was allowed to get a new outfit–from hair bows to tights and new shoes.

Back in fourth grade I was particularly stoked for picture day, because it was the first time I’d chosen my entire new outfit, from head to toe–no input from mom and dad this time around. I had my new yellow dress, yellow barrettes, yellow tights and black patent leather shoes.

It was the morning of picture day, and I was all dressed, sans the shoes, and in the bathroom to brush my teeth. I recall needing a new tube of toothpaste or something that was stored in the cabinet above the toilet in the bathroom. So I did what I always did when I needed to reach something up high in the bathroom–I stepped onto the closed toilet seat to give myself a boost. Except this morning the toilet seat wasn’t closed and I stepped in to the toilet itself.

Though the toilet was recently flushed and the water was clean enough, there wasn’t time to wash and dry my tights before I had to leave for school. I was crushed that I would have to change out of my beloved yellow tights and wear an alternate white pair, and I never again looked to step up on a toilet before checking to make sure the top was closed.

But the reason that I’m bringing up picture day–and my memories of it–is because we just went through picture day at the middle school with my daughter Annie, and next week we’ll be doing the same with my daughter Jane at the high school. I don’t know about you, but I find picture day to be a complete rip off (maybe my mom did, too?). Why? Well, I think my friend Denise said it best over at her blog “Confessions of a Mean Mommy”:

We all have cameras. Many of us have very good cameras. Even our cheaper cameras take good pictures. That was not always the case, of course.

No longer do we need these companies to “capture” our child’s likeness. I mean, really, don’t we all have way too many pictures of our kids as it is? I know that I do try to use the school pictures as ready-made gifts for the grandparents. We frame the 5X7 shots and give them away. Sure, they may not be the best pictures of the kids but it’s the thought that counts, right?

My biggest pet peeve with today’s class pictures, besides the prices, is the way they set up the actual class picture: it’s just a group of headshots from each kid’s portrait. No more do they gather together a bunch of chairs and have kids sit and stand in a group, along with their teacher. There is something very nostalgic about that set up, and I miss it.

So how can you make picture day more affordable? Well, I know you can’t just keep your kid home to avoid the whole problem, because there is always picture retake day. However, you can try some of these tricks:

Forego the fancy colored background. Just by choosing the “regular” gray background, I saved about $8 on the “package.” (The pictures here are from a few years ago when we experimented with letting our kids choose a colored background for their school photos. I’m not sure they did anything to enhance the images.)

Order the class picture only. I know that on picture day for the travel teams my girls play on–yeah, more pictures we don’t need–you have the option of ordering just the team or class picture, and there is no charge for that. See if you can’t finagle that with the company that does your school’s class pictures.

Find ways to reuse the pictures. If you find yourself with a bunch of wallets, trim them into strips for bookmarks and slip them into book gifts you give this holiday. Or use those smaller, “I don’t know what to do with these” pictures as Christmas ornaments. You can find teeny tiny frames at a craft store, and you can put them in there and hang them on your tree and everyone else’s tree, just to get rid of them!

Talk to your parent-teacher group about changing how they handle picture day. Someone mentioned to me that photographic companies negotiate with schools and the parent-teacher groups to get in as the class picture vendor by offering to share some of the profits with the school. This was a new one on me. If this is the case with your school–and they’re not actually making money from the photography companies as promised–then suggest they come up with a Plan B. At the very least ask them to do away with the spring portraits that seem to have become commonplace in many districts. Why do kids need to be pulled out of class for another period during the school year to have their pictures taken and I have to pay for that, too?

What are some of the ways you make picture day doable for your family?

I’ve been a huge fan of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs for quite some time now. I’ve belonged to two farms locally, and been pretty pleased with the quality and quantity of locally grown, organic vegetables members could get. That is, until this past year.

This year my CSA farm got new farmers. They seem like perfect pleasant people–I got to chat with them one day while weeding the carrot fields. (Members have to donate a required number of hours to manual labor on the farm as part of their membership.) But I really wasn’t that happy with their farming.

For starters the farm itself, from the cleanliness of the barn (I know that sounds oxymoronic but you really can have a clean enough barn) to the neatness of the fields, was in the worse shape I’d ever seen it. Then there was the stuff they were growing. The quantity was way down from past year, and most weeks I would take what was offered but it would usually end up in the compost. I mean, how many stalks of scallions or root balls of celeriac can one family need? A half dozen over a week or two, fine. But week after week after week? Not so great. Where’s my lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes and other “regular” stuff I can feed my family?

And then there was the cost. My friend Michele and I split our full share. We paid $800, plus the eight hours we had to work on the farm, and you know what? We’re not sure the money and time is worth it anymore. We have mutual friends Kim and DeeDee who are also members of this farm–and share a full share as well–and like us, they’re not too happy with the state of farm affairs. So, together we’re thinking of doing something radical: starting our own DIY CSA.

Having DeeDee on board will be excellent, because she’s the author of a book on vegetable gardening. So we have an expert in our midst.

Michele told me we’re having our first meeting next week to figure out how we can handle our become accidental farmers–or given this blog’s name, Suddenly Farmers. I’ll keep you posted on what we figure out. Bottom line: we’d like to save money and grow the kinds of fruits and vegetables we want to eat, not freaky stuff that we have to page through cooking magazines to figure out what to do with.

Have you ever started your own farm like this? Any advice to share?

Today I’m running a guest blog post from Lisa Campbell, founder of KidsEatFor. It is a community-built, grassroots effort to build the largest collection of kids eat free and discounted kids meals in the world–and it’s got a cool iPhone app, too! Campbell shares 5 great ways to save while eating with kids.

1. Eating at home is the best way to save money. Going to the grocery store can be a multi-purpose outing if you take the kids. You can get their input for dinner, they can help you find certain things, you can also turn it into math time. It shows them they are apart of the family since you can use their help shopping. Make sure you don’t go when you’re hungry!

2. Split servings to save when eating out. Depending on the age and type of eater you have, you may be able to split a meal. Many restaurants today (such as Cheesecake Factory and Claim Jumper) have huge portions which you can split with your little one.

3. Skip the sodas and desserts at restaurants and you’ll spend less. Almost all restaurants charge for soda. Get a glass of water instead. This can be an instant savings of up to $6.00 (for two adults) depending on the restaurant. Look to see if drinks are included with kids meals. If not, these can be up to $2.50 per child. Desserts, unless they are included, are expensive. You can spend up to $6.50 per adult and $3.00 per child. All of this really adds up and it’s some of the highest margin items for the restaurant.

4. Go out to eat on a kids eat free or cheap night. You can find a kids special just about every night of the week. Kids Eat For has a great detailed list of where kids eat free or cheap. You can see kid menus right there as well as restaurant reviews. (You can also check the Freebie Friday listings right here on Suddenly Frugal for any upcoming free menu nights at restaurants.)

5. Use coupons or join your favorite restaurants email club to get a discount. If there is a certain place you love to eat out at, chances are they will send out coupons either in the mail or email them to you if you’re on their email list. Some restaurants offer you a free meal on your birthday, plus a free dessert. Sign the kiddos up at their favorite restaurant, and they should get free meals too. Also, many restaurants offer big savings during report card time–something to keep in mind, too.

Have other ideas for how kids can eat for cheap or free when you go out? Post a comment to share.