Serious advise!

My baby is almost 1 year and I had my first period November 5th.  My periods tend to be light and have always been irregular.  Well today I started my 2nd period since before pregnancy. My problem is that my husband is always out of town so I am having a hard time telling him what days he HAS to be home so that we can make baby #2. I attempted to track last month but ovulation tests seem extremely expensive and I bought a bunch of them...and they always seemed to show nothing saying fire sure yes or no. What really worked for you tracking your ovulation? Do you think it's true that having sex the day you ovulate creates males because they swim faster than females?