Topics & Tips to Know if You Want to Contribute to B&H

B&H is about to be bigger and badder. So send your articles in! Here are some topics I’m looking for–

• Recipes Got some amazing recipes up your sleeve (that I haven’t posted yet)?
• Food/gardening/eating out General food insight, nutrition facts about foods, cooking or gardening tips. Good food to eat or other tips if you absolutely must eat out.
• Fitness/Exercise Staying fit without the convenience of a gym membership. This is a big excuse for slackers. Let’s hear your ideas.
• Couponing Okay Coupon Queens, now’s your time to shine. You may not have time to start your own website, but you hard core divas need to share how you’re so amazing at saving money.
• Grocery/shopping tips How to avoid making mistakes at the source of your food buying- the grocery store. Alternative food shopping ideas, etc.
• Living on a dime/financial insight Hey, times are tough. We all need to save money. Help us broke people out and share your money-saving secrets.
• Health/dieting/wellness Other ways to keep healthy without spending money- psychologically, physiologically, socially, spiritually, whatever. Just no cultist stuff, ok?

This is just the tip of the iceberg about how we can live a better, healthier life, even if we’re broke as a joke. You and I know it’s possible to be happy, healthy and poor, and I’ve spent a year proving to you that it’s possible. My way of showing you was through cooking the right food.

But being healthy is about so much more than food.

Since I neither have the expertise or the time to talk to you about these topics, I’m going to relinquish a little control and allow others to submit Articles, Tips and Recipes to the site. While you all are submitting over the next few months, I’m going to be finishing the web design aspect of it.

10 Things to Know if You’re
Interested in Submitting:

1. Know your stuff. You *don’t* have to be a chef, a practicing doctor or a nutritionist to submit recipes or articles. Extra gold stars if your article relates to your career, but not necessary. You DO need to know what you’re talking about, especially if you’re giving any kind of medical tips. Otherwise, if you’ve just got some great tips for any of those topics above, or a topic that’s relevant but not listed, just send it on anyway!

2. Have a personable writing style. You’ve read my recipes. Write in a language anyone can understand, but know your boundaries- don’t sound like a babbling idiot, but don’t talk over people’s heads either.

3. Be original. Don’t steal articles from someone else. Seriously. However, you can submit articles that you’ve submitted elsewhere, including your own blogs and websites.

4. Keep it relevant, tight and informative. Make every word count. People don’t have time to read a novel so don’t ramble. If you have a lot to say, break it up into multiple articles.

5. Submitting articles: Try to keep your articles between 200 and 600 words. Edit it yourself, and if you’re not a good writer, maybe have someone else take a look before you submit it. Also, submit photos or images if possible. Otherwise I’ll go online and find something.

6. Submitting tips: Don’t have a full article to write? No problem. Web readers are big fans of quick tips to read on the fly. No seriously, even if it’s as simple as, “Greek yogurt and a banana is one amazing snack for only about $.50 a serving!” Stuff like that is okay too- I’ll fit it in somewhere. Send ‘em.

7. Submitting recipes: This is hard to say. But because I have to appeal to the masses, here it is… If you HAVE to submit a REAL recipe with REAL measurements, it’s okay, submit it. I’m sort of anti-recipe so I’m biased. You have to break down the costs by serving. Don’t worry about silly things like spices or oils, just the main costs. Try to keep it under $3 a serving. Feel free to write the recipes in the style I’ve always written- super simple. However, if you submit a recipe, you MUST submit photos! No exceptions. And they must be your photos, don’t steal. I would prefer that you take photos of the entire process like I do, but I suppose it’s not mandatory. The more, the better. Please don’t use flash- use natural sunlight. I may not accept the pictures if they’re poor quality…because bad photos make good food look like crap. Ok I’m done.

8. This is not a commitment. Don’t worry, this is not your new part-time job. For those of you who are afraid of commitment, this is the place for you! Send 1 article, send 50 articles, I don’t care. But feel free to start sending NOW. They may not go up right away- I may wait till I’m done designing the new site- but maybe not.

9. Shameless plugs are okay. Hey, networking is a fabulous thing. Have a website, business or service that’s relevant to the site? Feel free to put a link at the bottom of your submission. We’re here to help each other. I would ask, though, that if you put your link on my site, that you tell your people about B&H if possible. Only fair, right?

10. Don’t get your feelings hurt. If you’ve followed the rules above, there’s a good chance I’ll post what you’ve sent. But there’s also a good chance I’ll edit what you’ve sent for typos or for consistency in language style. I’ll let you know if I’ve changed anything though, don’t worry.

Plus, if you submit an article, you can now be the cool kid at the party and say, “Why yes I am INDEED a contributor to a popular food webiste! Thanks for asking!”

Now don’t be shy. Let’s do this thing. Send your stuff to BrokeandHealthy@gmail.com

Remember to include your First and Last Name, your profession (optional) and your website (optional).