Spending $50, Saving $200 on Christmas Dinner and Holiday Foods

Each year I go overboard with the food expenses for the holidays. I spend an enormous amount of money for our Christmas dinner and holiday foods, and decided this year I am breaking the habit. I still plan to create a scrumptious meal for my family, but I'm not cooking enough for a buffet, or standing in the kitchen all day. I've decided to stick to a respectable plan with three sides, a bread, one dessert and a main protein dish. This immediately cuts back on the amount of money compared to previous Christmas dinners and holiday foods.

Limited parties

Since my family is new to the area we have not been invited to any holiday parties, which means we won't spend money on hors d'oeuvres or desserts. Although we only go to one holiday party during the winter season it still saves us $15 to $30, or more depending on the food we'd take to the party.

Excluding hors d'oeuvres

I usually make three or four hors d'oeuvres the day of Christmas, but I'm not doing that this year. It will only be the four of us, and creating a spread of hors d'oeuvres is more work than it's worth. My children won't eat much from veggie and fruit trays or stuffed mushrooms so I'm not going to spend money on something I'll have to eat for the following week. For example, the ingredients for stuffed mushrooms are about $12 since I don't normally have these ingredients on hand. By not having a veggie platter, fruit tray and stuffed mushrooms we're saving nearly $40.

Substantial price difference in past Christmas dinners

In our home I plan to serve a nice dinner, but nothing too crazy this year. I normally serve turkey, with another meat, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, rice, fresh green beans, green bean casserole, rolls, dressing, asparagus, and several desserts. The cost of this nearly equals $150, and then we eat leftovers for several days. I plan to make ham this year, and serve a nice dinner with zucchini, mashed potatoes, honey-glazed carrots, corn bread and caramelized apples, and using these to create breakfast recipes the next day. The only additional cost will be the ham, since I don't have that in my refrigerator normally. This will cost $25.

That is a substantial difference in the past amounts I've spent on Christmas dinner. In all, our total for holiday foods will be nearly $50, and that includes the price of the ham and the small last minute items from the store. Without any parties or additional foods we save nearly $200 for holiday foods.