Recently in our household money has been pretty tight.

I’ve been at home with the kids since having our youngest son to save on daycare costs until I go back and finish my last few courses to get my degree. By the time all of our bills are paid there isn’t much left for “non-necessity” purchases and while I can live without new clothes and don’t feel the urge to upgrade my phone as soon as a new model comes out, my one regret is that family photos haven’t fit into the budget.

My kids are growing at a seemingly exponential pace, I blink and they have changed.

My  final straw was when I saw signs of my youngest’s first teeth breaking through and realized my oldest is well on his way out of Kindergarten and into First Grade.

I didn’t just want family photos. I NEEDED family photos!

I could already feel the regret and guilt seeping in for never finding money for those maternity pics I wanted or the photo shoot last year, or the year before that. Our last real family photo was in 2014 which is just way too long ago.

So I said enough is enough.

I need to get some real family photos of my boys so I can look back and remember them at this altogether adorable age. I didn’t have a budget for a family photographer but I knew I could make it work!

So if money is tight here are my tips so you don’t have to give up those precious family photos (no professional camera required).

Find a Scenic Location

Finding a location is really half the battle.

We did end up paying for admission to a pumpkin patch for our fall photos and our local arboretum for our family pictures and I think it was more than worth it to have the beautiful backdrops.

I won’t lie I also picked the arboretum because it holds a near and dear place in my heart.

I went there every other weekend as a teen, my husband took me there for our very first date (not even knowing I loved it but solely because he is a plant lover who can name pretty much every species known to man and beast alike), and later we had our engagement photos there.

If you have a little wiggle room in your budget look for arboretums or botanical gardens in your area (sometimes there are even Groupons available to lower the cost a bit).

If you just can’t swing admission, there are tons of free locales too.

Some of my favorite photos we took when my oldest was a baby was in a large field with wildflowers (and bluebonnets) right outside a local corporate HQ complex.

Other free backdrop ideas:

– Local parks

– Lakes

– Shopping centers with fountains

– Pumpkin patches come fall,

– Christmas tree lots come winter

– Ask that neighbor with the immaculate garden if you can use it as a backdrop!

I don’t recommend pulling off on the side of the highway with kids no matter how pretty the patch of flowers for safety reasons (even if it is the Texan thing to do when bluebonnets bloom).

Enlist Help!

It’s pretty hard to take pictures of yourself (although I have seen some pretty awesome makeshift tripod setups).

Ask a friend or a relative if they are willing to go with you to help you snap a few photos. In our case, I asked my mom and stepdad to tag along so I could get photos of them as well and it was far from a hard sell.

How To Get AWESOME Family Photos with an iPhone

My stepdad did bring along his much nicer camera but every family photo in this post was taken using an iPhone.

Although the resolution isn’t quite as good, your iPhone offers some much needed flexibility and features that can make getting hangable photos with kids so much easier!

With a traditional camera most of the time it’s a one shot at a good photo deal per click (although there are ways to take multiple frames). I

‘m not sure about your family, but with my kiddos finding a picture with everyone’s eyes open, smiles, and preferably everyone actually looking at the camera is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Enter my secret weapon : Live photos

Look at this photo.

My youngest is actually looking at the camera (for once) but of course big brother is mid-blink.

Not a frameworthy picture by a long shot and one that would get deleted if I was using my own actual camera. But within a few seconds I can transform this deleter-worthy photo to THIS completely adorable photo that I can’t wait to add to my gallery wall!

HOW? (I promise it’s not magic)

First before taking your photo you want to make sure live photos is on.

Go to your camera, make sure photo is selected and you want the target looking concentric circles in the middle to be yellow., if it is white with a live through it click on the icon to turn live photos ON.

Take a photo of a person.

Now maybe it’s not the best but this is only one of the pictures you actually captured.

To see what I mean, press your finger on the photo and leave it there. A short video will begin to play (audio and all!). These are all the actual “images” you can choose from.

Hit edit in the upper right of the photo.

At the bottom of the screen there is a row of pictures with a white box around one.

Drag the box around until you find one you like (I typically scroll from left to right so I can see the full range of images available before making my selection).

Hit “make key photo.”

Hit the magic wand in the corner to see if it enhances your photo in a way you like ( in my experience it may not work too well in dimly lit spaces).

You can also crop and rotate, edit light, color, and black and white settings, add filters, and add some rudimentary text by choosing the icons on the bottom of the screen.

And there you have it a “hidden” perfectly framable photo of my boys, taken with nothing more than an iPhone!

Family photos don’t need to be terribly expensive and, while nothing can replace a true photographer’s attention to detail or knack for photo composition, please don’t let not being able to afford one keep you from taking keepsake family photos!