As a a semi-employed sorta stay-at-home dad, I get a lot of time to think about toys and games: what will keep my boys (4 and 1) busy in a way that keeps both entertained, and I won't have to grow extra arms?

And how to do it on a budget?

Let's quickly digress with some advice about digital content creation from one of the greats, Jay Baer. Jay is a huge advocate of getting the most bang for your content production dollars by stretching the things you've created across multiple platforms and audiences so that every piece of content becomes 8 pieces of content.

It's all about taking something big and atomizing it, chopping it up into its component parts that are each addressing separate issues and audiences.

This principle works not just for digital content, but in my personal life too! Anyone who has had to live on a budget knows how to stretch out meals or turn trash into treasure with recycled art.

In my case, I blew up 8 balloons for 1 birthday party and we can play 8 different games—per child!—with these balloons. How's that for an 8-out-of-1 content strategy?!

Let's list em!

Balloon Games for 4-year-olds:

1. Catch

2. Balloon Soccer

3. Balloon Bash

4. Hot Potato

5. Balloon Fight

6. Buried Alive in Balloons

7. Volleyballoon

8. Balloon Dress-Up

Balloon Games for 1-year-olds

1. Hold the balloon

2. Drop the balloon

3. Push the balloon

4. Cuddle the balloon

5. Bite the balloon

6. Bite the balloon some more

7. Keep on biting the balloon

8. Inspect the balloon with teeth

Looking for your own ballooning ideas?

The good folks at Party City have tons to choose from.

That’s where I got mine, and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase.