Thursday Thrifty Roundup

This past weekend we had a relatively low-cost birthday party for my son, who turned three! Actually we had two parties – Saturday afternoon we invited some families with kids over to play at a playground near our house, and Saturday evening we had some old family friends over for dinner. Here’s what we did to make it relatively low-cost (and low waste):

• First, the location. A playground is free, and we’re lucky to live near this particular playground because it’s somewhat hidden and always empty. We had the place to ourselves, so it almost felt like we rented a place.
• We made the food ourselves. It’s a lot cheaper to buy, for example, blocks of cheese and slice them than it is to buy a party tray. Same goes for fruit and veggies, and of course cake. We prepped our own big fruit bowl, vegetable tray and cheese tray. We also made French onion dip, a chocolate bundt cake and vanilla cupcakes with strawberry cream cheese frosting. We bought hummus and big bags of pretzel thins and pita chips. All the food for this party came from Costco and was paid for using our shop card balance. For the grown-up party later, my husband cooked corned beef with potatoes, carrots and potatoes – all on sale at Safeway for St. Patrick’s Day – and I made a triple chocolate mousse cake. We did candles and singing with that cake.

• Bought a two-pack of good-quality folding tables from Costco using our shop card balance. We like to entertain, so the tables will be used often and I hope they last decades.

• Found second-hand tablecloths. The bird tablecloth is actually a shower curtain I found on my no-buy group.
• Used upcycled cloth napkins.
• Instead of using disposable cutlery I found a big bag of forks at Good Will for like $1.99, and these will be our party forks forever.

• I got all these flamingo plates second-hand and we used them – and will continue to use them – instead of paper plates. This definitely cost more up front, but I assume will pay off down the road, plus it’s way more fun and results in less stuff being thrown away.

• Nothing we brought was landfill, so to keep things out of the playground trash cans we set out containers under the table for compost, dishes, cloth napkins and cans. Not specifically thrifty, but Earth-friendly.

• We bought second-hand toys for his presents. He’s still only three and is happy to receive basically anything, so we got this big box of miscellaneous Duplo pieces from OfferUp and a few of his recent favorite library books from Thriftbooks. The few specific new things we wanted for him we put on a list for any family members who asked, so he got a few new toys too.
• We used up the leftover party food throughout the week. We sautéed the leftover bell peppers and used the leftover cheese to make quesadillas for dinner for two nights. The fruit got used up as snacks, and I’m working my way through the snap peas. The pretzel thins and pita chips are stored in airtight bags for later, and I’m going to freeze the leftover hummus in small cubes to use as sandwich spread.

And a few things not birthday-related:

• We used up the punchcard we bought two years ago for the gymnastics play hour. We have also now aged out of the best weekly time slot, so I won’t be buying another.

• I decorated our downstairs bathroom wall with mostly thrifted or free things. The only thing not thrifted or free is the print of the naked lady, which we bought years ago at a local gallery. Her frame, though, was thrifted.

• We had to replace our dishwasher, which is not thirfty. While we were researching replacement options, we saw this one on a good sale price. We weren’t ready to commit, so we missed that sale, but when we decided this was the one we wanted it was on a sale that wasn’t quite as good, so we waited until we saw the lower price come back. It only took one extra week, and it saved us $50. We also went with a “dumb” dishwasher, which is cheaper and there’s less that can go wrong. We don’t need the features.

• I had a bunch of bananas that needed to be used up or tossed out, so I used them all to make a big batch of freezer pancakes for B. The pancakes I make – made just of bananas, oats, eggs, water and any add-ins – are great to pack with us when we’re out all day and want to bring food with real nutritional value. I made half with blueberries and the other half with cocoa powder and sprinkles. It used up the bananas and gave us something we needed.

• I food-prepped, like always. I have some stuff to use up for my lunches, but I made a big batch of oatmeal, roasted broccoli, roasted carrots, sautéed green beans and instant pot collard greens to get us through the week.