How To Shop for Thanksgiving Dinner on a Budget

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Are you trying to stick to a Thanksgiving dinner on a budget? Sometimes you can get caught up in thinking you have to spend more money than you should. Here is everything I did to stick to my budget for Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Can you believe it?! I definitely can’t believe it. November has been flying by, and I want it to stop! However, I am very excited to spend the day and have Thanksgiving dinner with all of my family. It’s something I look forward to every year.

This year we have four separate family dinners. Yes, I said four. LOL. I’m so thankful for all the family I get to spend Thanksgiving with this year. It’s an exciting year, and we get to have one of Thanksgiving dinner with just our little family at our place. With that being said I am looking forward to having our own little Thanksgiving dinner. It will be our first year doing it. And I am so excited that I will be the one cooking the meal!

I was however not to excited about spending the money on the dinner. Thanksgiving dinner can get expensive especially if you don’t shop the deals and sales. However, I did shop the deals and sales. And have found that you can have Thanksgiving dinner while on a budget and still have a nice dinner for you and your family.

If you shop right and don’t get all the expensive and fancy things. It’s definitely doable. So here is Thanksgiving dinner on a budget!

Thanksgiving Dinner on A Budget

Sometimes I think everyone gets to wrapped up in the holidays and they think that a whole bunch of money needs to be spent in order for it to be special. I however don’t think that it has to be that way.

If you have the money to spend and want to spend a lot on the holidays, go for it, but if you don’t have the extra money and have to shop on a budget, there is also nothing wrong with that.

Either way the holidays are meant to be spent with your family and to be thankful for everything you do have. The holidays have nothing to do with how much money you spend on them. So, if you’re feeling down because you can’t spend the money you want this holiday season don’t let it bring you down.

I’m hoping by sharing my Thanksgiving dinner on a budget that you’re able to see that it’s okay to shop on a budget for the holidays and then you can save some money this Thanksgiving.

Here is what I did

First and foremost, you have to make sure you write a well detailed list of everything you want to make for Thanksgiving dinner, and the full recipes. You also want to try and shop early so the grocery stores have everything you need.

When having Thanksgiving dinner on a budget it may seem like you can’t have the dinner you want. That however is not the case. I was able to get everything I wanted for our family for under $30 dollars, and that was including dessert!

If your family is bigger you may need to plan for it to be a little bit more than what I spent. We are a family of four and have a toddler and newborn.

We are so Thankful that we are able to spend Thanksgiving together and have a dinner. I know not everyone has the opportunity to do this.

I’m going to share everything I will be making for my Thanksgiving dinner and how much I spent on it.

Our Thanksgiving dinner on a budget isn’t the most luxuries meal ever but I definitely think it’s better than most people expect when shopping on a budget, and I do think you will be surprised on what I spend on our Thanksgiving dinner.

My Thanksgiving dinner

• Ham
• Mashed potatoes
• Chicken gravy
• Stuffing
• Rolls
• Green beans
• Apple pie
• Sparkling juice

My Thanksgiving dinner grocery list

• Ham
• Red potatoes
• Two packets of chicken gravy
• One box of stuffing
• Dinner rolls
• Canned green beans
• Apples
• Pie crust
• Sparkling juice

I made sure that I shopped any sales the grocery store had, so I do suggest that you do the same. I also decided to make homemade mashed potatoes and homemade apple pie, but either way making them homemade or not it came out to be just about the same price.

I bought all my Thanksgiving dinner items at Walmart. I do know some smaller grocery stores can have great deals, so make sure you see what store you can shop the best deals at!

Ham

Hams can be crazy expensive. Especially if you don’t buy them on sale. My family however didn’t need a big ham so that saved me a ton!

I bought a small classic sliced ham for $9.86. It came out to $4.98 a pound. I bought an almost 2lb ham. This ham will also leave us with leftovers so we can make different meals with it.

The ham did save me a huge amount because we didn’t need anything super big, so if you are needing a bigger ham just make sure you try to buy it when it’s on sale.

Red potatoes

I use red potatoes for my homemade mashed potatoes. You can really use any potatoes though!

I bought the potatoes for $3.84 and that was for a 5lb bag. I definitely will not be using the whole bag though!

Chicken gravy

You can’t forget the gravy for the mashed potatoes! My husband’s favorite kind of gravy is chicken gravy, so that’s what I decided to buy for our family.

I bought 2 packets of chicken gravy for $0.74. totaling to $1.48.

Stuffing

Stuffing is one of my favorite Thanksgiving sides, so I made sure to have this be in our Thanksgiving dinner on a budget.

I bought one box of chicken stuffing mix for $1.98

Dinner rolls

Who doesn’t have dinner rolls at Thanksgiving dinner? I know that dinner rolls have always been on my plate for Thanksgiving dinner.

I bought frozen dinner rolls for $4.84. I went shopping a little in advance and I didn’t want the bakery rolls to go bad before our Thanksgiving dinner.

The frozen ones were a little bit more expensive than that bakery ones though, so if you are really needing to save a couple extra bucks then you can definitely just get the bakery dinner rolls.

Canned green beans

I don’t know what it is about green beans with Thanksgiving dinner, but they always taste so much better.

I bought one can of green beans for $0.50.

Green apples and pie crust

You can’t forget the dessert! Apple pie is mine and my husband’s favorite pie, so it’s the pie we decided would be best to have after our dinner.

I also decided to make the apple pie homemade. I really love baking and homemade apple pies taste so much better!

I bought green apples for $4.12. That was for a 3lb bag.

I bought the pie crust for $1.97, and I bought two of them. So, the total was $3.94.

Sparkling juice

My husband doesn’t drink, and I only do once in a while. Plus, we have a toddler. So that’s why we decided to get sparkling juice to have with our dinner.

I bought a bottle of welches sparkling juice for $3.98.

The total price

Our Thanksgiving dinner on a budget came out to $25.72 before taxes. For a family of four I think that’s a great price. Especially for everything that we got.

We were able to have dessert and even were able to have a fancy drink and all for under $30.

I will be able to make some leftover recipes too so that’s a big plus for me.

Scalloped potatoes and ham sounds AMAZING, and I will for sure be making it!

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful

The holidays have always been really important to me. I’ve always tried to spend as much money as possible on them. I thought that in order for them to be special I had to spend a bunch of money. Even if I didn’t have the money to do it.

That however is not the case. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful and a time to spend with family. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on Thanksgiving dinner or anything else for it to be special.

Now that I finally understand this, I want to also show you that spending a lot of money has nothing to do with the holidays. Whether you have a bunch of money and want to spend it on the holidays or if you don’t. that doesn’t matter.

You can budget for the holidays. Nothing is wrong with you if you do. I actually think it’s a good idea to budget even if you have all the money in the world to spend on the holidays.

I hope this Thanksgiving dinner on a budget me and my family had also helped you so you can afford Thanksgiving dinner this year with your family, and maybe also save some money.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This post was all about how to shop for Thanksgiving dinner on a budget.

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