Early Thanksgiving Shopping and Cooking Can Save You Money

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. My husband and I try not to travel on Thanksgiving since we hop from house to house for Christmas. Our families do not live close to us, and our house is not big enough for more than two family members at a time, so we generally spend Thanksgiving by ourselves or with friends who cannot make it home and with friends who come and go throughout the day.

Even if the main meal is only spent between the two of us, I still like to make a full course meal. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without our favorites and there is nothing like cold turkey sandwiches and apple pie for breakfast with all the leftovers.

We do not have a large amount of money to spend on Thanksgiving and I begin my planning rather far in advance so that I have everything we could want on that day. Due to limited space, I also cook parts of the meal well in advance. I also have a milk allergy and by cooking at home I know that there are no parts of the meal that I have to do without! All of this extra planning and early preparation saves us money and allows us to spread the cost of Thanksgiving over a month or more instead of having to spend all the money for the dinner in one week.

Our Thanksgiving dinner consists of the normal Thanksgiving fare. We have sweet potato casserole, homemade yeast rolls, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, dumplings, stuffing, pies, and, of course, the turkey. I usually try a new recipe of some sort each year also. This year is even tighter than usual and I will be sticking to our basic meal. This may seem like a lot for two people, and it generally is, but I try to make somewhat smaller amounts and we have plenty for people that drop in and for leftovers.

I begin very early shopping for Thanksgiving dinner, it's not even November and I am already stocking up! Each trip I make to the grocery store I try to buy something for the dinner. On my last trip I had extra money so I went ahead and bought the turkey. The biggest and most expensive part of the dinner is already bought and sitting frozen in my freezer.

On another trip I picked up a frozen apple pie because I learned long ago that I do not make good apple pies. This will also be an excellent dessert if I happen to, in some way, ruin the cherry pie or the pumpkin pie.

Making parts of your meal ahead of time can save you time and help you have less stress on the big day. Of course, everyone loves fresh out of the oven food but a few items cooked ahead of time will hardly be noticed amidst all the other food.

A friend of ours brought over sweet potatoes from his father's garden. We could not have ate them all anyway so I went ahead and partially prepared the sweet potato casserole. On Thanksgiving I will only have to throw on the topping and bake it. This was very budget friendly for us this year because the sweet potatoes were free and I already had the other ingredients on hand!

Pumpkin pie can also be made ahead and frozen and since I make all of our bread from scratch due to my allergies I will also make the dough for the yeast rolls and freeze it.

Other items I will gradually buy over the next month, especially if they are on sale, are green beans, French fried onions and stuffing. I will probably try to pick up another frozen dessert for friends that stop by.

This will only leave fresh vegetables and the ingredients for cherry pie that will need to be picked up the weak of thanksgiving and most of the vegetables, like potatoes, are vegetables I would have bought anyway.

By planning early, preparing sides and desserts ahead, and buying the ingredients throughout a month and a half, I will save money and save some of my sanity on Thanksgiving Day!