Feeding a Party Crowd on a Budget

The other day, I shared how I created budget DIY decorations for our son's 1st birthday party.  We decided on a fishing theme, to reflect one of our family's passions.

A little fisherman first birthday party - what kind of food would be good with that theme? 

Our party was scheduled for 2pm, so I thought that after lunch snacks and appetizers would be the most fitting. 

Now, of course I could have served FISH, as it was a fishing party but wanted to keep it kid friendly but also with an adult undertone to it, since our guests would span all ages.  As much as we like it, not everyone loves to eat fish.

I thought long and hard, searched the internet for recipes that I could turn with my own little twist and make it into a "fishing" theme. 

Before I got started shopping, I had to figure out what I was going to need. 

Now, I am a bargain shopper when it comes to groceries! I like to either read the ads that come in your mail every week for the grocery stores or get on my phone and look up weekly ads for the stores that don't send out mailers. 

Doing this for the party gave me the chance to plan a little better, as I knew ahead of time what was on sale and I could plan accordingly.

I made my plans, created my list and figured out where the best prices were. I had four stores to hit and I was off!

I settled on several substantial appetizers, incuding Crock-pot BBQ Meatballs or better known for the party as "Buried Rocks" (a fisherman's worst nightmare). 

I was able to find at my local Stater Bros two big bags of frozen traditional style meatballs on sale for 2 for $5. These bags generally run for almost $8 a piece! This was either a sign that they were going to taste terrible (as they were store brand) or so good that they were just on sale to showcase one of their popular products. We would find out the day of the party. All I knew is that I scored a good deal. 

As for the sauce, once Fourth of July comes around BBQ sauce always seems to go on sale and I stock up, regardless of whether or not I have a party already planned.  It's perfect for last minute entertaining. So for me, I had this on hand already! 

This is too simple to be properly called a recipe, but this is what I did. (For our party purposes, I doubled this for a total cost of $5 not counting what I paid for the barbecue sauce back in July):

BBQ Crockpot Meatballs
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 6 hours
Temp: LOW in crock-pot

 1 bag Frozen Meatballs- traditional style
 1 full bottle of BBQ sauce (I use Honey Chipotle but you can use whatever flavor you prefer)

Empty the bag of meatballs in the crock-pot, cover with your bottle of BBQ sauce. Set it and forget it! OK, don't forget it, but let it do its thing for the next 6 hours while you set up the rest of the party! 

I put some plastic forks and plates next to it and let everyone enjoy!  

I also made a Crockpot Sausage Queso Dip to be served with Tortilla Chips or better known as "Chum and Chips" (for all the deep sea fisherman).

This recipe was geared more for the adults, but could easily be kid friendly just by switching your sausage flavors to something less spicy! 

As mentioned above, I have no shame with using store brands and usually will use them in my everyday cooking. This recipe was no different! 

• Store brand Rotel-style tomatoes (WinCo brand) at $0.49 each. 
• Cream Cheese (Stater Bro brand) $0.99. 
• Cheddar Cheese block that I grated myself $1.49. 
• Sausage is one thing I won't cheap out on, so I always get Farmer Johns which runs $2.99. 
• And finally green onions were supplied fresh from my backyard garden! But I believe they run under $1 at the store. 
• Last but not least, the tortilla chips I buy are always $0.99 on sale so I bought two just to be safe!

Total spent: $8.43!

Crockpot Sausage Queso Dip
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 3-5 hours
Temp: LOW in your crock pot

1 pound ground spicy sausage (can use any flavor)
2 - 10oz cans of Rotel tomatoes and green chiles
1 can Corn, drained
8oz cheddar cheese
8oz Cream Cheese
1 bunch Green Onions (for garnish)

First start by browning your sausage in a pan and draining. Add the cooked sausage into the crock-pot. Add the tomatoes (undrained), corn, cheddar cheese and cream cheese.

Cook on low for 3-5 hours. Keeping an eye on it and stirring it every so often. You are really just melting the cheeses, nothing needs to be cooked. It can come off earlier if you wanted but I again, set it and do whatever else you need to do.

So what else did we set out?

What kind of party would it be without a veggie tray? Well, I served a tray of veggies in my multi section platter and in the middle where the dip went, I made a bell pepper octopus (I cut the bottom off and seeded one pepper and placed it right into the dip. 

I then cut another pepper and cut strips for tentacles and carefully put them around the body). 

I used the typical cherry tomatoes package (2 for $3), cucumbers (garden fresh), bell peppers ($0.99 each), broccoli ($0.99 a pound) and carrots (2.49 a bag) with a simple ranch dip. 

Ranch dip mix was $0.89 (WinCo brand) and a large sour cream (Daisy Brand) was $1.89. In total I spent: $10.94.

I also bought a rather large watermelon, which I found on sale at my local Stater Bros for $3! I had every intention to cut the watermelon into a fish and filling it with grapes as "fish eggs" but guests arrived way earlier than expected, and time got away from me unfortunately!! 

The grapes I got at Costco for $6.99 for a big container of them. So total spent there was $9.99

I had a big Costco box of Goldfish Crackers which I put out as well with some ruffled potato chips (Fish and Chips, get it?) that I found on sale at Walmart for $0.79 each (Great Value brand) So total spent there was $1.58!

Cupcakes and smash cake for the birthday boy were simple and easy! I got 2 boxes of Funfetti Cake Mix at Walmart for $0.89 each! 

Add the frosting, and that's another $3.00. The oil and eggs which are needed for the cakes/cupcakes were ingredients I already had in my fridge, so all I spent was $4.78 there!

All in all, I spent $40 on food for a party of almost 30 people! 

I think I did pretty dang good if you ask me! Parties can still be fun, have great food and still come with a small price if you shop around and take your time while planning! I hope some of these tips help you in planning your next event 

I'd love to be sharing a picture of the spread I put out - but by the time I had a few minutes to think about pictures, hungry guests had already dove in!  I don't mind.... food getting eaten and enjoyed is the best compliment, right?

Let me know if you have any other money saving tips that I didn't think of!! I have a 7 year old's party to plan for October!

Review/Giveaway- You Need A Budget Software

I find it a little difficult to review something that no words could do justice. That’s exactly how I feel about the You Need a Budget program. It’s definitely the kind of thing you need to experience to fully understand the amazing need for it — but I’ll try my best!

You Need a  Budget (YNAB, for short) is a computer application, with a syncing phone app, that helps you manage your money. A few months ago a friend of mine, who always seems to have her stuff together in my mind, was talking about YNAB on Facebook, and how if she didn’t have this ‘crutch’ she would be lost. A perfect recommendation, as far as I’m concerned!

Let me back up a bit. My husband and I have been together 10 whole years, married for 5. Somehow in that vast span of time, we have managed to learn JACK CRAP about organizing our finances. Yup. There has been a constant battle for control, large purchases and many little ones made without thinking to consult the other; frequent over-drafting in our bank account, and next to never having a buck left by the time the next paycheck hits. It’s been our downfall all along, and has caused a huge strain in our relationship.

I felt like we’d tried everything. I've tried using physical envelopes, dealing with only cash, read the Financial Peace books, given up complete control, and then gone the other way and micromanaged which only succeeded in driving my husband insane.

All of those are a thing of the past, and we have never been happier about our financial state!  And we owe that entirely to YNAB.

When setting up YNAB, I sat and read every word on their site, watched numerous YouTube videos put out by them, and was just getting more and more excited. I wanted to ‘feel like we got a raise’ as they tout. I wanted to end the arguments, and stop living beyond our means. I wanted to KNOW where my money was.

There is so much information, but don’t let that intimidate you - this is seriously a fool proof, simple method to regain and maintain control of your finances. AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THE RULES:

RULE ONE:

Give every dollar a job. When you input an income, even if it's just 5 dollars for selling something at a pawn shop, give it a job. Tell your money what it is doing. It’s not allowed to just sit there doing nothing. You have to budget it into one of your categories.

RULE TWO:

Save for a rainy day. Anticipate those larger expenses down the road, and start saving for them now. Stop being surprised by the less frequent bills (or as their video jokingly suggests - your anniversary - who saw that coming!?) or having to pay a large sum all at once. Have a category for your twice-a-year car insurance, or what have you, and just put a smaller amount out of each pay in there, and you won’t even feel it!

RULE THREE:

Roll with the punches. You aren’t perfect, and YNAB doesn’t expect you to be. When you sit down and dole out your budget, its basically inevitable that you will forget something, or just simply predict what you’ll need, incorrectly. That’s ok. There is no fault in having to rearrange things throughout as needed. (and It WILL be needed!)

RULE FOUR:

Live on last month's income. Spend this month, what you earned last month. If you've had bad habits like we have, this takes a bit of time to achieve (and a bit more diligence and willpower!). But, it’s simple math. If you make $5k a month, your goal is to have 5k in your BUFFER so you are always a month ahead. When the paycheck is late, for whatever reason, there is no need to stress. To accomplish this, you have to spend less for a few months, so that you have that extra to add to the buffer. If following rules 1-3, this shouldn’t be hard.

All of that sounded pretty straight forward, but I was, of course, skeptical that we'd actually manage to put it to use.

It was time to download the computer program! There were a few prompts to go through. I had to tell it I was creating a new budget rather than importing an older budget. I was also asked if it is for personal finances, or small business. How this is answered changes the pre-filled categories it starts you with.

It took a while to figure out the mentality of only budgeting what you currently have. Of course, I wanted to start right away, but pay day was the NEXT day. Initially, since we could see the LES (military paystub) we thought lets just put it in now! This was two days before January.

My thought process was that, it was technically Feb 1st’s paycheck, and we just happen to get paid early thanks for our bank, so I’m going to put in Feb. Because of the way the program works, that messed us up, because that left it unavailable to budget for another 3 days.

We were having trouble wrapping our head around the concepts, and what would happen in a few days when it BECAME February?

We were definitely making it harder than it actually is.

Just budget what money you actually have, when you actually have it. That’s it’s. The end. TRUST THE PROGRAM! We had so much fun filling in all the fields and deciding where the money would go.

We did away with many of the pre-filled categories as they simple don’t apply to us. We don’t have a rent to worry about, for example, because we're a military family living on-base. We added many categories that do pertain to our lives including personal spending money. You can create Master Categories, and sub categories within those.

I did that for my personal spending, so I could have a sub-category for Starbucks. Yup. I wanted to stick to my other New Years Resolution of only 2 Starbucks trips a week. So each paycheck that comes to about $20. It helped me keep accountability.

YNAB also has a syncing phone application for both android and iPhone,  which helps you keep track as you go, and see where you stand at all times.

Throughout those first two weeks we did hit a few snags - to be expected when you're learning a new way of doing things:

• We underestimated our groceries. 
• We had a New Year's Eve party. 
• Also, once we thought everything was good, we then realized a few essential things we forgot - like dog food. 

So A LOT of finagling occurred. It came out of the areas like personal spending, and sadly, the buffer.

We also needed to add other ‘rainy day’ categories such as birthdays and Christmas.

Having a school aged child means the last minute birthday parties flood in. Which usually means scrambling for a last minute birthday GIFT. We are trying to eliminate that so we're ready instead of surprised.

Likewise, we have never ‘had the means’ (or so we thought!) to save for Christmas. It usually just comes out of the last paycheck or two leading up to the holiday. That is a huge burden and we definitely want that to change.


As we made these adjustments, we found that when you overspend in a category, the app will initially deduct it from next month's budget, unless you go in and wiggle it around yourself.

Toward the end of that first pay period, I decided to check our bank to see how well it matched. There was a $15 discrepancy. That is to say, YNAB said we had $15 more than what we actually did. UGH!

It took a while to track down, and ended up being an automatic thing Ebay did. Easy enough to fix!  By checking the bank account against the program budget, you can keep account of whatever automatic purchases you've lost track of, so you're not bleeding money.

The second pay period went a lot smoother. We held our‘budget meeting’ in bed with a bag of chips, as we have done every time a paycheck hits, since.

There were a handful of instances where at the end of the day, we’d have to check in with each other, “Hey, did you log that soda you got earlier?” but we have gotten so used to always keeping receipts now that even that is an easy fix.

Problems definitely have the potential of arising when you don’t log. The program can’t do its job if you don’t let it, which means logging every penny. It becomes almost second nature.

Also, by the second pay period, we got a lot smarter about how we used the program. Throughout the first two weeks, we only had one ‘account’ up. Our checking account.

Even if we got cash back, we would just log as is, and everything was still ok. Theoretically, as long as you are logging, it doesn’t matter what form it is it. But it can get confusing!

So we created a Cash account, and a Danny’s Paypal account. It is super easy to transfer between the three from both computer and phone.


There have been times while out that I wish I could rearrange the budget from phone, but I do understand why that isn't a feature of the phone app. I think if it was that easy, you’d never stick to what you originally planned. However, that is easily my husband's biggest pet peeve about the system. If we happen to get money while out of the house, it sits dormant in ‘Available to Budget’ until we can get home to a computer to assign its job.

From the phone, you can view what is currently remaining in each category, as well as past transactions when you click on one.

We love You Need a Budget.

We are normal family, that has struggled for years on how to work together with out money.

I never knew it could be this easy, and neither of us can imagine living without it. We felt the raise in the first pay period.

Recently we received out tax return and it was such a (fun) breeze budgeting for all the big expenses we had been discussing, pay off bills, put some into savings, and have money to play with. In the past it would have just been a series of checking the bank repeatedly and trying (and failing!) to keep track in our heads.

Another few amazing things to mention:

You can sign up for a nine day email course for free! 
I enjoyed it. It was 9 themed emails, one a day. Each went further in depth as to some financial myths, and just plain and simple why YOU NEED A BUDGET. These email tidbits kept me highly motivated in the first week of figuring this stuff out.

They also have FREE online courses.
Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to ‘attend’ any, but they sound very worthwhile. Each is taught by a YNAB success story client. So they have ‘been there’.

Class options include ‘Getting Started With YNAB’ , ‘Budget Workshop’, ‘Handling Credit Cards’, ‘and ‘Improving Workflow’ These are live webinars, and so far they just haven't fit into my crazy life. However I love the idea, and plan to try one out soon!

Seriously though, where is the 2.0 version that helps me budget time?! (Can you imagine watching your sleep hours you didn’t get last night, just keep rolling over and stocking up for a rainy day?)

As I was writing this, I just now realized that if you sign up for a class and are unable to attend, they will email you a recording of it! At the end of every class, they give away one free copy of YNAB so go sign up!


One of my favorite features was the online discussion forum for the program. It is filled with other user’s questions, which also matched specifics I wanted to know.

And of course, they have their customer service representatives at the ready waiting and willing to help!

You Need a Budget costs a one time fee of $60. I remember thinking that was very expensive, now I can tell you it's worth so much more! If you are still on the fence, YNAB offers a hassle free 34 day full featured demo of the program. If you decide to buy after, you just maintain the same budget. This should get most people through multiple pay periods which is certainly enough to experience the magic.

Also, it should be pointed out that 'one time fee' means exactly that - you can put the program on every machine you own, and you get free upgrades for life!

YNAB is free for college students as long as they are enrolled, and $20 off for military members.

The creater recently posted on Facebook that when people ask him ‘what he does’ he never knows how to respond. The comments were all spot on. Everything from ‘financial empowerment creator’, to ‘saving marriages’ was said. I agree with it all.

You Need a Budget on Facebook
You Need a Budget Website






We've been allowed to host a giveaway of one copy of You Need a Budget 4  for PC or Mac ($60 value) for one of our readers!

To enter the giveaway, leave a comment in this entry as instructed by the Rafflecopter, then leave the name you commented under and your email in the box in the Rafflecopter entry. (This allows us to contact you if you win!)  This will open up additional optional entries to increase your odds of winning.

This giveaway is open WORLDWIDE
and will end just before midnight ET on 2-23-15. 

The winner will be notified by email within 24 hours after the end of the giveaway.  In order to claim the giveaway prize, the winner will need to respond within 24 hours of notification, or an alternate winner will be selected.

Good luck everyone!

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