In that article you barely mentioned the value of family and friends who will give you lots of hand-me-downs and other items. Since you talk about the social value of things, I was surprised at this.

I agree wholeheartedly with Eileen that, if you have family and friends that have young children themselves, you might be in line for a lot of free used baby, toddler, and child items. For example, my mother’s best friend had a child about four years after I was born and my mother gave her best friend mountains of kid stuff to help out.

I like to call it “social supply-side economics.” To put it simply, you’re hoping that the things that others have might “trickle down” to you over time. This isn’t just about children’s items, it’s about everything from garden equipment to help putting a roof on your house. It’s about babysitting in a pinch and about giving you a ride when you have a flat tire.

The best way for you to make it happen in your own life is to maximize the chance for a trickle beforehand by beating down a path. You can do that by sharing things yourself. When you have items you no longer need (or are easily willing to share), share them. Each time you do, you prepare the path. When you have a free afternoon and a friend asks for help, offer that help. Each time you do, you prepare the path.

One problem with this avenue, though – and we faced it – is that it’s rarely a given that someone will have these items on hand and be ready to give them away when your child arrives. Among our friends and family, we had one sibling whose children were just a bit too much older than ours. They had decided to not have any more kids and had sold off most of their baby stuff before our first one arrived. We also had some other friends with children, but they were all expecting to have additional children down the line. Thus, we were pretty much on our own when it came to picking up the items we needed (and still need) for child care. Instead of waiting for hand-me-downs, we head out to thrift stores and other such places.

The lesson is simple: never rely on the social supply side. Plan assuming that you won’t get any help at all and then be grateful when something works out. Patience is really the key. There are few things in life that need to be done as quickly as we think they need to be done. Take your time with it, come up with plans on your own for accomplishing what you have in mind, then talk that plan over with friends. If someone has a better idea, great! If not,

Another problem with this is the “greed” factor. Don’t plan as though your friends and family will just hand over their stuff. They may be intending to keep it for their own future children. They may be intending to sell it to recoup some of their financial cost. They may have other people that they intend to give some of the items to. All of these are reasonable plans for the stuff they have – and you shouldn’t be insulted or offended (or have your plans destroyed) because they chose one of these alternate paths.

Again, the lesson is simple: don’t expect others to just hand over what they have. Greed never wins out.

The best way to get social supply-side economics working in your favor is to start out being the giver. Give your time to others. Give the things you don’t need to others. Give your contacts to others.

Yes, sometimes your generosity won’t be returned. On the other hand, not only will your generosity often be returned (sometimes with interest) by others, your reputation will do nothing but go up. People will see you in a more positive light because you give your time and talents to others without expecting anything in return. That positive reputation itself is a very powerful thing.

If you’re hoping for hand-me-downs later on, help out by babysitting now every once in a while – or find other ways to help out. Later on, when you have a child, your generosity will be returned in surprising ways.

A few months ago, I needed some small cloth drawstring bags for a small project. Instead of just heading to Hobby Lobby, I told several people that I know about the project and mentioned that my next step was to get the drawstring cloth bags. Within a week, I had more such bags than I needed.

These two stories have an obvious connection in common. By exerting a bit of patience on projects and talking to others about those projects, we found success without having to ask for it.

Why did this happen? There are several factors at work.

First, in neither case did we ask for anything but advice. The items we received from people weren’t as a result of a specific request or out of greed. They were delivered out of goodwill.

Second, most people want to help others, particularly if it’s convenient. When a friend tells you a story that’s easily solved by a simple action, most people will respond by fulfilling that simple action. They won’t go to extraordinary lengths to make it happen (at least not normally), but if there’s something a friend can conveniently do to help you, they often will. Plus, they’ll feel great about being able to help.

Third, even if a friend can’t help materially, they’ll often help with good advice. Your friends will see your situation from a different angle than you do. They might know of opportunities, techniques, or other such information that can transform your project.

Fourth, the person actually working on the project showed patience. Instead of just throwing money at the problem and rushing around to complete it – something many of us do in the rapid-fire modern world – patience was exerted. They sat back, asked around, and found a better solution.

Fifth, such value exchanges strengthen friendships on both sides. Not only does the giver feel good about being able to help a friend, the receiver feels good as well because of the generosity of their friend. It’s the type of value exchange in which both sides win.

To put it simply, it’s well worth putting the word out in your social network if you’re working on a project of any kind. Simply tell your friends about the things you’re doing and seek their input. Time and time again, they’ll be happy to give their input, whether you choose to use it or not, and quite often they’ll provide someting of great value to you.

Of course, the reciprocal is true – when your friends ask you for advice and you can easily help them, you should provide the same help. If you have useful advice or information, provide it. If you have an item that could easily solve their problem (and you have little need for it), give it.

After all, in the end, what is a friendship beyond a long series of value exchanges? We are constantly doing things for our friends that lift them and our friends constantly do things for us that lift us.

The real lesson here is the value of patience. The utilization of one’s social network is just one piece of the puzzle. Without patience, both stories would have ended with a trip to the store, less money in hand, and a shallower connection with the people in one’s social circle.

If there’s a project you’re working on that’s not incredibly urgent, be patient. Put out the word about your project. Gather input. You might be surprised at the things you discover and the value you find.

One of the things I enjoy doing is getting involved with my local community, though with two children in diapers and my other responsibilities, I don’t get to spend as much time doing it as I would like. When I first started paying attention to city council meetings and looking carefully at ways to volunteer to help youth recreation leagues and such, I mostly looked at it as a spiritually fulfilling way to spend my time. By working for the community, I was making the community a better place for everyone involved.

Over time, though, I began to see a lot of ways in which helping out in the community helped me out personally:

I connected with lots of different people. I met tons of people in the local community, many with useful skills and interesting stories to tell. I would often find that people are much more willing to talk to you and be friendly with you if they see you helping out with a youth baseball league or assisting in keeping a park clean.

I discovered resources I never knew existed. I found all sorts of public resources in my town and in ones nearby that I had no clue existed. Only by volunteering – and thus talking to a lot of people – did I find out about some of these things. Local free events, small businesses with incredibly good rates, and so on.

I spent a lot of quality, enjoyable time without any expense to myself. I got to spend a lot of time out in the fresh air doing all sorts of activities that I could clearly see enriched the lives of not only myself, but lots of others.

Obviously, volunteering projects are more than a one hour activity, and many of those activities aren’t palatable to some people. So, instead of saying “jump into a volunteer activity,” you should spend the time finding one that works for your needs and your schedule.

Here’s what you do.

First, go to VolunteerMatch and see what volunteer activities in your area come up. I looked for all volunteer activities within 50 miles and pulled up a ton of stuff for me, and I live in rural Iowa – other areas will likely pull up many more than that.

You should also contact your local park and recreation service for your town. Many towns have more tasks that need to be done than they have people to do them, from refereeing youth league soccer to cleaning up the city park.

Now that you have a huge batch to pick from, whittle it down to only the stuff that sounds fun to you. If you’re not 100% confident, go on to the next one. Look for that activity that’s right for you, not just one that sounds like it would be useful but doesn’t really get your fire going.

Hopefully, you’ve found a few activities that match your interest. Call up the organizers and see when you can volunteer. Obviously, you’ll need to find ones that can match your schedule.

After all this, you should have one or two exciting activities that fit well with your lifestyle. From here, it’s up to you to jump in and see what happens. I predict it will be more fulfilling than you think.

The library We are nearly fanatic patrons of our local library, from our son having a blast in the children’s library section to our own fulfillment of our reading tastes. In fact, most of the books I talk about on The Simple Dollar come from this local library. Among all three of us, we visit the library twice a week or more.

The playground The center of town has a large playground with swings and slides. Rarely does a day go by where our son isn’t almost begging us to go there. The most amazing (and perhaps somewhat disconcerting) thing is that we very rarely see anyone else using any of the equipment, though we know that the community has a lot of young children in it. I can scarcely believe that in a town with dozens of young children that there is no one at the community playground on a warm summer’s evening.

The village green Near the playground is an enormous open grassy area with a few trees scattered about. We have picnics here on a regular basis where we spread out a blanket and enjoy a meal together in the beautiful outdoors and build nice family memories together. Just last week, my son and I had a picnic there and we chased a cricket for about a half an hour – he kept chirping and then moving away then chirping again.

The trails Before our son was born, my wife and I explored all of the walking and bicycle trails within a fifteen mile radius of our apartment. They’re utterly beautiful places to walk, jog, bike, enjoy nature, and get some exercise, and they’re quite nicely maintained.

The swimming pool Our town had a tax initiative to build a nice swimming pool for the community – and it is a very nice one. They offer free swimming lessons in the summer and for much of the summer there is a paid lifeguard on duty during the day. It can get crowded at times, but I’ve been there regularly when I’m the only person in the pool.

The shelter house Near the village green, there’s also an enormous shelter house with twenty picnic tables inside and a number of grills around the edge of it. Thinking of having a small family reunion or something? Call town hall and you can reserve it for free, and it’s almost always available during the week for impromptu things. We’ve had dinners in there many an evening, enjoying some delicious burgers straight from the grill.

The basketball court In another part of town, there’s a community basketball court that’s maintained. Quite often, the high school basketball team meets there for impromptu practicing, but there’s almost always a free hoop available. All you need is a basketball and a friend and you can have fun and get exercise for as long as you like on a nice, quality court.

The people I’ve mentioned before many great reasons to get involved in your local community, but one of the best ones is the people themselves. You meet all sorts of interesting people, make new friends and contacts, and learn all kinds of things on countless useful topics – and it doesn’t cost a dime.

Some of these things might not be available in your community, but there may be many things that are. Spend some time looking around and you’ll be amazed at the wonderful free things you discover.

We lived on a hill about a half-mile from the normal flow of the river, but many members of my extended family, including my grandmother, two sets of aunts and uncles, and several cousins lived on lower ground in a small town protected by a levee system – effectively a large mound of dirt to hold back the water.

In April 1993, it started raining, and on my parents’ property, we had measurable rainfall for 108 straight days, through to mid-July. My father, being an avid gardener, carefully measured the rainfall every day and recorded it in his gardening notebook, and we watched the river, from April to mid-June, stay quite high.

On about June 20, disaster began to strike. We had a five inch rainfall on the 20th, as did many locations north of us (as the river flows north to south), and it was followed by several long, drizzly, wet days outside. And the river began to rage and roar. It started rising about eight inches a day for a week, and by July 2, it had set an all-time high. On July 10, after three weeks of eighteen hour days of sandbagging and some memories that I almost can’t bear to repeat to you, the river finally crested at 28 feet. The previous all-time record was 21 feet. That very same day, the levee collapsed; the river’s level had been over the top of it for several days and only piles of sandbags had been keeping the water out of town.

My grandmother, my aunts and uncles, my cousins – they all lost their homes. My parents invited all of the refugees to live with us and our property looked like a campground for several weeks. We had so many people on our land that FEMA designated my parents’ property as a disaster relief center, meaning that one day we had a semi pull up to our house and start unloading stuff: hundreds of bars of soap and so on.

Let me tell you two brief stories so that you might be able to visualize some of it in your mind.

My hometown was surrounded on three sides by large mounds of dirt that under normal conditions (a river stage of about 8 to 10 feet) kept the town nice and dry. As the water rose, though, these dirt levees began to feel some serious stress. One major task in fighting a flood is to walk along these levees and look for leaks – they’re often referred to as “boils” because they look like muddy, boiling water as they bubble through. If you spot one, you were to immediately radio the trucks and people nearby and they would come with truckloads of sandbags that you would use to stop the leak.

On the day before the levee broke, I was walking along the top of the levee, which meant at that time that you were mostly walking along a pile of sandbags that were there making the levee taller, because the water was higher than the original levee. I came to one point where the levee was higher than in other places and it appeared to be just normal dirt, so I started walking along it. About five steps in, I took a step and hit nothing but mud. My leg sunk in up to my hip bone (with my other leg outstretched) and I could feel the force of the river swirling my leg around. I started yelling, but I managed to radio for help – I was having a lot of trouble pulling my leg out again because of a suction force. I was eventually pulled out by five people and by some miracle I didn’t injure my leg at all, but the scariest moment was when the first sandbag truck arrived and they started blocking the water off with me still in the hole.

Here’s another story. The day after the levee finally gave way, morning rose and we could look down the road from our house. Less than an eighth of a mile away, it was covered in water, and beyond that the entire town was underwater. My father and I went out on our fishing boat down the main street of my hometown. At one point, we actually went over the roofs of several houses and I could just make out their murky outline in the water below.

What personal finance lessons did I really learn from all of this?

Know your insurance Many people who lived in the town did not get a dime from their home insurance policy. Why? It didn’t cover floods. Read the policy, know what it covers, and if you’re facing any extra risk (like living in a flood plain), make sure that the risk is covered.

Know your community A situation like this showed the power of knowing everyone in your community. The network of people in the community gelled and managed to almost fight off this terrible flood – and that same network ensured that everyone got out of town safely. It was those connections that saved many of my grandmother’s belongings and alerted a lot of my family members when it was time to leave. It was those connections that got everyone organized and ready to go when the time came.

Emergency funds really come in handy My grandmother’s emergency fund was a giant jar full of quarters and dollar bills. When the flood happened, she took it to the bank, got some cash, and rolled through it without skipping a beat. Meanwhile, others were living in tents in our yard and very relieved that we were giving out free meals. Where would you want to be in the event of a disaster?

All I can say is that I hope it never happens again.

I would love to know how many of your readers supplement their incomes with side work, especially things like computer support, tutoring or even substitute teaching: intermittent work, where the “product” is their time, and where they have to go out and find customers. Of course, I’d also like to know how it worked out for them.

I have experience with two distinct side businesses, a small computer consulting business and blogging. Here are some of the general observations on these side businesses that might be useful to people considering starting their own side business.

Getting Started
In both of my businesses, I got started on a shoestring – my primary investment was time. I started my computer consulting business by hanging up flyers in the post office and on community bulletin boards. I started blogging using a free blogging service. In both cases, the expenditures were tiny – if I had the capital to invest, I wouldn’t be so interested in a side business like this.

Building The Business
The start of both businesses was very dry. Let’s get that straight right off the bat: if you start out with minimal advertising and no network of people to tap, as I did, the business will start with a very dry period. You won’t have immediate success, period. For the first three months of my consulting business, I advised one couple on what laptop to buy and got $20. For the first two months of my blog, I did not make a single dime, even though I was posting multiple times a day.

It picked up when I started to network. In both cases, though, as soon as I started talking to people in the community and introducing myself, my business, and what I have to offer to them. I started getting involved in my local community to promote my own business, going to a lot of community events, meeting people, shaking hands, and giving out my business card to anyone who seemed remotely interested. For The Simple Dollar, I found people online who were writing on similar topics, sent emails, posted comments, and hung out on messageboards (writing a lot, especially at first, helped too).

Success feeds on success. In both cases, once I got past the initial “hump” of slowness and continually produced good work, the businesses seemed to almost take on a life of their own. The popularity took off for both and soon I was getting business and recognition from people I didn’t know at all and had never made any effort to contact in any way. The key? Customer service. Treat everyone’s input like it’s golden, implement what makes sense, and be sure to let people know when you follow their input. If something is wrong, fix it and don’t sweat the charges or time, because you will be paid back for the effort in the long run.

Taxes
My rule of thumb is that I save $0.50 of every dollar I bring in on these businesses for taxes. That seems incredible at first glance, but it’s true: taxes will eat you alive. I keep this money in a high-interest account and then do my taxes using TurboTax at the end of the year. I save every receipt and full documentation on everything associated with the businesses and I don’t try to play any games with questionable deductions because it’s worth the extra taxes I might pay to avoid a detailed audit.

In short, if you start a side business, do it because you love it and because you have enough skill to make quality output. If you can handle those two things, the business will come. Just be patient.

Do any readers have additional thoughts or experience that they’d like to share?

Here are nine ways I’ve found that getting involved in my local community has directly or indirectly put cash in my pocket.

I have had tons of opportunity to promote my consulting business. I have a consulting business on the side where I set up and fix computer and home networking systems for people. Attending local events has given me countless opportunities to meet lots of people in the community, give them my business card, and build a potential future client.

I influence local policy, which can save me money. Take, for instance, policies involving sidewalk maintenance. The city council might quietly pass a law requiring that all sidewalks be made level and of the same material, while I have a brick section in front of my home (to use an example). Thus, by objecting and suggesting that the material part be stricken, a bunch of money can be saved.

I meet people who may have interesting ideas. Fully a quarter of the entries here of late have come from overhearing interesting discussions between other community members.

I have tons of free entertainment. Between council meetings and other community events, I rarely pay a dime for entertainment of any kind any more (aside from cable and internet, I suppose).

I get tons of free food. There are dinners of all kinds going on throughout the place I live in on a very regular basis. I am constantly invited to dinners of all kinds for various community groups, and very rarely is there any cost. When there is cost, it’s usually a freewill donation, and I don’t mind dropping a Hamilton in a jar for a good cause on occasion.

I get other nice perks. Because of my involvement, I’ve been offered membership in various groups, which comes with great perks such as use of community buildings, equipment I can borrow for free, and so forth.

I make connections that can help in the future. I basically have two standing job offers in my community if I were to ever take them – I probably won’t, but you never know.

I expand the social circle not only for myself, but for my family. I already know the parents of at least some of my child’s peer group, even though the children do not know each other yet (in a few instances they do, but not regularly). This makes it easier to determine which parents may be good social partners in the future when we have children the same age who become friends, thus saving on babysitting fees, for example.

I can help people, and that help comes back around. I’ve been involved with several community events to benefit specific people in need, and I now know that if I were ever in a perilous situation, the community would reach out to me as well.

In short, community involvement is one of the most valuable things that you can do with your time.

1. Visit their blogs regularly. I keep a list of about twenty blogs I visit each day, and a similar number that I visit on a weekly basis. I also keep more than a hundred blogs in a site reader tool so that I can follow their posts as well, but I view them as more of an “extended family;” I only visit their site (and give them ad views) if their post really interests me.

2. Be aware of new blogs in the community, and give them a shot. I would describe this blog as a personal finance blog, so I keep a vigilant eye on community sites such as pfblogs and Carnival of Personal Finance. I’m regularly introduced to new sites on these and sometimes find neat posts from people I haven’t read in a while.

3. Comment on posts. If you see an interesting post, don’t hesitate to add a comment to that post. Not only are you starting a potentially interesting conversation, you’re saving a good blog from the dreaded “0 comments on every post? No one must read this awful site” syndrome.

4. If you read a post you really like there, take a look at their sponsors. If an article particularly impresses me, I’ll allow myself to be more open to looking at the information on the site from the sponsors. Sometimes you’ll discover something really useful; I discovered ING Direct this way and, after some additional research, wound up moving my savings account there.

5. Link to posts you really like there in your own blog. If you see a writing in a blog that you really like, don’t hesitate to link to it, particularly if you can contribute a good deal of additional thought to it. Not only are you coming up with a solid post for your own blog, you’re driving some attention to a neighbor who will appreciate it. The key, though, is quality – don’t just link to someone because you can, link because what they did was good and you can add something to it.

6. Add a permanent link to their blog on your own blog. If a blog consistently posts things you find valuable, add them to your site as a permanent link. But don’t add too many – a list of twenty links might be investigated, but a list of hundreds might not. Also, don’t sweat it if they don’t reciprocate with a permanent link; although it’s a nice touch, it might be the case that they’re trying to advertise blogs they like and they’re not as familiar with your blog as with others.

7. Be stingy. Don’t link to everything that a single blogger writes, just link to the posts that really make you think or inspire you. This way, your own readers won’t think you’re a sycophant, but that you are simply showing them the good stuff (which you are, of course). I used to read a blog quite regularly that turned into a “suck-up fest” for another blog… eventually, I just started reading the other blog and didn’t bother with the first.

You’ve patiently waited for the big question: how will these tips help you make money? The biggest reason is reciprocality: if people see you interacting with their blog on a regular basis, they will become familiar with you and want to visit your blog on a regular basis. For me, these reciprocal relationships sometimes develop into friendships as well, a second bonus. A third benefit is that you will likely build up a number of mutual links, pushing your rankings in Google higher in a legitimate fashion. A fourth benefit is that random people that you don’t know will have many more opportunities to stumble across your blog.

In other words, build the community in a healthy, organic fashion and your blog will be built up in a healthy, organic fashion. Plus, you might just make some new friends in the process.

Take the initiative and visit some blogs in your community today!