Making Preserving Photos Affordable

This post was updated 2022.

Memories are something everyone has.  Pictures are something almost everyone has.  Preserving pictures and memories and personal or family stories is a sweet part of life because it creates connections, engenders a sense of belonging, raises self-esteem, increases resilience, and even lowers stress.  If preserving pictures and memories is so good for the heart and soul, shouldn’t it be something everyone can do?  Why would memory-keeping be limited by money?  I believe memory-keeping should be affordable to everyone, so today let’s explore some ways to keep it that way.

First, know what's most expensive.  Scrapbooking seems to be the go-to way of preserving photos and memories these days, but {as we learned} a couple of weeks ago, it’s actually the most expensive way to preserve your life’s stories.  

With many things in life, we must often choose between what requires more money and what requires more time.  Clipping coupons, for example, takes time but saves money; not using coupons saves time but requires more money.  

Traditional (paper) scrapbooking actually takes the most time and the most money of all the memory-keeping options.  That’s not necessarily bad!  It just means that if you choose to scrapbook, you need to have both time and money.  And that’s perfectly fine if you do –in fact, it’s a gift if you do– but most people need to know that there are other ways besides scrapbooking to preserve photos and memories.

I’ve been a memory-keeper all my life and have been in the business of helping others with it since 2005.  I have seen a lot of things come and go.  Improvements have been made in making sure the products we use are photo-safe and won’t eat away at the photos over time.  

If those things aren’t affordable, though, what’s the difference?

Know the difference, too, between affordable and cheap.  You only want to pay for something once, so quality is super important when you're choosing how to preserve your memories.  You don't want cheap.

Photo and Story Treasures recommends only high-quality products, and you can see 3 fantastic options right here.  Choose the one that fits your style, available time, and budget the best.    

Here are 3 affordable ways to make preserving photos and memories affordable:

1.  The trick for keeping costs down is to wait for sales (current sales shown at this tab).   Sales at Forever change every couple of weeks, so that means just about everything is on sale every 2-4 weeks.  

2.  On top of that, I highly recommend the Club program for these reasons:

• It's free to join!
• You save an additional 5% on your printed products.
• You can choose a certain amount to deposit into your account each month, as low as $25.  Club acts like a bank account--you can save up over time for bigger purchases!
• Forever Club Dollars (the amount you deposit into your account) never expire. 

3.  Use your Referral Link!  Your Forever account comes with a Referral Link.  Each time (EACH TIME!) you share your Referral Link with a friend and he/she opens a Forever account, your friend gets a $20 coupon to use toward just about anything at Forever (good for 60 days) AND SO DO YOU!

Better still, coupons are stackable, so that means 

There are top-quality hardbound books, softbound books, and even individual digital scrapbook pages available, in a variety of sizes, so you're bound to find something that works for you.

PARTING PERSPECTIVE

I am surprised sometimes to hear people say that paying a little over $2 per page in a digital book (a 12x12 hardbound of 21 pages is $43 at 50% off) is “too expensive.”  Aside from the fact that they don’t seem to be stopping to think about everything they’re getting for that $2 –from the highest-in-the-industry quality binding to up to 8 or 9 pictures on each page– I think people often forget what they regularly spend $50 on.

Every time a new Harry Potter book came out, I spent $30 on a hardbound book.  Over time, I spent $210 on Harry Potter books!  Why wouldn’t I spend the same amount of money on my own photos and memories, something that will be meaningful for generations?

What do you regularly spend $50 on?  This is a beneficial thing to think about if you’re looking for ways to make memory-keeping an activity that fits in your budget.  What could you cut out or cut down on?  Movie tickets?  A pedicure?  Dinner out?  What isn’t worth as much as your family’s story preserved is?

While it does cost some money to preserve your pictures and memories, it doesn’t have to be as much as you might think.  

Do some looking and find an affordable memory-keeping method that you will enjoy (so you will do it!), and don’t worry about how “cute” or “trendy” it is.  Memory-keeping doesn’t have to look a certain way.  It just has to be your memories and your photos, preserved in a way that can be enjoyed over and over again.  The benefits from the connections that memory-keeping makes are priceless.

Everyone needs an affordable, high-quality way to preserve photos and memories!
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 This post was originally published at www.livegrowgive.org on August 25, 2017, by Jennifer Wise.

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