Every month, my wife and I track how much time and money we spend growing food. This is the report for February 2009. (Here are the results for 2008.)
We spent a lot of time in our garden this month, which was unusual considering that it’s February. In fact, the twelve hours we spent working on our food crops was the most we’ve worked in a month since I began tracking the numbers in January of 2008. We don’t mind. A little effort now will pay off big in the months and years ahead.
New trees
Much of our time was spent prepping for and planting three new trees. A small fruit tree can be an excellent addition to the suburban yard. A mature fruit tree is an attractive piece of landscaping that can offer a summertime bounty with minimal effort. (The downside is that they can be messy.)
The cost of a fruit tree is mostly up front. [...]

February was a great month for my personal and professional development. After the lows of January, it was great to have a month where I felt like I was stretching-and-growing instead of crashing-and-burning.
All of this growth took time away from the blog, though. I didn’t get as much written as I’d hoped. Still, I think there were some great discussions, which I’ve shared below. And I have a ton of excellent ideas for March. It’s my goal to get to a million visits next month! (GRS missed that target in January by 27,000.)
Here’s the best of February:

February 2nd Playing with numbers: Using spreadsheets to learn about money
February 4th: Save on cell phones with employee and student discounts
February 6th: “What next?” The third stage of personal finance — this post introduced a new theme to the site
February 11th: Investing 101: Average is not normal (a guest post from Carl Richards)
February 12th: The national economy versus your [...]

Between my personal accounts, my business accounts, and the joint accounts I have with my wife, it’s difficult for me to keep track of my essential information. As we’ve been working to refinance our house, for example, there have been several times I’ve had to dig for needed account numbers and statements. I’m not the only one with this problem.
Earlier this month, Meghan wrote to ask:
How do you compile a comprehensive list of account information? I’ve been trying to put together a list with everything I need to know about my various accounts, but I don’t know how to make sure I’m tracking everything I should (account numbers, contact numbers, beneficiaries, etc.). I’m sure I’m missing something. Of course, I realize now I should have taken note of all of this as I opened accounts over the years. Since I didn’t, is there an efficient way to get all of the [...]

I’ve been on a productive tear lately. I’ve banked a lot of future Get Rich Slowly posts, but still have more in me. As a result, I’m starting to share guest posts with other sites, something I haven’t done for a while. First up: 10 essential money skills for a bad economy over at Zen Habits.
Elsewhere around the web, these stories have caught my eye:
Andrew B. just sent me a link to a free PDF from Dave Ramsey’s site. This report makes the argument for why you should keep investing. This isn’t something Ramsey created, and it’s not something that he’s trying to sell. It’s just a free report that shares the “wisdom of great investors”.
Elsewhere, Charlie at Pay Less for Food argues that you can save money eating out by going ethnic. This is something that GRS readers have been preaching for years, and I agree. Just the other night, Kris and I [...]

When I was a boy, my father used to buy Mother Earth News from the grocery store. The magazine was filled with stories about self-sufficient country living, the sort of thing my dad aspired to. I’d read the magazine after he was finished, but never really understood the appeal of building your own greenhouse or raising goats. Now, as an adult, it makes a little more sense.
Kris and I are not radically self-sufficient, but we do enjoy growing our own food. (And she recently agreed that we could get chickens!) The content at GRS reflects my interest in the DIY lifestyle. Besides frequent articles on gardening, in the past I’ve shared stories like these:

Frugality in practice: Home canning
An introduction to homesteading, a guest post from Phelan of A Homesteading Neophyte
My review of Back to Basics: A Guide to Traditional Skills

Though our own adventures in self-sufficiency are limited, they’re edifying, and I admire those who [...]

Over at Vimeo, Jonathan Jarvis has created a ten-minute film that offers an overview of the credit crisis. If you’ve been struggling to understand what went wrong with the American economy, this will give you some of the basics:
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

If you’d like more information, I encourage you to carve out time to listen to two radio broadcasts, both from NPR’s This American Life:

“The Giant Pool of Money” explains how the housing bubble was created by a chain of people who thought the old rules of money no longer applied.
“Another Frightening Show About the Economy” takes a deeper look at the developing credit crisis.

Finally, you may want to check out my list of essential reading about the market meltdown. The information is five months old now, but still useful.