Keeping memory on budget: my top 5 tips

There are two things we all need to keep in mind when it comes to our personal memory: time and money.

It is important to consider the time commitment, but it is also important to consider the part of the budget so as not to get derailed and demotivated.

Here are my 5 tips for keeping a realistic memory on a budget.

1. Consider All Your Options Before You Begin

We lose a lot of money (and time) when we don’t think things through. Some things you might want to consider are …

– what is your style?

– what is your budget? (your actual budget, not your idealistic budget) We all know this kind of thing is a luxury, so allow yourself to admit it.

– What do you NOT want to do?

I love the look of photobooks so I bought some coupons from 3 different companies about 3 years ago. Well now I can tell you that I will never make a photobook again. I will gladly pay someone else with a clean visual style to do it for me, but for me to do it personally, no thanks. You see, the book costs around R200 on sale, but I spent a torturous 3 hours putting each one together. It’s not worth it to me. I’d rather pay more and have someone else do it.

The next series was easier, but still the investment of time was killer, and the third time (I don’t learn very fast, do I?), When the system kept bombarding me, I asked for a refund and finally remembered why not to make photobooks.

2. What is your minimum level of satisfaction with memory?

There are many free applications available and some very profitable as well.

· Are you taking a picture with your phone?

· Are you installing it on Instagram?

· Are you putting a folder on Facebook?

I did a Project 365 last year. Most of my photos were also posted on Instagram, but many were not. I didn’t want to post difficult days at work on Instagram, but they are part of my story, so those photos are saved in my Project 365 app, for my eyes only.

3. Do you want to print something?

After the photobook disasters, I decided I was fine with photobooks. I love my photo albums. I have a large one for each of my two children ages 1 to 5. I print only 4 photos per month for each child. I love having that creative limit because it’s supposed to be a snapshot in time of what that child was like at that point in their life.

4. Choose your storage method carefully

I have the same type of photo albums (200 pages) so they stack nicely on a shelf. These albums follow my photography style because I mostly take pictures with landscape designs.

Some people make a Project Life album on a monthly or weekly basis. I do a monthly Project Life because I don’t like the idea of ​​having weekly pressure.

5. When choosing how you want to store your photos, consider current and future costs.

When I asked for mini albums, I asked for 3 to be classified for 3 years. That may not work for you if you like everything new. I don’t mind not having everything up to date so I’m fine.

I love the idea of ​​Project Life, but not the shipping costs to South Africa. And so, my best advice for budget memory maintenance …

If you do Project Life, buy only what you need from the digital kits.

I paid around R1100 for my first kit, just the kit, not the albums, with the shipping costs. That’s crazy and my head hurts every time I think about it too much.

Next time I commissioned life files from the site’s digital project. I mixed it up so I got the Honey and Sunshine kits because they made me happy, I printed the PDFs and now I’m done. The only annoyance was cutting them out because I don’t have a paper cutter. I only paid around R100 for the files and the cardstock printing. That was a huge saving of R1000.

In my opinion, even if you do a weekly Project Life design, you will never finish the whole box in a year. Yes, you could use the cards to make lists (I do this too), but why spend the money to get started?