Growing up I remember my parents hosting a lot. Ours was the house within the extended family that was large enough to accommodate everyone and my parents were always willing and welcoming hosts. In fact, we pretty much had a year-round open door policy, not just on holidays. Anyone and everyone was always welcome. There was always food for everyone and always beer and wine for those who wanted it. My friends eventually came to realize that they would get fed if they were at our house during meal times, sometimes by force, if necessary. Sometimes for some events we would end up with more guests than expected. Other times we would have people spontaneously stop by, and then some more, until a party would be born out of nothing. I remember there were times after my siblings and I were old enough drive when one of us would be discreetly taken aside by one of our parents and told to sneak out and go buy more beer, food, or whatever they were worried was in too short of supply. But for the most part, my parents always tried to make sure the cupboards and fridges were always full and prepared for just such occasions.
As I got older I would start to play a bigger role in party planning and preparation. I would get sent on errands to buy provisions and in so doing, I started to become aware of just how much my parents would spend to host. It was a sobering realization. Over the years my parents spent thousands and thousands of dollars entertaining family and friends for holidays, special occasions, birthdays, etc. And I’m quite certain they don’t regret spending a single penny of it. These are the things, I’m sure they would tell you, that make life worth living. I tend to think they have a good point, But then again, they are my parents and they raised me so it’s not surprising that I feel the same way as they do. I should also add at this point that we weren’t rich. They just thought that celebrating and hospitality were things worth spending their hard earned money on. They would squabble over pennies for everyday expenses like a lot of families do. Just not when it came to entertaining (especially for holidays).
For people who try to live frugally, the idea of hosting can be downright scary. You want to be a good host while entertaining friends and family but if you’re living on a budget and worried about money, trying to do so while watching the purse strings can lead to stress and anxiety. It can be a delicate balance. But there are ways to pull it off if you try.
Allow me to offer a case study in frugal party planning: My daughter’s first birthday party. It wasn’t necessarily all planned with frugality in mind but as I look back, I can see a lot of useful lessons and tips on how to host on the cheap.
5 Tips on how to host frugally (but not cheaply!)
1. Limit your guest list
“Large” or “small” as adjectives to describe parties and guest lists are completely relative. To some cultures, a wedding of 200 people is considered downright intimate while to others it’s obscenely huge. So it goes for babies’ first birthday parties. I’ve been to first birthdays with 80+ guests before. But I’m sure in some households there are a grand total of two people in attendance.
Obviously providing food and drink for fewer people will cost you less in the end, all else equal. This of course goes against my parents’ open door policy (and my own, frankly), but it can make a big difference. That said, I have also come to realize in my wise old age that sometimes people view invitations as obligations more than a thing they want to do. There are people who just might not rather be invited. In the end if there is someone you want at your event, then you should invite them. But once you get into “well we invited X, so we should probably invite Y”, well now you’re playing with fire.
What did we do? We realized that the party was more for us than it was for our daughter, who would of course not remember the event at all. We decided to limit the guest list to our immediate families and 2-3 close friends who also had young children. We still ended up with a guest list of about 30, one third of whom were children or toddlers. This number included my wife and I and our little guest of honour. You might be thinking this seems like a pretty big guest list for a one year old, but like I said, I’ve been to much bigger.
2. Host during the day
Most people tend to eat the most at supper time. Likewise, most people tend to do most of their drinking at night.
So hosting an event during the afternoon means your guests are most likely going to eat and drink less than they would if you asked them to arrive in the evening.
I’m not suggesting you should plan a party in such a way that you don’t have to feed or properly lubricate your guests. That would be silly. But the nature of the event which you are hosting will likely dictate appropriate times to have your party. In our case, it was a one year old’s birthday party. What time would you expect us to have that? For us it was more circumstance than anything, but it did help keep costs down.
3. Accept help!
There are lots of guests out there who will offer to help. Accept their help! If someone asks you whether they can bring something, give it some thought. Chances are they can help in such a way that will save you some time and also maybe save you a few dollars.
Does that mean you should ask one of your generous guests to bring lobster or prime rib for everyone? Of course not. You definitely shouldn’t impose a big financial burden on these lovely guests. The goal here is not to shift your financial burden onto others. On the other hand, little things can add up. If you have a few helpful individuals offering to bring something, collectively they can make a bigger difference for you while not individually costing each of them very much at all.
What did we do? My mom brought a veggie tray. My mother-in-law brought a fruit platter. My sister brought coleslaw and a salad, each of which she lovingly made herself. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the cost of cabbage and lettuce lately but it’s not very much. The cost to each of these family members was likely in the $10 or under range. Collectively though all this help probably saved Mrs. CIQY and I close to $40 and a lot of time and effort. Also in my experience people often will overlook vegetables as sides. Asking a willing guest to bring a vegetable side dish can be a great way to round out a meal and it won’t cost your guest very much at all.
4. Choose to serve the right food (a.k.a “My secret weapon”)
As I alluded in the previous point, serving your guests prime rib and lobster will set you back a fair bit. On the other hand, my parents would certainly not approve if their son invited people to his home and didn’t make an effort to provide more than enough good food to eat. That’s just bad hosting and it’s definitely not how they raised me.
But as any frugal grocery shopper will tell you, you can feed a lot of people for very little if you’re clever about what you serve. Choose wisely and shop carefully and a dollar can go farther than you might expect.
Well I have a secret weapon in these circumstances. Unfortunately it won’t necessarily help everyone who might have some dietary restrictions, because my secret weapon is pulled pork. (Sorry to my Jewish, Muslim, and vegetarian friends). If you’re a barbecue specialist, then this should come easy to you. If you aren’t, then go to Pinterest or Google and search for “slow cooker pulled pork” and choose from one of hundreds of recipes. You basically need pork, sauce, a slow cooker and time and you’re all set. We bought a whole pork loin, about 6 pounds of meat, for about $18 at Costco. We spent another $10-15 on buns.
Don’t like pulled pork? How about souvlaki? All you need to do is take that same 6lb pork loin, cut it into cubes, marinate it, skewer it and grill it. Sub out the buns for pitas and voila, you’ve got a Greek feast to feed lots of people. The point is, pork is cheap and versatile. And darn tasty (for those who eat it).
And we also got an extra large, party size vegetarian pizza for a little variety (and for our guests who don’t eat pork specifically or meat generally) which cost about $13. There was way more than enough food. For about $45 we fed almost 30 people and had leftovers for a few days.
5. Don’t go overboard
Because I am my parents’ son, this is the lesson that has been the hardest for me to learn. Our family’s philosophy on food and hosting was that it was better to have too much than not enough. But “too much” for us didn’t just apply to quantity of food. It also applied to variety. Over time and with the sobering influence of Mrs. CIQY I have come to accept that sometimes less is better.
I’m a big fan of variety. People like choices. I’m no different. But I also remember the stress my mom used to go through when preparing for big events. She would choose to do so many things and inevitably find herself short on time. She would manage to get everything done but she would sacrifice on rest, so when it was time for the event she would often find herself exhausted and unable to really enjoy herself with her guests. This always seemed kind of silly to me. I mean isn’t the point of it all to spend time with loved ones and have fun?
And truthfully a lot of the time she was just going overboard. She would decide to cook roast beef. But then she would also make some chicken, in case some people don’t like beef. And then a ham, in case some people don’t like chicken. And then cook a lasagna in case… you get the idea. And in the end none of her guests would be picky. Everyone would try a little bit of everything and consequently everyone would overeat. Not exactly a healthy approach either. Sometimes learning when you have enough is the key to saving time, money, effort and caloric intake. As a chronic overeater, this has been a hard lesson for me to learn, but a valuable one nonetheless.
For our little celebration, we had the pork, the pizza, some salads, veggies and fruit. And of course birthday cake! (Which we also bought at Costco for $24 and was way more than enough for everyone and then some.) We didn’t go overboard but we had a really nice spread and everyone was happy. It didn’t cost us much, because it didn’t need to.
So there you have it. Those are my tips. I’m not suggesting we threw the world’s most frugal party. I know there are other great and inexpensive ways to feed people, but this is what we chose for that particular occasion. Everyone had a great time, we didn’t go overboard, and because we made a few clever choices, we were able to keep the costs nice and low. And since my daughter’s birthday is in late December, a fun but affordable event was exactly what we needed.
What about you? What are your frugal party tips?