by Laurie Childree

Created on: November 27, 2009

Christmas of 2009 is almost here and a lot of people are still feeling the effects of job loss. With so many people having been out of work for extended periods of time an increasing number of people are having Christmas dinner on a budget that is rather tight this year. This leaves them searching for ways to save money on their Christmas groceries. There are several things that can be done to assist in these efforts.

Set a Budget

Determine how much you have to spend on the dinner and take it from there. When you know how much you have you'll know what you're working with and that'll make it easier to save money on the dinner. When you set the monthly grocery budget you can try to fit Christmas dinner into the budget that you have for groceries.

Plan Ahead

Once you've finished Thanksgiving and gotten the tree all decorated it's time to begin planning for the Christmas meal. When you plan ahead you will start by making the menu. Knowing what you want to have will help you to know what you are going to need. For instance if you want Turkey or Ham as the traditional meal or something non-traditional like spaghetti you'll know which one to buy. The number of people that you are having for dinner will affect what you have and how much you need.

Find out where you are going for Christmas dinner as this will effect what you have to purchase. When you go off for the dinner you'll likely only need to take one thing but if everyone is coming to you they'll be more than one thing that you need.

Ask Everyone to Bring Something

When everyone is coming to your house for Christmas dinner you can ask everyone to bring at least one thing. Once you want to know what you want to have for dinner you can cover all your bases. You can figure out who's bringing which main dishes and who's bringing what deserts. This will help you go make the shopping list that you need, and save some electricity since your stove won't be used as much during the holiday.

Avoid Pre-made items

When saving money on your Christmas dinner you'll want to make as much as you can from scratch or as close too it as you can get. You'll also want to check the cabinets for the things that you already have so you can set them aside for the day that you make the dinner.

Shop with a List

Once you have all the details planned out make a grocery list to shop by. When you make the list visualize the grocery store in your mind and organize the list by where everything is in the store. Start at the entrance and follow through all the way to the check out line. This will cut down on impulse purchases as long as you follow that list you made.

Sales and Coupons

Watch for sales a few weeks before Christmas and use the coupons that you have to go along with them. There is no need to pay full price for everything or anything on the list for that matter.

You can save money on Christmas dinner and still have enough to fill everyone up.

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