KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Latoya Madearis of the Women's Employment Network provided advice about how to budget for Thanksgiving.
She recommends the following:
Shop your pantry first
"One: A lot of people do not shop their pantry before they go shopping, so what we do is we double buy things that we don't typically need, and it's costing us to spend a little bit more money than what we would need to do."
Have a potluck
"If you're hosting your Thanksgiving dinner or if you've been invited, please utilize the potluck system. That way it can be a shared cost amongst all of the families.
"That way you can save some money if you're hosting and also give people in your circle an opportunity to contribute to Thanksgiving dinner as well — and everyone's able to save money."
Take a vote on a smaller menu
"If you have a voting system where it's two items or one main meat, maybe we're just going to do turkey and not going to do ham this year."
You define your Thanksgiving dinner
"When you see Thanksgiving dinner, you think about the advertisement, you just see a table of all kinds of food. It doesn't have to be that. It's still okay because you get to define what your Thanksgiving dinner looks like. It doesn't have to be this massive spread."
The American Farm Bureau reports the average Thanksgiving meal cost for 10 people has gone up 20% from 2021.
