Big Party Savings

Big Party Savings Tonia: I’ve been married in my high school sweetheart for almost 20 years. We have three amazing children. I just love being a wife and mommy. My parents have been married for almost 50 years and we’ve talking about for awhile given them 50th anniversary for me. Their amazing, they have given me everything. We got married very young. They were there for us. They still are, so we just want to pay them back just a little bit of what they’ve given to us. I’ve got about $350 to make this happen and that doesn’t sound like a lot when you're talking about 100 guests to feed. We check the caterers and it was well above our budget, so we’re going to try to do is ourselves. I want it to be something special and I'm determined to do this. I hope that coupon mom can show me how to throw this party on my budget. Stephanie: I knew that this party meant a lot to Tonia because it was very emotional thing for her to give this for her parents. So it had to be nice. It couldn’t just be hotdogs and chips. Well, you got a big party coming up. Tonia: We do, we have our parent’s 50th anniversary and yeah, we got about 100 people coming. Stephanie: Okay, and any idea what you're thinking that will cost? Tonia: Wow, well we check with the caterer and it was about $50 a head and we just don’t have that. Stephanie: $5,000.00 for party. Tonia: Yes, there's no way. Stephanie: No, I think that if you're willing to do it yourself. You can really save a lot of money and have a good party. Let’s see, do you mind? Tonia: No, go ahead. Stephanie: I don’t mean to be nosy but I love this. Oh, look at that, a lot of these items are the same we went back at. Did you get that deal this week on this ice cream with the coupon? Tonia: I do. How do you tell a coupon mom that you don’t use it? Stephanie: But did you pay for price for this? Tonia: I did. Stephanie: Okay. Okay, well let me tell you, I got this is for $1.49. You know, it’s usually $5.00. Tonia: Right. When coupon mom went in my refrigerator, it was a little scary at it and what she was going to find. She was pointing at all the items that I could have saved on just that week. Stephanie: It’s okay because that was free with coupon. Tonia: Oh, that’s awesome. Stephanie: And even when you're not using coupons. Here’s an example. You have this; you know a healthy vegetable that’s great. You're feeding your family healthy food. Do you have any idea how much this pre-cut tray cost? Tonia: I think that one was about $9.00. Stephanie: $9.00? What I would do is buy the $3.00 of vegetables, wash and cut them up myself in less than five minutes. By buying it this way, you're really paying someone’s $75.00 now or to cut out like Paris. Tonia: $75.00 an hour? Stephanie: $75.00 an hour and it only takes five minutes. And you got that chipped there and you can just take something I already have like this and serve that with the vegetables. Tonia: That's awesome. When you love that, my kids love it. Stephanie: I think I have to give up what you like. Here’s some shop I like I do. But I think a free work on being smart of planning your party. We give you to give your parents a really nice party that’s probably below your budget. Tonia: Sounds nice. Stephanie: Let’s try it. I brought you to warehouse club today because this is where you can get really low prices on high quantities of food and that’s what you're going to need if you're having a party for 100. Tonia: There's so many of these frozen appetizers would be easy and quick but are they cost effective. Stephanie: Some are cost effective and when you're having a party to consider. When it makes sense to buy prepared appetizers and what it makes us to do it yourself. Tonia: Okay. Stephanie: Some people might eat more, some people might eat less but overall people generally eat eight pieces in total. So if you have 100 people. Do you need to consider that the cost of the piece and then workout into the budget, so you don’t have any surprises. Tonia: Right. Stephanie: You don’t want to run out of food. You don’t want to over budget. Tonia: She had wonderful tips and ideas and she’s amazing to sit back and listen to what she had to say. Stephanie: These sheiks are good deal. There only 17 cents per piece. People might eat too, 35 cents. You might be looking at $35 out to your budget to have this already prepared. You just pop it in the oven. Tonia: Right. Stephanie: But if you compare to the crab cakes, you're looking at 42 cents per crab cake. People have two or three pretty soon you're looking at over $100.00 out to your budget if you just get that one item. I'm making veggie trick is really easy, big savings. If you were to buy 4 veggie trays at 30 bucks sure it $120.00 just for the vegetables but if you make your own. It’s only $7.00 for the tray. Talking about cost for peas, we want to make wraps just like this for the party. Now, this is $9.00 divided by 12 pieces. What is that? Tonia: 75 cents a piece. Stephanie: 75 cents a piece and we figured out, we can make them for 27 cents a piece. Tonia: Right. Stephanie: So, we’re going to save about 65% doing yourself. Tonia: Okay. Stephanie: Just use turkey, lunch meat and Swiss cheese and lettuce. And then what I found works are these great big flour tortillas and 30 is going to make at least 200 pieces. The cost of frozen meat and frozen chicken is so many of the ingredients that your appetizers call for are measure six cents appear and also a little higher quality. This is an excellent price for chicken breast. Tonia: Okay. Stephanie: And usually a 10 pound bag of chicken breast would be a lot to buy for your family but for the party, it’s perfect. You can go ahead to have two of those nice chicken skewers for guests. Tonia: Okay. Stephanie: For about $21.00 a bag of chicken. If you were to get that catered that would cost $100.00. Tonia: Right. Stephanie: An easy way to save money at the grocery store is to get to know with the managers. Talk to the managers to find out if they marked down fresh produce, meat or bakery products. If so, then if you shop at the right time, you might save 50% or more as long as you eat or freeze the product right away. It’s perfectly fine. All right, well it’s an anniversary party, so you need a cake, right? Tonia: Right. Stephanie: Sometimes it makes sense to do it yourself but there are sometimes when you get a real bargain at a warehouse club. And one of those is on the sheik cakes. Tonia: Okay. Stephanie: This is beautiful, it takes no effort. I compared prices and this cake is half the cost of a supermarket cake. Tonia: Oh, that’s awesome. Stephanie: So, it does make sense to get it here. All right, so this is the fun part. Let see how we did. Tonia: All right. Stephanie: I think we’re going to come in under gold. Tonia: I'm excited to see. Stephanie: I don’t know, let’s see what happens. There you go. So, I think we really did our planning. Look to there options. We were able to get a pretty good combination of easier to make and the appetizers. But we also got some things that were ready made that weren’t that expensive. Originally, you said that its catering would have cost about $50.00 per person. Tonia: Right. Stephanie: Okay, 100 people at least $5,000.00; you know it’s having fun with $5,000.00 party. I think we got a great party. We got the cake. We got the cheese and we were able to report the extra cheese in half of platter. We were able to get the vegetables now, okay. I just want to see the total. Tonia: Wow! Stephanie: $196.00 Tonia: It works. Stephanie: Well, that is even better than I expected. Tonia: Yeah. Stephanie: Congratulations. Tonia: As I saw the products go into the basket, I was blown away at everything that we got. I think my parents are going to be amazed that the party we’re going to be able to throw. Stephanie: This is you’re under budget. I give you some flowers. Tonia: Thank you so much for all your help and all your tips. Stephanie: Thank you for being such a good sport. This is a lot of fun. Tonia: Hi, coupon mom, I'm so excited, we’re getting ready for the party. I'm using your tips. I just want to thank you for everything that you taught that us. We’re looking forward to have an amazing party. I'm putting all your tips in the use for my own family too. Tim and I went shopping this weekend and we save $170.00. We were both just blown away. It was so exciting even the people that we’re checking us out, we’re excited for us. So just thank you for what everything that you did in all your time. We love you. Stephanie: For more tips on how to save big, watch my web series on couponmom.com.