Search Results for: budget

7 Ways to Save on Your Thanksgiving Celebration

November 5, 2016 By MelissaB 1 Comment

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to celebrate, spend time with family and friends, and eat delicious food. After all, on this holiday, food is front and center. Yet, preparing for a Thanksgiving dinner can create quite a strain on the wallet. The average family spent approximately $50.11 on Thanksgiving dinner in 2015 (WGN). That’s quite a bit of money to spend on one meal.

However, there are ways to trim corners without sacrificing quality.

Have a potluck

7 ways to save on thanksgiving — Have a frugal Thanksgiving

If you’re inviting family and friends, consider having a potluck meal. Ask your guests to bring a dessert, side dish, or drinks. You’ll have a lavish spread with a lot of variety, but you won’t be the only one paying for all of the food.

Don’t make an abundance of food

At most Thanksgiving meals, the table overflows with food. Leftovers are abundant. Yet, many people don’t like leftovers, or, even if they do, they struggle to finish all of the Thanksgiving leftovers before they go bad. Save money by cutting back on the quantity of food that you make. You’ll want to have enough to feed your family but not enough that you have leftovers for days. . .and days. . .and days.

Limit your selection of foods

Every family has at least one Thanksgiving dish that no one really likes. In our family, it’s corn casserole. Instead of making many different side dishes, decide on just a few that are well loved.

Buy foods on sale

Beginning about three to four weeks before Thanksgiving, start shopping the ads. Buy the non-perishables that you’ll need as they go on sale. Each week, allot a certain amount of your grocery budget for Thanksgiving food purchases. If you decide to spend $10 to $15 per week on Thanksgiving meal foods for the three weeks before Thanksgiving, you won’t feel as much pain at the check out compared to doing all of your Thanksgiving shopping in one week.

Shop around for the turkey

Shop around for the best deal on turkey. Many grocery stores offer steep discounts on turkeys if you spend a certain amount on your other groceries, say $25 or $30. Do your regular grocery shopping when you buy a turkey so it’s not hard to find foods to buy for the amount you’re required to spend to get the deal price.

Use a warehouse store

If you don’t have time to shop around, consider buying many of your Thanksgiving meal foods at a warehouse store. This is especially useful if you’re cooking for a crowd and will need a lot of Thanksgiving foods anyway.

Buy some food for next year

If you have money in your budget, consider buying food for NEXT Thanksgiving after this Thanksgiving is over. You may find turkeys and other non-perishables like cranberries, stuffing mix, and other Thanksgiving food items on steep discount. If you put the turkey in the deep freezer, it will be fine to use for next year. If the non-perishables have a long shelf life, you can keep those in your pantry until next Thanksgiving.

Following these tips, Thanksgiving can be an enjoyable holiday that doesn’t break the bank.

How do you save on your Thanksgiving meal?

8 Ways to Save on Halloween

September 26, 2016 By MelissaB Leave a Comment

Halloween is fun for kids of all ages, including adults who are kids at heart. However, what isn’t so fun is the hefty price tag that often comes along with the fun-filled day. In fact, a “new poll from the National Retail Federation projects that Halloween revelers will spend. . .an average of $82.93 per shopper” (USA Today) this year. That’s more frightful than the Halloween decorations that may cover your yard. Use these tips to help you save on Halloween spending this season so you can still have a fun Halloween without breaking the bank.

Halloween Decorations

8 Tips to save on halloween — Save on Halloween Spending

There are plenty of ways to get Halloween decorations for a fraction of the cost. My favorite way is to buy Halloween decorations at yard sales. (In fact, that’s how I buy all of my decorations!) Or, if you have patience and would like to buy new, you can check out the clearance sales after Halloween is over. That’s how I bought a good supply of Halloween and fall-themed towels, at more than 75% off.

Halloween Costumes

Halloween costumes bought new can cost anywhere from $25 to upwards of $100 for fancier costumes. Yikes! We have three kids, so to spend that kind of money on costumes is not practical. Instead, we employ a variety of strategies to save on costumes.

Homemade

My son went as a knight one year. We found the vest at Goodwill for $5. We pared that with black pants and a white shirt that he already had. Then he made a shield out of cardboard from a large box and covered it in tin foil and put a design on it. He actually wore that costume for two years in a row.

Bought on discount

Our girls typically like fancier costumes, so we tend to buy them immediately after Halloween is over at a steep discount. Our favorite stores to shop are Disney and Gymboree. I can find cute Gymboree Halloween costumes for less than $10 immediately after Halloween.

Use what you already have

Another idea is to use what you already have. If your son has a baseball uniform, why not go as a baseball player? If your daughter is taking ballet class, why not go as a ballerina?

Halloween Candy

If you live in a subdivision, you likely get a lot of trick-or-treaters. The price of candy can really add up, but it doesn’t have to.

Buy the candy at a warehouse store

If you’re a member of Sam’s Club or Costco, you can buy candy in bulk for less than your local grocery store chain sells it.

Buy cheaper candy

You don’t have to buy expensive candy for trick-or-treaters. Instead, buy cheaper candy like suckers, Smarties, and candies like that.

Have a limit

Set a budget for how much you want to spend on candy and limit your purchase to that amount. When you run out, turn off your outdoor light and don’t answer the door anymore.

Halloween is a fun-filled holiday. You can still be festive without spending a fortune.

What are your favorite tips for saving on Halloween décor, costumes, and treats?

Frugal Tools and Strategies to Help Busy Families Get Organized

March 14, 2016 By MelissaB 1 Comment

If you’re like most families, you’re busy. You spend too much time in your car running from activity to activity, and you spend too much money buying food out on the nights you don’t have time to cook. Your house may be in a state of perpetual chaos.

This upcoming year, especially February through May, my family will be very busy. To make sure that we remain organized, I’ve started using several tools and strategies. Even though we’ll be busy, I plan to still have time to make food at home, keep the house clean, and maintain my budget.

Tools I Plan To Use

Motivated Moms. Motivated Moms is an app or PDF file of a list of weekly chores meant to keep your home tidy. I love that they think of tasks I always forget like clip the kids’ fingernails and clean the toaster in addition to more basic chores like vacuum the livingroom, etc.

I bought the entire year PDF for $6. The chores for each day will be assigned to me and my kids based on level of difficulty. Between the four of us, I’m sure we can knock out the chores for each day in 20 minutes or less working together.

Subscribe to eMeals. For busy families, eMeals can literally save you hundreds of dollars. For just $69 for a 12 month subscription, which averages $5.75 a month, you’ll get a custom meal plan for the week as well as a grocery list for all of the items you’ll need. eMeals has 20 different meal plans to choose from including Paula Deen, slow cooker, Paleo, and many others. Just choose the one that works best for your family. Best of all, most meals are never repeated, so you get variety all year long!

Strategies I Plan to Use

In addition to the tools mentioned above, I plan to implement a few strategies to stay organized.

Get up early. I really don’t like getting up early, but doing so let’s me get some of my freelance work done and also gives me time to exercise. If I exercise early in the morning, I know it will get done. If I wait until the evening, I almost never exercise.

Make freezer meals. In the upcoming months, we’ll have three days a week where we will be gone all day, only coming home in time for dinner. I’ve already started making freezer meals. On the three busy days a week, I’ll simply put the freezer meals in the slow cooker. We’ll come home to a hot cooked meal, eliminating the dinner scramble. On the other days, I’ll use eMeals’ meal suggestions.

If you don’t have a full day to devote to a freezer cooking session, just double the meals you are making for the next two weeks or so and put one half in the freezer.

Make a schedule and stick to it. I plan to make a schedule I can stick to and follow it. That will help me manage my time. For instance, I do one load of laundry a day; I’ll start it when I get up at 5 a.m. so it’s done before the day gets too busy.

Keep a regular sleep schedule. When people get busy, they tend to skimp on sleep. I plan on going to bed no later than 10 p.m. so I’ll be able to get up at 5 a.m. I know skimping on sleep will ultimately make me less productive as the days go on.

Do you have a busy schedule? If so, what tools and strategies do you use to stay organized and resist the temptation to spend money on conveniences?