Hi!  I’m Josh Elledge, the Chief Executive Angel of SavingsAngel.com and welcome to the SavingsAngel show! I’m podcasting to you from a hot and muggy Orlando, Florida. 

I am an extremely busy consumer expert, money-saving advocate, syndicated newspaper columnist, and the guy that turns digital entrepreneurs into media celebrities with UpMyInfluence.com. I love what I do and can’t wait to get going on today’s episode.

In order to help you save more, earn more and live more abundantly on today’s show I’ll be covering:

• 5 Tips to Save Your Marriage in a Pandemic
• Save Money on Website Hosting with Bluehost
• #VictoryGardens

LINKS FROM THE PODCAST:

JennyElledge.com
SavingsAngel.com/Bluehost

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5 Tips to Save Your Marriage in a Pandemic

I’ve got something exciting for you. My wife, Jenny Elledge, is a talented Marriage & Family Therapist. I asked if she’d share a few tips on healing & maintaining your relationship.

May I ask… How has it been living with your partner nearly 24/7?

As a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who is married to an entrepreneur, we have been living this scenario for the last 20 years. I’ve got tips for you on how to ride out (or recover from) the remainder of our quarantine time without driving your partner crazy. 

Tip 1: Stress

First, let’s just address the elephant in the room. Stress. In our lifetime, in our country, and globally, we have never experienced anything quite like this. Social distancing may be taking its toll on you. 

Whenever we face a new situation, we are naturally going to experience heightened stress. 

Are you the kind of person that is typically aware of how much stress you can handle? Do you know and actively use your favorite coping methods to reduce your own stress? 

If not, just do a quick search on coping methods for stress and commit to trying 5 new things this week as an experiment. You will quickly find 1-3 stress-reducing activities you favor. 

Stress that goes unchecked or is escalating can bleed into our relationships. If each partner commits to actively reduce their own stress, you can show up for each other in amazing ways. 

Tip 2: Celebrate your Wins!

Talk to your partner about what’s going really well for the two of you. Verbally tell your partner all the things you really appreciate about them. 

Reminisce on how you met, and what drew them to you. Talk about fun things that happened in the past. Remind each other how you’ve gotten through crises before and that you can do it again now. 

Tip 3: Quiet that critical voice

If your stress level is at a constant high, you might feel inclined to take it out on your partner. Sometimes, that looks like being critical of your partner. Try to avoid this. 

Be aware that using language like, “You always…” or “You never…” is critical language and will only make your partner defensive. Instead, focus on your own feelings and use “I feel” statements. 

An example of this would be, “Babe, I am feeling really frustrated and overwhelmed right now. Can you do dinner for the kids while I go take a bath/workout/call a friend?” That sounds better than, “You never cook dinner! Why am I always the one doing this?,” right?

Tip 4: Maintain or increase your intimacy

I don’t mean just sex, either. Although, please do keep having your normal amounts of sexual intimacy with your partner. (No need for social distance here!) 

Other forms of intimacy look like

• Being humorous with each other (keep those inside jokes going!)

• Finding ways to serve one another (do a household chore you know your partner dislikes); 
• Jointly parenting your kids together (brainstorm ideas on what your kids’ need are and how to meet them); 
• Friendship intimacy (showing genuine interest in your partner and their interests); and 
• Communication intimacy (not only do you take time to talk at the end of the day but also are responsive to the small things your partner says throughout the day).

Tip 5: Dream together

It’s healthy and helpful to have a “Dream Board” with your partner. It doesn’t have to be an actual board, but go ahead and verbalize what your hopes and dreams are. It can be about your relationship, your career, family life, retirement, an upcoming vacation, or even a new show you want to watch together. Couples who regularly chat about their hopes and dreams both as a couple and as individuals create a sense of unity and connection that is undeniable.

Soon enough, we’ll all be back to normal routines. Imagine that day. How will you want to look back at your quarantine time together? One full of too much stress or frustration? Or one where you spent purposeful time together, maintained your individual sense of identity while also being a support for your partner?

It is known in social psychology that crises can forge a unique bond in your relationships. Nothing quite like a pandemic to quickly bring us closer together. Be well. And remember to breathe. If you each have healing to do from this time, feel free to reach out. I’d be happy to help.

Jenny Elledge is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) providing online-based therapy and coaching at JennyElledge.com

 

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Audio Interview with BlueHost

 

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#VictoryGarden

It’s a pretty crazy time. With a pandemic, economic shutdown, interruptions in the supply chain, and everyone trying to figure out what the heck “New Normal” is supposed to be, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and out of control. There is something you can do to not only help your sanity, but supply you with food when the inevitable shortage happens this year. 

Back in the early 1940's America was still recovering from the Great Depression and was faced with war in Europe and the Pacific. Like now, it was a pretty crazy time. At the time, Americans were told that one of the most patriotic things they could do to shore up the home front was to plant a garden and have two laying hens for every member of the family. 

When everything was out of control, the American people rolled up their sleeves, got their hands dirty and took control of their situation. These were the Victory Gardens. 

There are a lot of benefits to gardening besides just growing food. It's been known for a long time that spending some quiet time in the garden can soothe frazzled nerves and help clear your head. During all of the uncertainty going on right now, the last thing you need is more stress. 

With worries about finances, the safety of loved ones, and all of the crazy changes happening all at once, it's easy to quickly get overwhelmed. There is a measurable decline in stress when you garden so it's a great hobby even in the best of times. 

Another benefit to gardening are its health benefits. Mom always said the best disinfectant was sunshine and fresh air. Mom was right. Sunlight, in moderation, is great for us and one of the only ways for us to create the all-important Vitamin D. 

So what do I grow and how do I grow it? There are a lot of answers to this question. Start by making a list of the veggies you eat the most. The garden should be useful. No point in growing an acre of German Chamomile if you hate hot tea. 

Next, you're going to want to do some research. There are thousands of DIY gardening videos on YouTube and other sources. Check them out; you will be surprised what you learn. 

Traditional Plot

This is your traditional garden patch in the yard. Cut out the grass, add topsoil, till, furrow. and plant. These are great if you have the space for them. They do take some work though and it really helps to have a roto-tiller to mix in new topsoil and compost. However, if you have a patch that gets good sunlight 6 to 8 hours a day, these gardens can yield a LOT of food. 

Once established, these plots are fairly easy to replant year after year. If you're not sure exactly what you want that's ok, there are garden planning apps and software out there to help you sort it out.

Raised Beds

Raised beds are great for suburban areas and can be made in different shapes and even be made to look decorative. If you have mobility issues, the beds can be raised higher or made narrower for ease of access. 

The best part about raised bed gardening is something called the Square Foot Gardening Method. Basically it breaks down how much of each kind of plant can go into a square foot of garden bed. It even takes into account companion planting as some types of veggies like growing with other types of veggies. There are Square Foot Gardening apps to help you get going.

Container Gardening 

If you live in a city, container gardening is for you. I mean, it can be used anywhere, but if you're limited on space, this is the best way to go. Containers can include anything from pots, boxes, or even vertical wall gardens. Be creative! They work great for porches, balconies and even roof tops. 

The cool part is the same square foot gardening concept can be used for container gardening, too! As long as your garden receives 6 to 8 hours of sunlight, artificial light, or a combination of the two, you can put a container garden almost anywhere.

Aquaponic and Hydroponic

These kinds of gardens are great and can be done on almost any scale. They can be as simple or complex as you like; your imagination is the limit. The only limitation is that they can be a little tricky with root vegetables like carrots, radishes, etc. These types of gardens can be challenging but fun and very productive. There are a lot of kits available on the internet or you can design one yourself!

Worried about food shortages? Gardening. Stressed out? Gardening. Need more sunshine and fresh air in your life? Gardening. Need more exercise? Gardening. Need a hobby? Gardening. Worried about commercial farming practices? Gardening. Need more control of your environment? Gardening. Suddenly have a lot of extra time on your hands? You guessed it. Gardening! 

It's time to do that most American of things and get to work making your situation better. So roll up those sleeves, get your hands dirty and get to gardening! #VictoryGarden 

 

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0:02
Hi there, I'm Josh Elledge, the Chief Executive Angel at SavingsAngel.com and welcome to the SavingsAngel Show. I'm podcasting to you rom a hot and muggy Orlando, Florida. 

Now, I'm an extremely busy consumer expert, money saving advocate, syndicated newspaper columnist and the guy that turns digital entrepreneurs into media celebrities at UpMyInfluence.com. I love what I do and can't wait to get going on today's episode.

So in order to help you save more, earn more and live more abundantly on today's show, I'm gonna be covering five tips to save your marriage either within or even post pandemic. We're going to talk about how to save money on website hosting. If you fancy yourself as a website, business owner, I've got some great tips we're going to talk about that that's how I've been living my life. Life for the past 20 some years. I absolutely love it. I love serving people online. And I've got some great tips on like kind of how you get started with that right and and where how that begins. And finally, we're going to be talking about hashtag Victory Gardens. All that and more. Let's get going.

Now I've got something exciting for you. My wife Jenny Elledge is a talented Marriage and Family Therapist you can google her Jenny with a Y Elledge E L L E D G E. I know you're looking for because one of the things when I type in my name and do a Google search for me, one of the things that comes up in the frequently search thing is Josh Elledge wife. I think

1:50
that's a funny thing. Well, well, you could just find her yourself. Her name is Jenny with a Y. Now, listen, I asked if she'd share a few tips on healing and maintaining your real life. ship, especially if you've been spending a lot of times in close quarters. And you're like, yeah, this is starting to get to us. And maybe you know, again, where you're kind of at the tail end of that. Maybe you got some kind of recuperating to do on your relationship. You're not used to this. But I mean, just somebody asked you, how has it been living with your partner, usually 24 seven for most of us. Well, listen as a marriage and family therapist who and this is her speaking, she's a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She's married to an entrepreneur, I could tell you from my perspective, we've been living that scenario for the past 20 some years. And Jenny, I'm reading her words. Now. Jenny's got some tips for you on how to ride out or recover from the remainder of your quarantine time without driving your partner crazy.

Tip one stress. All right, let's address the elephant in the room stress now in our lifetime in our culture And globally, we've never experienced anything like this, you know, at least that we know of social distancing is likely taking its toll on you. So whenever we face a new situation, we're naturally going to experience heightened stress. I know you got it, but it's still stressful. Even if even if you don't really recognize it or realize it, it can grate on you just a little bit life is different. Are you the kind of person that's typically aware of how much stress you can handle? Do you know and actively use your favorite coping methods to reduce your own stress? Now, if not, all you got to do is just do a quick search on coping methods for stress and commit to trying five new things this week as an experiment. Now, some things are not going to work for you like I am not doing that. Other things. Yeah, cool. I can do that. Now. You're going to quickly find 123 stress reducing activities you favor. If you just do that search, go ahead, do it, do it, do it, it's good for you. Now stress that goes unchecked, or is escalating, can bleed into our relationships, if each partner commits to actively reduce their own stress, right, so we all have to take ownership and management of our stress. If you do that you can show up for each other in amazing ways.

Tip number two, celebrate your wins. Talk to your partner about what's really going well for the two of you verbally tell your partner all the things you really appreciate around them and about them. You can reminisce on how you met, what drew them to you. You could talk about the fun things that happened in the past. Talk about maybe vacations, you took things that you were able to win together with this room. find each other about how you've gotten through crises before, and that you can do it again.

Now, tip three, quiet, that critical voice. If your stress level is at a constant high, you might feel inclined to take it out on your partner. Sometimes that looks like being critical of your partner. Please try to avoid this. Be aware that using language like you always, or you never is critical language, and it's only going to make your partner defensive. Instead, you want to focus on your own feelings and use. I feel statements. Now, here's a fun thing. If you go back in this podcast, I'm going to say about five six months ago. keep on scrolling back until you find the episode that says something I think it says something to the effect of like how to fight with your partner. All right, and and go listen to that episode. Jenny and I did that episode together. It is honestly, it's probably one of the best episodes we've I've ever done on this on this podcast. And I know it's going to be helpful for you as well. Now, let me give you an example of this. Babe on field, whatever your pet name is for the other person. I'm feeling really frustrated and overwhelmed right now. Can you do dinner for the kids while I go take a bath workout or call a friend? Now that sounds better than you never cooked dinner. Why am I always the one doing this? Right? I mean, I know you want might want to feel like saying that second thing, but I'm just telling you, it's probably not gonna work out real well.

Alright, tip number four, maintain or increase your intimacy. It's okay, hang on. This is family friendly here. And I don't just mean you know, but please do keep your normal amounts of with your partner, other forms of intimacy could look like being humorous with each other, keep those inside jokes going, you can find ways to serve one another. You could do a household chore you know your partner dislikes, jointly parenting your kids together. And so you could brainstorm ideas and what your kids needs are and how to meet them. Don't just relegate one another to while you always do this, I always do that. Friendship, intimacy, and that would be showing genuine interest in your partner and their interests. And of course, the Finally, final one here is communication intimacy. Not only do you take time to talk at the end of the day, but also are there responsive to small things your partner says throughout the day, I one thing that my dear wife and I do is even if our doggy doesn't need it, we take the doggy for a walk around the block and we try to do two of those every single day. You know sometimes it's not nonstop chatter fast but, you know, it's usually there's a couple things we'll talk about and just enjoy a quiet moment together.

All right, finally, tip number five, dream together. So it's healthy and helpful to have a dream board with your partner. It doesn't have to be an actual board, but go ahead and verbalize what your hopes and dreams are. It can be about your relationship, your career, family life, retirement, and upcoming vacation, or even a new show. You want to watch together. Couples who regularly chat about their hopes and dreams, both as a couple and as individuals create a sense of unity and connection that is an undeniable now soon enough, listen, we're all gonna be back to our normal routines. You can imagine that day. Maybe you already are. Maybe you're like, Hey Josh, I'm already there. You know, there's nothing going on Coronavirus in our community. So things are back to normal and if so good. Great. Now When for the rest of us who aren't quite there just yet based on where you live, how will you want to look back at your quarantine time together, one full of too much stress or frustration, or one where you spent purposeful time together maintained your individual sense of identity, while also being a support for your partner. It's known in social psychology that crises can forge a unique bond in your relationships. nothing quite like a pandemic to quickly bring us closer together. Be well, remember to breathe. If you each have healing to do from this time, feel free to reach out you can go to JennyElledge.com. That's J E N N Y Elledge, E L L E D G E dot com. JennyElledge.com, Jenny would be happy to help. She even does occasionally she'll do some pro bono stuff from time to time as well. But just go Reach out she's a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist providing online based therapy and coaching at JennyElledge.com. Thank you, Jenny.

10:10
All right with us right now I've got my good friend Courtney Guest and Courtney, you are I'm gonna call you an evangelist with BlueHost and so BlueHost I'll kind of share my my story of we'd been hosting with a really expensive host we found out that we were way way overpaying for and as the Savings Angel, Courtney, I'm not a fan of overpaying.

10:39
Yeah, and you know, so, so I'll kind of share my story just a little bit in terms of like migrating, but this was wonderful because this saved me hundreds of dollars a month and and yeah, we have a few websites and that sort of thing. But Courtney, first off, thank you so much for joining us.

10:58
Yeah, thanks for having me.

11:00
So Bluehost just kind of like this is the football here. Bluehost is a web host. And so for someone that has ever dreamed of having their own website, that's what Bluehost makes available. And so different from maybe other providers all named them, you don't have to, but like maybe like a Wix or Shopify or some of these other kind of like builder platforms. Um, they're, they're closed environments. Whereas Bluehost 80% of the web, and again, I'm completely just pulling numbers out of the air, but I think that's about right. There's run on WordPress. We've been using WordPress for seven, eight years now, I think and it's just, it's so much easier to run your website on WordPress, because because everything is because everything's run on WordPress. You can find plugins Do everything that you want, as opposed to, if you are kind of locked into a closed environment, well, you're kind of at the mercy of whatever is available and a lot of that stuff you end up having to pay for. And again, sorry, Courtney, this is your interview, not mine. I want to get a sheet I want to lay some groundwork. Courtney why I've invited you on the show. Just to talk about because I've had several people. I've actually over the years, I've had a lot of people ask, Who do you host with? How do you what do you do? How did you get started? What do you do? And so I wanted to bring you on because this is what I do. And so for my old commercial host that was so not appropriate for maybe someone who just wants to start their first website, but I can tell you from experience Bluehost has been amazing. And that's not a paid endorsement. That is because I really, really love this and yes, we'll share a link and You know, would love to be able to give everyone kind of a big discount at the end here. So Courtney, I'm going to stop talking and and maybe let you share like who bloat Bluehost is, and how Bluehost without, you know, again naming too many other names kind of where, where Bluehost really excels.

13:17
Yeah, so Bluehost is a web hosting company. Of course. Of course, a lot of people are like web hosting company, what's that, depending on where you are. And if you're new, you have no idea what a web hosting company is, you just know you want a website online. And so to really just go down to the bare minimum of it, we are a platform that allows you to get online, create your website or your blog, or let's say if you want to sell online, you you know, we are a service that allows you to do that and get your online presence. And with what Josh was saying about WordPress being you know, 80% of all websites on WordPress, that's pretty accurate. I won't say that. Hundred percent accurate because I don't know the exact number.

14:03
There is

14:04
it is up there. It's above 50 at least the last time that I had had looked into it, but, um, the really it is because WordPress is so essential for customizing your website into however you want to do it. Like, I've created a website for my cleaning lady who needed to get online. And I was able to put a plug in there for booking services. I mean, just all of it, it was all there. And I've done that from all the way to a website for a movie and indie film just promoting that so you can go anywhere with it, which is amazing. And I have my own blog on Bluehost actually. And so I don't even speak to Bluehost being you know, as an employee like I just as a customer, I love the experience. The biggest thing for us is that we will Want to make it as easy as possible WordPress can be super confusing sometimes. There's a lot of things that can play into it. But we really simplify that dashboard for you, and allow you to understand and navigate WordPress and a much easier way. Because everything is in your dashboard in Bluehost. And so we really make that easier for you. I used to tell people that we made we want to make it so easy that your dog could build a website. People like that, but some people did test me on that they're like, Okay, well, let me let me see. I'm gonna go see if my dog can create a website. Anyways, but yeah, so I mean, we have other services as well, which really adds to the value of Bluehost. And not just getting your online presence. We have Google my domain, which is you know, you Google something like your company name or service and you see a little pop up and it says the hours phone number on Google, that's Google my domain, or Google My Business. Sorry. Um, and so just ways for you to get seen online, we have SEO tool. So maybe you're trying to rank higher in Google. And we actually have a dashboard. And I love our SEO tools. It's a dashboard that shows you a checklist it does an audit of your website shows you where you ranking on Google, and also gives you a checklist of just things for improvements that you could do to rank higher and actually get to put your own keywords in there, the ones that you're trying to rank for,

16:33
yeah. Now, we don't even need to go down into the weeds right there. I don't want anyone to get too overwhelmed with you know, SEO and all that other stuff. Here's the most important thing right now. In my opinion, if I'm advocating for my savings Angel audience, and that is your for someone who's stuck at home right now, and they want to make a little bit of extra money. So Courtney, you know, rather than just building a web page for yourself, you can watch great tutorials on online on how to operate WordPress, it's I'm just going to, again, just two terms, right? So you've got WordPress itself, that's kind of the framework that runs everything, then you have themes and themes, just give it the look and feel. And you could download a theme. Bam, your website is instantly designed. And so then you could just upload logos and that sort of thing. And then beyond that, you know, if you want to get fancy there, then you could do with plugins and that sort of thing. But what I wanted to talk about Courtney is something that you had mentioned, and I'd love if you could share a little bit more about this. But you know, don't think about website as in, you know, you're going to build this big, huge, amazing website. most business owners really just need a very, very simple kind of business card. Here's how, you know, yes, this is our place on the web. Here's how to contact me, here are the services that we offer. And I think a lot of web pages can be done with a single page like for example, While you're cleaning your cleaning person, and so now you could offer this service as to lots of other freelancers and other businesses, you can build their website for them. And you know what, I bet if you built a website for your cleaning person, you could probably get a lot of cleaning services, maybe you could exchange. So there's really a lot of opportunity with again, it's, it's with as much help as available. It could be actually be very, very easy to get into.

18:36
Yeah. And the thing is, when you sign up for Bluehost, it's not just like you get your website, right, or you just you're signed up and you pay a service. Now, when you purchase we actually walk you through just a step by step thing to see where you're at in the process, how familiar you are with creating websites. And so as soon as you've signed up and you're trying To create your website, we have this thing where you can tell us if you were very beginner. It's a spectrum. So you can say I'm intermediate, I'm advanced. And if you're very, very beginner, you can actually click on a checkbox saying yes, I would like Lowe's to call me so that they can and you can enter in your phone number and they'll give you a call a few hours later after signing up. So that, you know, they make sure your questions are answered. Then we know it can be sometimes confusing, especially for a very beginner. Mm hmm. So we have those resources to give you we're not just throwing you off a limb after you purchase.

19:37
Yeah, that's one of the reasons that I was really grateful to. Again, we moved from our old host First off, it was a huge money saver because Bluehost pricing is really terrific. But the support is is fantastic. You know so obviously we have a couple of mission critical websites up my influence calm and of course savings, Angel calm and it tell you it tell you, Courtney, that the support is really fantastic. It's always just one click away can instantly chat with anyone and get questions answered. The Help docs are extremely, really helpful. So you don't have to pay a developer to do a lot of this unless you're looking to do fancy stuff. But if you need a just a simple web page, honestly, the Bluehost support can lead you to all the resources that you need. And you can, you could probably get this done pretty easily over a weekend. It's just especially if you follow the simple builder, and you can be off to the races and then you can I actually then, you know, once you get comfortable with that you can turn around and you know, again, to some people who are not comfortable with this, the idea of having a webpage is kind of like sorcery. So, you know, you could, you know, reach out to other local business owners and say, Listen, I'm gonna help put a webpage together, charge them 100 $200 just depending on how much work you're doing, and now they have a webpage and you can add a domain name. I'm Courtney up Again, without getting too technical. I mentioned a domain name. How is that figured into when you when you get hosting through Bluehost.

21:10
So we actually offer you a free domain name with your purchase, which is amazing. And it's directly linked to your account. So as soon as you sign up for that domain name, and you purchase, you'll already you won't have to deal with any of the technical stuff in terms of getting your domain and link to your website.

21:30
That's wonderful. Yeah. So okay, so now people are probably like, Okay, well, how much is this gonna cost me? And, you know, because you're thinking about, Okay, I'm gonna get all this support and all this technical help and sometimes, you know, technical help can be a little expensive. And this The other reason like that, I was really excited to migrate over to Bluehost. And again, it was very successful for us. And we again, we have some heavy duty requirements, and it's worked really well for us, but but Courtney for people Better kind of just getting started, they can actually go to SavingsAngel.com slash Bluehost bleh. I said that kind of weird Bluehost.com slash Bluehost. If you go through that link, it's $2 95 cents a month. And not only do you get a 30 day money back guarantee, you actually get a 60 day money back guarantee. So my recommendation is if you've been on the fence about this, and you're like, Yeah, I'd give this a try. I could tell you that there are there are a lot there's a lot of need for people who can throw up simple webpages for other people. And so again, 295 a month, that is 36 months. So I think the total would be just over $100 for three years. But again with a 3060 day money back guarantee. My recommendation is if you want to go for this, you know, you could basically do one simple web page for something Somebody else learned this over the weekend that Bluehost helped you out. And you could probably find someone else that you could do a webpage for in that time. That's my business plan Anyway, I'm just throwing out ideas. What do you think Courtney? Yeah,

23:15
no, I think now is the time to actually get started with this. I know I've had so much extra time I don't have the distractions I would in terms of just being able to go out and do something, you know, we're all kind of stuck where we are. So now's a great time to, you know, get started with this and give it a shot when you've got extra time. I know. I've worked on my blog a lot more lately. I've had that extra time. I can't go anywhere. Yeah. And so yeah, I've been able to play around with things and you know, there's I'm not technical, tech savvy by any means. But I've been able to learn new things that I had no idea I could even do. Um, but yeah, I think The biggest thing it also is that it's not like you also just set up your website, like you talked about downloading a theme. You don't even have to do that with Bluehost. In that step by step process, we give you a little page where you can pick a theme, and go ahead with it. Yeah, so there's one page themes. I mean, depending on what you're trying to build, you're able to pick from a list of them. If you do have a theme, though, already in mind, and you don't want any of those choices, you can just skip it. So

24:31
yeah, you know, here's another idea as well. And so, if you were thinking about, you know, being able to build a website is a valuable skill that your kids I think if they know how to deal in WordPress and building web applications, building stuff on the web, that would be a super valuable thing for them to do. So. If the kids are just gaming and gaming and gaming and gaming, why not help them set up a webpage about the things that they love. So if they really love a game like Animal Crossing, for example, they can go ahead and build a webpage about Animal Crossing, and they could offer whatever they want to offer on that. But that would be really, really fun. I know that my two boys have been involved in varying levels of internet development, different stuff. So that would be another fun idea. So again, Courtney, thank you so much for joining us again, SavingsAngel.com slash Bluehost. One word that's B L U E H O S T against $2 95 cents a month. So it comes out to just over $100 so it's $106 but then you're set for three years, you're good. If you get going. You decide Um, and I guess not. Then again, Courtney. They've got a 60 day money back guarantee. And I can tell you, again, working with support, super, super easy to work with. So I'm thrilled to be able to share that with our savings Angel audience. So thank you so much for coming on. And again, thank you for being a part of a really, really great service.

26:10
Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I love what I do, and I love what we offer. And I think everybody and if you're a business or you want to a hobby to even do like you said, your kids, you know, online, his online presence is where we're headed kind of towards, you know, where we're where we're at. And WordPress and online websites are just growing from here, and it's only going to get bigger so

26:36
well, Courtney guest not only do you work with Bluehost, but you're also a customer and and a web webmaster yourself. Thank you so much for joining us.

26:45
Yeah, thank you

26:49
Now, it's been a pretty crazy time. We all know that now with the pandemic economic shutdown interruptions in the supply chain, and everyone's trying to figure out what the heck this new normal supposed to be, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and out of control. And there is something you can do to not only help your sanity, but supply you with food when the inevitable shortage happens this year. It may happen. It may, you know, again, it's just weird how behaviors consumer behaviors have changed a lot of supply and demand. Maybe there's food manufacturers, they haven't been able to get their employees on the line. It's just again, gosh, thankfully, we got past that first little bit, right. But don't be surprised if you see some other shortages in in different areas, particularly amongst I've heard specialty items are probably going to be hit hard throughout the rest of the year, but maybe not right now. Back in the early 1940s. America was still recovering from the Great Depression and was faced with the war in Europe in the Pacific now like now. It was a pretty crazy time. Now at this Time, Americans are told that one of the most patriotic things they could do to shore up the homefront was to plant a garden and have two layer laying hens for every member of the family. When everything was out of control, the American people rolled up their sleeves got their hands dirty. I feel like I should have said to my Podcast Producer cue the Americana music.

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Listen, they got their hands dirty. They took control of their situation. You know what they did, they planted Victory Gardens, if to my fellow Disney fans, when you can get back to Disney World. I want you to Hollywood studios, and on your way to tower terror or rock and roller coaster. Right before you get there. You're looking you're gonna see as you're walking that way, kind of look off to the left. There's kind of these various kind of restaurant type things will go back and you're actually going to find a victory garden so they they they have a reenact kind of reenactment, no animatronics there. But I actually love going back there. It's one of my little quiet, fun places to go at Disney World. Again, when I can get back there. Just little trivia there for you. Now, there. By the way, if you're not going to Disney World anytime soon, go Google it. It's kind of cool. And you can also Google and check out take a look at other people's Victory Gardens as well.

Now, there are a lot of benefits to gardening. Besides just growing food. It's been known for a long time that spending some quiet time in the garden can soothe frazzled nerves, it can help clear your head and during all the crazy crazy crazy stuff going on right now the last thing you need is more stress. With worries about finances, the safety of loved ones, and the changes happening all at once. It's it's easy to quickly get overwhelmed. Now there is a measurable decline in stress when you garden so it's a great hobby, even in the best of times. Now another benefit to gardening are its health benefits. mom always said that the best disinfectant was sunshine and fresh air. And you know what? Mom was right? sunlight in moderation is great for us. And one of the only ways for us to create that all important vitamin D. And listen, if you want to know how important that is to your emotional and mental health, go Google it.

Alright, so what do you grow? And how do you grow it? Well, there are a lot of answers his question, I want you to start by making a list of the veggies you eat the most. The garden should be useful. There's no point in growing an acre of German chamomile if you hate hot tea, although that might be fun to see. Now Next, you're going to want to do some research. There are thousands of DIY gardening videos on YouTube and other sources. Check them out. You'd be surprised what you learn. It's fun. A lot of the youtubers who do garden they're pretty chill it's like Bob Ross.

Alright, now the traditional plot is your kind of your traditional garden patch in the yard. This is I want you to cut out the grass at some top soil till furrow and plant. Now these are great if you have the space for them. They do take some work though and it really helps to have a roto tiller to mix in new top soil and compost. However, if you have a patch that gets good sunlight six to eight hours a day, these gardens can yield out a lot of food. Once established, these plots are fairly easy to replant year after year. Now if you're not exactly sure what you want, that's okay. There are garden planning apps and software out there to help you sort it all out.

Next, raised beds. Now raised beds are great for suburban areas and can be made in different shapes and even be made made to look decorative by my family, my parents do a lot of gardening. And they did brand new raised beds for the tomatoes this year to try to maybe have a little bit luck with them this year. Now if you have mobility issues, the beds can be raised higher or made narrower for ease of access. And the best part about raised bed gardening is something called the square foot gardening method. Definitely Google this. Basically it breaks down how much of each kind of plant can go into a square foot of garden bed. It even takes into account companion planting as some types of veggies like growing with other types of veggies, their you know their veggie buddies. Now, there are Excuse me, I started laughing my little veggie buddy joke. All right, there are square foot gardening apps that are going to help you get going as well.

All right, next, container gardening and trust me my last one. It's crazy. Right. If you live in a city container gardening is for you. I mean, it could be used anywhere. But if you're limited on space, this is the best way to go. Containers can include anything from pots, boxes, or even vertical walled gardens be creative. They work great for porches, balconies, and even rooftops. Now the cool part is the same square foot gardening concept can be used for container gardening. As long as your garden receives six to eight hours of sunlight, artificial light or a combination of the two, you could put a container garden almost anywhere.

Alright, finally, here's for the adventuresome among us. Now, this is aquaponic and hydroponic. Now these kinds of gardens are great and can be done on almost any scale. They can be as simple or as complex as you like. Your imagination is the limit the only limitation is that they can be a little tricky with root vegetables like carrots, radishes, etc. Now these types of gardens can be challenging but fun and very productive. There are lots of kits available on the interwebs or you can design one yourself. Now, if you're worried about food shortages, gardening,

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stressed out gardening, need more sunshine and fresh air in your life, gardening, need more exercise, gardening, need a hobby gardening, worried about commercial farming practices, gardening, need more control of your environment, gardening, suddenly, you have a lot of extra time on your hands. You guessed it, gardening. Now it's time to do that most American of things and get to work to make your situation better. Roll up those sleeves, get your hands dirty, and let's get to gardening hashtag Victory Garden.

If you feel comfortable in sharing this podcast episode with someone I would be honored if you did that. All you have to do is just take a screenshot with your phone, just, you know, you'd push the top volume button and the power button on your iPhone at the same time, they'll take a screenshot, again, sorry Android users. I don't know how to do it. But I'm sure there's a great way and then just send it in a text or send it in a DM or post on social media. And I would be honored if you felt inclined to share this episode with a friend. I promise I will serve them with all my heart. Now, as always, if you have any specific questions or if there's something you'd like to hear me talk about, you could drop me a comment on the podcast feedback, write me on my Facebook group or call the podcast hotline right now. 407-205-9250 and leave me a message. We get a lot of great ideas. And so I want to thank everyone who has left a voicemail there. And thank you, by the way, thank you for the kind words that we get from it from time to time, it really makes a difference. I honestly, you know, I no longer really need to do this podcast, business wise for any reason. To me, it's just something I love doing and I'm just honored to be able to serve you and your family and your loved ones with this show. I'll answer your question right back or with your permission, and even share your story with others on the show. With that, have a wonderful, full of saving more, earning more and living more abundantly. And thank you for listening.