Now a veteran mom (it's been a whole year!), I've got a few great tips up my sleeve to help you create a healthy, happy home without going broke.

CSA: An investment that pays offOne of the best ways to get fresh, organic food is to become a member of a farm through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. CSA members invest in a farm at the beginning of a growing season and benefit weekly from fresh food throughout the harvest. Offerings can include fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, honey, even flowers. Brought to the United States in 1986, the CSA model has spread across the country to more than a thousand farms, providing food for tens of thousands of families. A fabulous source of food you can trust, CSAs can also be a more affordable choice than buying equivalent foods at your local supermarket.

For my daughter, I blend up batches of CSA-fresh produce as soon as I get our bounty back to our kitchen. I fill ice cube trays with the purees and store the frozen cubes in labeled sandwich bags to have serving-size-ready food whenever she wants it.

Babysitting co-op = more date nights
Have hippie parents? Then you've probably heard them wax nostalgic about their babysitting co-op. The concept is simple. Bring together a group of families you trust to share the babysitting burden. You get "points" for watching each other's kids and use those points to have someone sit for yours. My husband and I have had countless "date nights" since our daughter was born and have never paid for a sitter. Each co-op creates its own "bylaws." Ours, for instance, is mainly an evening co-op, which means that "babysitting" mostly entails crashing on a couple's couch to watch their cable while one or more children sleep blissfully nearby.

Toys galore without the store
The parents' Listserv in our neighborhood is our greatest resource for everything from tips about how to get our daughter to sleep through the night (she does) to what toys she might like for each new developmental milestone (today it's blocks). Thanks to the Listserv, we've barely bought a toy or outfit since our daughter was born. It's green and it's smart: We get road-tested toys that we know she'll love without adding old ones to the landfill.

Keep in mind that whether you buy new toys or get them handed down, it's important to know what they're made of. New research is connecting the dots between chemicals commonly found in toys and hormone disruption and certain forms of cancer. In particular, steer clear of BPA (bisphenol A) and phthalates, which are plasticizers that can disrupt the hormonal system.

If your community doesn't have an online resource exchange yet, consider starting one -- the tools are out there and they're simple to use.

When my husband and I became parents, we quickly learned that "It takes a village to raise a child" was an overused cliché for a reason: It's true. And thanks to our village, we've been able to go green without spending a fortune.

Resources:

Find your nearest CSA program at www.csacenter.org.

Learn more about toy safety at http://slowdeathbyrubberduck.com/USA/.

Anna Lappé is an author, activist and mom whose most recent book, "Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It" (Bloomsbury), was published last March. Anna is also co-author of the national best-seller "Hope's Edge" with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, and "Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen," with Bryant Terry. Born in Yonkers, New York, and raised in California, she currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund.