Thanksgiving Meal on a Tight Budget
With my tight budget (burdened more by my teens’ legal fees lately), I have less money to spend on extras like holiday meals. Lavish Thanksgiving will not be served for Diaz’s meal this year. However, we can still—and should—feast a little bit. We just had to play scavenger hunt in our pantry. The menu I came up with help us have at least six servings of food with plenty of leftovers.
Making Thanksgiving Meal on a Tight Budget
- Cook what you have. The dishes I picked are according to what I already had in hand. They cover some flavor of a Thanksgiving spread. I have mashed potatoes from scratch, pumpkin spice cake, butternut squash soup, and beef-stuffing meat loaf. For the side, I prepared an untraditional Korean dish—mung bean sprouts with sesame.
- Cut corners. I used some recipes I found online. I do not have all the ingredients but I tweaked to accommodate for what I lack as I learned not to be a slave to a recipe. I cut corners when I have to.
- Skip the wine. Wine will not be served this holiday because the last time (was it Christmas 2013?) the leftover wine “evaporated” overnight. I am still not sure who witnessed the speedy evaporation—my teen son or daughter. Anyway, with no wine, I spend even less this holiday. We will have water to drink. It does not cost and it does not evaporate as fast.
As I have my teens who are literally physically stronger than I am, I asked for their help. My daughter baked the cake, and my son, well, maybe he will help clean up. Maybe.
Here's what we made. There are "teen-tested, mom-Carin approved," except for the soup. It is still slow cooking.
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Meat Loaf with Stuffing Mix |
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Mashed Potato |
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Korean Sesame Mung Bean Sprouts |
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The four-ingredient Pumpkin Spice cake recipe. I had to add melted white chocolate and cinnamon with the two-ingredient cake recipe. |
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We are having our Thanksgiving meal early. Nobody says we couldn't. |
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Butternut Squash Soup in the making. I decided to start ahead and have hot soup by tomorrow. |
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