Thanksgiving is a time to relax and enjoy a nice dinner with your loved ones. You don’t want to spend it stressing over the Thanksgiving budget; you want to spend it having an enjoyable day with friends and relatives, and relaxing on the couch with a tryptophan-induced nap.
Try these tips to save dollars on your holiday spread and avoid worrying about holiday budgeting woes.
- Host a Potluck – Split the mealtime burden up by making Thanksgiving a potluck dinner. Not only will this distribute the economic burden among the Thanksgiving table, it offers a chance for new and interesting side dishes and desserts. You may end up with some tasty variations that become new family traditions.
You may want to coordinate the dishes with all of the expected guests so you don’t end up with 15 desserts and no side dishes. Not that there’s anything wrong with 15 desserts, but some of your guests may insist on something a little more substantial.
If you are hosting a large group, buy your supplies in bulk from warehouse stores or check for bulk bargains at your local grocery store. You may also find useful coupons in your paper, in grocery store flyers, or at online coupon sites.
After the holiday, you can check craft and hobby stores for discounted Thanksgiving decorations that you can store and use for next year – although you may want to wait until after the craziness of Black Friday settles down.
If you have an accurate head count for the holiday, you should have a pretty good idea of how much food to prepare. You can also have creative backup plans for any leftovers instead of just living off turkey sandwiches. Consider using your leftover turkey creatively by including it in casseroles and salads, or perhaps a nice turkey chili.
We hope that these tips can help you avoid budget stress at Thanksgiving. If you are going to stress over Thanksgiving, make it for the traditional reasons – unexpected guests, political discussions at the dinner table, the poor performance of your favorite football team, and Uncle Murray loudly laughing at the same jokes he told last year.
This article was provided by our partners at moneytips.com.
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