Ball joint: Car on jackstands (unless you have a nice lift available) with wheels off the ground. Push & pull at the bottom of the wheel - 6 o'clock position. In and out. It will take quite some effort. You can either feel the movement or have someone observe at a safe distance to see if there is any movement in the ball joint. There is no tolerance: any movement indicates a bad ball joint.
Tie rod: same position on jacks. Push - pull at 9 and 3 o'clock positions. looseness indicates ball joint at end of tie rod or inner part is loose. Like the ball joint, there is no tolerance. Any observable looseness indicates a need to repair.
Wheel bearing: This one is tricky to discern between it and a CV joint problem. Wheel bearings tend to howl or growl at you no matter the power (on or off, meaning foot on or off the go-pedal) and the 'tone' will rise and fall with vehicle speed. It may or may not manifest when the wheel is unloaded (vehicle on jackstands and spinning the wheel by hand or under engine power). More often it is heard while the wheel is loaded while driving. Loading or unloading (on the outside or inside of a turn) sometimes helps determine which side wheel bearing is bad. CV joints will tend to click if they are going bad under these conditions (CV joint in a turn) which will differentiate them from wheel bearings.
The upside: you can fix all these things yourself. The downside, it can't be explained in a short posting, and some special tools are required. Check the how-to stickies by Wing Nut or use searches. Another good source is JasonTDI who isn't that far away from you. He's got reasonable rates and is a great resource.