10 Money Saving Hacks For Christmas Dinner
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Christmas dinner is easily one of the most expensive meals of the year – we all seem to go mad, overbuy and end up spending a fortune. With not long left until Christmas Day, I look at a few quick ways you can save on Christmas Dinner.
Money Saving Hacks for Christmas Dinner
Whether you have five guests or fifty, it’s easy to overspend on Christmas Dinner. Whether it’s buying ‘the best’ of everything when actually the own brand tastes exactly the same or buying enough food to feed the five thousand the costs can quickly mount up.
1. Buying Yellow Stickers
Buying reduced food is always my go-to tip when it comes to saving money as the majority of the food I buy is from there. This year I’ve been buying and freezing various bits from the reduced section as well as using vouchers and coupons to save as much money as I possibly can on the big Christmas Shop.
Things I’ve bought I have bought this year include reduced ham and beef slices from the deli so save us buying full joints and stilton and manchego cheeses, bother of which were better than half price when I picked them up. I have also bought parsnips which were reduced to 10p, cooked them and frozen meaning one less thing to do on Christmas morning.
Related Post – Try These Tips For Hosting Christmas Dinner
If you’re feeling very brave you could attempt to get the majority of your reduced food late afternoon on Christmas Eve. You could save a lot of money BUT there could be a disappointment if items you desperately wanted are out of stock.
I tend to use Christmas Eve reductions to stock up during the post-Christmas and New Years’ period now that the joints of meat and desserts etc have been removed from the freezer. If you do decide to try this don’t forget to check supermarket opening times, as most will be shutting early.
Ultimate Guide To Buying Yellow Sticker Food
Supermarket Reduction Times: The Best Times For Yellow Sticker Shopping
Morrisons Early Morning Yellow Sticker Reductions (70% off at 9am!)
2. Catering For The Right Numbers
Figuring out how much food to buy can be tricky – there’s always that small niggle that there won’t be enough when in reality no one ever eats as much as you think they will.
If you’re only catering for 2-4 people, it might be worth considering turkey breasts or one turkey leg between you to save on buying a large bird – even the smallest turkey crowns feed 7-8 people.
Or if you’re not overly partial to turkey you could opt for a roast chicken instead as it’s much cheaper.
How To Make Christmas Dinner For £2.50 Per Head
Roasting an extra chicken is also a good idea if you’re catering for a large number and are worried about not having enough turkey or have lots of children who might prefer this to other meats anyway.
As meat is the most expensive part of the meal you’ll want to stretch it as far as possible – to do this make sure there are plenty of vegetables on offer to help fill people up – who doesn’t love roast potatoes? I also like to serve plenty of the veggies we only tend to eat at Christmas like sprouts and parsnips.
Serving a first course or starter may seem like an added expense – but if you’re worried about the main course not stretching far enough between your guests, soup is easy to make, cheap and filling or you could serve pate (usually around £1 a pack) and melba toast.
You could use all the peeling from the carrots, sprouts, parsnips and potatoes to make a vegetable soup for next nothing or go for something more festive like parsnip. Parsnips, sprouts, potatoes and carrots are usually very cheap (usually around 20p) the week before Christmas so a few extras will cost very little.
If you need recipe inspiration The Works have a fantastic range of cookery books that might help give you some ideas on what to cook.
3. Boost Your Nectar Points
Lots of people save up their Nectar Points to use on the big Christmas shop and this is a great way to save money at an expensive time of year if you’d usually shop at Sainsbury’s anyway and have been saving up the points all year.
Nectar recently had a bit of a revamp and launched a new Nectar app. I’ve been using it and have had lots of bonus points offers in the last few weeks, for example, 100 extra points on products I would have usually bought anyway. These offers are only available through the app and you need to save them.
However, these could be a great boost to your overall Nectar point balance before the big Christmas shop, especially if you’re looking to get over the next £2.50 threshold.
It’s also worth checking your post too – in the run-up to Christmas I’ve had money off vouchers and extra points vouchers too.
4. Don’t buy Food No one will eat
There are lots of things at Christmas that are deemed ‘traditional’ but that doesn’t mean anyone actually likes or eats them.
Avoid buying food (and drink for that matter!) that no one likes, whether it’s Christmas cake that you find stale at the back of the cupboard at Easter or Advocaat that you end up pouring down the drain at Halloween everyone has something they buy ‘because it’s tradition’.
Ditch it and buy something you’ll actually enjoy like an extra box of Lindt truffles!
5. Share the Cost Of Christmas Dinner
There are always articles circulating around Christmas time about someone who charges their family to come for Christmas dinner.
Usually, commenters get pretty irate, arguing that it’s not the Christmas spirit to ask for money and that you shouldn’t host if you can’t afford to pay for it. However, sometimes it might fall to the person who has the biggest house or someone who is unable to travel so the family need to come to them.
Personally, I have no issue with charging for Christmas dinner at all, especially when this can often fall on the same couple of people in the family.
What I don’t like, is the thought of anyone getting into debt over Christmas Dinner. Asking for £5 or £10 to go towards a huge meal and drinks and the cost of cooking it all doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
I’d pay a fiver not to have to do the washing up!
Obviously, the conversation needs to be had well in advance of the big day but I don’t see the problem with asking people to contribute a little to the most expensive meal of the year.
Of course, you can ask the guests to bring something but this can easily turn into a logistical nightmare.
You need to remember who is bringing what. They then need to remember what they are bringing too and bring the right quantity, brand or flavour.
There are people who offer to ‘bring a bottle’ which is lovely, but you’ll still end up buying the same amount of booze, as you won’t be sure if they mean red or white and someone else will only drink rose.
All of this adds to the mental load of the person who is already doing the majority of the organising and hosting, so personally, I think asking for cash is a better option.
Of course, with the cost of living crisis, there are some people who genuinely may not be able to afford to contribute, and that’s fine too. Just do what works for your family and your circumstances.
6. Don’t Just Shop The Supermarkets
While the supermarkets might be your go-to for Christmas fare, there are lots of other places to grab bargain food including places like Home Bargains, Poundland and B&M.
For example, I picked up this pack of four Christmas pieces of cheese for just £1.99 for home bargains. Add a box of £1 crackers and it’s a cheese board on a budget.
7. Limit Your Waste & Love Your Leftovers
Christmas is always a time of excess and I’m sure most of us will have some sort of leftovers over the festive period. Make sure you have room in the freezer for freezing leftovers and try looking for inspiration beforehand and saving or printing recipes that will help you feel inspired to use them up.
If you’re looking for leftovers inspiration try these 40+ recipes for Christmas Leftovers.
8. Reduce The Cost Of Cooking Christmas Dinner
Energy Bills have skyrocketed in the last year and we all know that Christmas Dinner takes a lot of cooking, with the oven in use for hours on end along with lots of rings on the hob, the microwave and so on.
One of the biggest ways you could save money is to buy a ready-cooked joint of meat (pre-cooked Turkey is incredibly moist!) or use your slow cooker to cook the meat either overnight or the day before.
You can find more ideas in this post: How To Reduce The Cost Of Cooking Christmas Dinner
9. Wait To Buy Your Veggies
Usually when it comes to Christmas food I would suggest buying little and often in the run up to the big day, but vegetables such as sprouts, parsnips, carrots and potatoes usually go very cheap Christmas week and can be bought for as little 20p per bag.
Even if you like to get everything prepped and ready ahead of time, I think this is one bargain with waiting for, as you can stock up for very little.
10. Frozen Meal Deals
If you’re happy with the everything being frozen, then purchasing a frozen Christmas Dinner Meal Deal from Co-Op or Iceland could be a away to save some money and have the added convenience of less prep.
In the past the frozen Co-Op deal has included a small turkey roasting joint, sprouts, parnips, roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and a Vienetta for dessert. If they offer a similar deal this year then it’s likely it will be increased to at least £12. And of course, you’ll still need to add things like gravy grannuls and stuffing.
However, it’s with doing this maths and double checking that this really will save you money.
I hope these tips help you to save some money on Christmas dinner this year. For more on saving at the various supermarkets, take a look at the posts below.
How To Save Money At Sainsburys
M&S Yellow Sticker Christmas Food Haul
Lidl Vs Aldi: Which is Better?
Saving Money With Farmfoods Vouchers
Morrisons Early Morning Yellow Sticker Reductions (70% off at 9am!)
