In the winter, I start saving my food containers and recycle them to start growing my seeds indoors. Yogurt, cottage cheese, or mushroom containers are free planters and work nicely to get those delicate seeds a healthy start by the time they're ready to weather outdoors.
If you have flowerpots and want to prevent any mess, you might try adding a coffee filter to the bottom of the pot before adding your soil.
Go to your grocery store and head to the bakery department. Chances are if you ask them for a bucket that came with icing or filling they will give you one for free. These cleaned buckets can store your potting soil indoors before you start planting.
Any time you work with soil and want to save yourself a lot of aggravation in cleaning your fingernails, I have a suggestion. Get a bar of soap and scrape your fingernails against it. This soap barrier will help save you that ugly brown dirt look on your fingernails that never seems to completely wash clean regardless of how hard or long you scrub. I like to do this soap trick even when wearing gardening gloves for any dirt that escapes inside and attacks my fingertips.
I found that if you paint your gardening tools bright colors or even buy tools that are an eye-popping shade of red or yellow, then those you drop will be easier to find. Those dark colors are often harder to spot.
Here's something helpful to remember before you attach your gardening hose to the spigot. Rub the end of the hose with petroleum jelly first as well as adding some around the spigot itself first before screwing it on. This simple precaution will help the hose screw on and off with relative ease.
Before you use your pruning shears again, you may want to try this tip to clean them for better cutting action. Save an old toothbrush and dip it in some kerosense outdoors to rub against the blades of your old pruning shears. Afterwards, wipe the blades clean with a rag and then apply a light lubricating oil such as WD40.
These are just some shortcuts to save you time and money while gardening. I hope you find them helpful.