Category Archives: Frugality

TGIF Link Roundup: Another birthday lunch edition

Another birthday lunch in the office, which means I’m eating solo today. But it also means I have time to write a post while enjoying delicious leftover stuffed manicotti courtesy of my husband the master chef. Yum!

I participated in three carnivals this week:

I have lots of things to share from the personal finance blogosphere this week! All of you have had such great topics lately. Here are the posts I found most inspiring (though I have to tell you, it was rough to pick just a few this week):

  • Everybody’s been blogging about Amy at MotherLoad‘s list of 35 ways to save on groceries. It really is full of fabulous tips, so check it out if you haven’t already!
  • Mercedes at Common Sense with Money wrote about the recent trend of smaller packages without a price drop on certain products. Ugh, I hate this! It’s just so sneaky. Our dog food recently dropped from 20 pounds to 18 pounds a bag, but the price stayed the same. That’s two days worth of meals. I think I’d rather pay a little higher price. I’d rather they were upfront about it.
  • Penelope Pince at Our Fourpence Worth wrote about the benefits of switching to paperless statements. I don’t receive any paper statements anymore, and I love online bill pay. It really does streamline the process of paying the bills, and I can access the statements online for most of my bills anyway. That’s way easier than filing them myself! Safer, too, because it doesn’t leave a paper trail for identity thieves.
  • Mrs. Micah shared her online couponing method. Great tips here for people like me who can’t get the hang of paper coupons!

This weekend I’m committed to making a dent, even if it’s a small one, in my clutter clearing mission. I haven’t decided where to start yet, but my plan is to spend Saturday or Sunday morning every weekend cleaning and organizing until it’s done. I’ll be sure to update on my progress by the end of the weekend.

I’m also looking forward to more hand quilting this weekend. I’m happy to report that I LOVE it a lot more than machine quilting. I hated being stuck behind a sewing machine. Hand quilting isn’t as hard as I expected, and I love that I can do it while relaxing on the couch with my hubby.

Hope you’re all enjoying some nice fall weather this weekend! Forecast says 90 degrees here through next week. Yuck. I don’t know if I can handle another 6 weeks of summer.

Happy Friday!

Minimize your wedding flower budget

I’ve never been that into flowers. To be honest, I’ve always thought they were overpriced considering their short shelf life. I told my husband early in our relationship that I wouldn’t mind if he never gave me flowers. Apparently, he didn’t mind too much, because he never has. :)

I always wanted a red rose bouquet for my wedding, though, because I’ve always loved the classic elegance and simplicity of red roses. I felt that if I was justified in spending money on flowers one time in my life, my wedding day was it.

Because they weren’t a top priority for me, I was determined to keep my flower costs low. Here’s what I did to minimize the impact on our budget:

Keep your attendants to a minimum.

The more bridesmaids and groomsmen you have, the higher your flower costs will be. Most of the florists I called estimated $40-$80+ per bridesmaid bouquet and up to $15 for boutonnières and corsages. Keep that in mind before you decide to ask 10 people to join your bridal party.

Decide what you want before you talk to a florist.

I had a really hard time finding a florist who would work with me from a long distance without a “consultation” to pick out my arrangements. Why? I’m convinced it’s because they wanted to sell me huge, expensive arrangements, which is easier to do when they’re sitting in front of you with a big book of expensive floral arrangements.

If you don’t know exactly what you want, look through some bridal magazines and research some flowers before you start calling florists.

Make sure the flowers you want will be available in your area on your wedding day.

Exotic flowers or flowers that must be shipped from somewhere else are more expensive for obvious reasons.

Skip the centerpieces and altar flowers.

We chose to skip the decorative flowers. The only flowers we had were red and white roses for the bridal bouquet; an attendant bouquet; boutonnières for the groom, best man, fathers, and grandfather; and corsages for our mothers and grandmothers.

Decorative flowers can add hundreds, even thousands of dollars to your flower costs. If your budget is small, leaving them out is a great method for keeping costs down.

If your budget is super small, you might consider skipping the corsages and boutonnières for the parents and grandparents. I considered doing that when some of the florists estimated $30 each for the corsage. We decided to leave them in when we found a florist who only charged $10 each.

Shop around, and get several estimates before you choose a florist.

I was amazed at how much florist prices vary. I was given estimates that ranged from $200-$700. Yikes! That’s why it’s so important to call many different places and insist on estimates.

I called every florist in town, told them exactly what I wanted, and asked how much it would cost. The florist I chose was about $500 cheaper than the most expensive florist in town. It pays to do your homework.

Do it yourself.

Many brides swear you can save a ton of money by buying fresh flowers and arranging them yourself. You can find instructions all over the Internet for handmade boutonnières and bouquets.

If you decide to go this route, be sure to do some research and compare the cost of fresh flowers to florist prices. Depending on what kind of flowers you want and how elaborate the arrangement is, doing it yourself might not be worth the headache.

My bridal bouquet was made of 3 dozen roses and only cost $60. I don’t think I could have saved much by doing it myself. The florist’s bouquet was a lot prettier than anything I could have done, and having it arranged and delivered saved me a lot of stress.

For brides who aren’t sentimental about fresh flowers, silk bouquets can save you a ton of money. The bonus is they never wilt. I was partial to the look and feel of real flowers myself, but silk flowers might be your best option if you want to hang on to your bouquet for years to come.

Make sure all of your flowers are delivered.

With so many things happening all at once, it’s difficult to keep track of it all. When the flowers arrive, be sure to take a few minutes before you start handing them out to make sure everything was delivered. Flowers are expensive, and if something was left out, you shouldn’t have to pay for it.

We ordered a floral cake topper that should have been delivered to the reception site. It wasn’t. Luckily our quick-thinking cake baker put some extra frosting roses on the top of the cake when she delivered it so it wouldn’t be bare.

The topper wasn’t that important to me anyway, so it wasn’t a huge deal. I didn’t want to pay for flowers that were never delivered, though. So I called them when we got home from the honeymoon and asked for a refund. They gladly credited the $15 back to my account.

Our grand total for flowers: $180.

The red rose bouquet was honestly my favorite part of my bridal attire, so it was worth it for me. The roses look absolutely stunning in our pictures.

I was sad when the flowers wilted, but throwing them away only reminded me of why I don’t want my husband to buy me flowers. I much prefer chocolate, though it doesn’t last any longer. :)

Works for Me: Salon haircare products for cheap

For this week’s Works for Me Wednesday, I’m going to go ahead and disagree with Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer who says salon haircare products are a rip-off.

For people like me with extremely dry, unmanageable naturally curly hair, salon products can be a lifesaver (and a time saver). Many people don’t notice a difference between salon products and cheaper brands, but when I used Suave my hair was a big mess. I could barely get a comb through it, and it was so brittle it crunched when I brushed it. The salon products leave my hair healthier and easier to manage.

So how can I afford salon products on a frugal budget? It’s easier than you think.

I absolutely love Paul Mitchell Super Strong shampoo and conditioner, which runs about $18 a bottle for about 10 ounces in most salons. That’s $1.80 an ounce. Yikes.

I’ve never paid $18 for a little bottle. Many salons sell sets with 1 liter (34 ounces) each of shampoo and conditioner for $26 total. At that price, I’m paying 38 cents an ounce. Much better.

Just by buying in bulk, I’m already saving $1.42 an ounce. Then I stretch my savings even further by limiting my consumption.

My hair is extremely dry (I’m talking Sahara here), so it’s actually much healthier when I only wash it a couple times a week. My sister, on the other hand, has beautiful, easy-to-manage hair. I can’t tell you how jealous I was in high school when she woke up 10 minutes before we left, jumped in the shower, and let her hair air-dry beautifully while I was up 2 hours early fussing with my daily bad hair days. If she goes longer than 24 hours without washing it, though, it starts looking oily and limp. She has to wash her hair every day, but the trade-off is she can use the cheapest shampoo and still have good results.

Most people fall somewhere in between — you might not have camel-hair like mine that can go days without water, but you probably don’t need to wash every single day. Try washing it every other day. If it still looks great the second day (and it most likely will), see if you can make it another day. Don’t wash your hair every single day unless you discover you absolutely need to. Trust me, unless you’re one of those people with extremely oily hair, you’ll discover that cutting back on washing will make a world of difference in the overall health of your hair and reduce your haircare budget dramatically.

Even though I have very thick hair, I only use a tiny dollop of shampoo and conditioner. You’d be surprised how little you need to get a good lather and get your hair clean. Experiment with this, too. Remember, you can always add more if you’re not getting enough lather, but you can’t take it off your head and put it back into the bottle if you use too much.

Using these tricks, I’m able to stretch those 1liter bottles out to about 8 months. My combined cost for shampoo and conditioner is roughly 81 cents a week or $3.25 a month.

Side note: Because my husband washes his hair every day and doesn’t care what kind of shampoo he uses, we use separate shampoos. We buy generics or whatever is free at the drugstores for him.

For those of you with no-fuss hair, getting random brands for free or next to nothing at the drug stores is certainly a better deal. But for those of you like me, there is an alternative to cheap brands that won’t break your frugal budget.

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Being frugal doesn’t mean giving up the hobbies you love

In general, most frugal folks don’t like to admit that the frugal lifestyle deprives them of anything. We pride ourselves in the ability to find ways to get the things we want in life without spending too much money. There are certainly sacrifices involved, but for the most part, we’re able to find creative ways to live a full life on less money.

I’m trying to find balance between frugality and deprivation. It’s tricky to know the difference when you’re just starting out. But I think it’s crucial to balance the two, or you risk resenting your frugal lifestyle and giving up.

I love to quilt. I’ve been doing it to some degree since I was a teenager. It wasn’t until after I graduated college that I got my own sewing machine and started really getting into it. About a year ago, I gave up quilting for my frugal lifestyle.

You see, quilting is an expensive hobby. Compared to the high cost of beautiful handmade quilts, it’s relatively inexpensive. But fabric and thread and other notions can run pretty steep.

Over the weekend, I dug my two unfinished projects out of storage. I’ve put hours and hours of labor into these two quilt tops (one of which was sewn completely by hand), but I stopped short of quilting them a year ago because I deemed quilting a frivolous hobby that would have to wait until we had more income.

Well, now we have more income. I’ve decided that wasting my hard work and the money I already invested in the fabric is more wasteful than spending the extra money to finish them. All of that money and work, and we don’t even have the quilts to show for it?

So I headed to the fabric store and bought batting, quilting thread, and fabric for the backing. Even with a coupon for 40% off the fabric, I ended up spending $30. I’ll have to rework some of our unnecessary spending in our budget to make sure we don’t go over (with my husband’s blessing, of course). But now I have everything I need to complete two beautiful quilts that would cost hundreds in a store. Well, maybe not hundreds, but much more than I paid for supplies.

My point is this: being frugal doesn’t mean giving up the hobbies you love. Is there something that you really love to do that you’ve given up because it’s too expensive? See if there’s a creative way that you can reduce its costs or limit your spending on it without giving it up completely.

For me it was quilting. Rather than giving it up completely, I’ve decided to work it into my budget. Can I afford to spend $30 a month on quilting? Probably. But that seems a little excessive to me, so I’m compromising. I decided to attempt hand-quilting one of them. This will extend the amount of time it takes me to finish it. I’ll be able to enjoy this project longer if it takes me longer to finish.

Because I only quilt for a little while in the evenings, it will probably be another 3 months before I’m ready to invest in the materials to start a new project. Hopefully, I’ll enjoy hand-quilting more than machine quilting, and I’ll be able to extend the time it takes me to finish projects. That way I’ll always have something to work on, but I’ll spend less money.

My husband’s expensive hobby is movies. He would go to the theater once or twice a week and rent movies every day of the week in between if we could afford it. His solution is to rent old classic movies at the library for free. His university has a huge selection of quirky classics that he’s never seen before. We haven’t given up the theater completely, though. Every month or two, there’s something we really want to see, so we go to the last matinee on Sunday when tickets are cheapest. We still end up paying $10 for two tickets, but that’s a huge discount compared to the Friday night ticket price ($8.50 per ticket).

Maybe you love photography, but you don’t want to spend hundreds on equipment. Look into a used camera or get creative with the digital editing on your snapshots. Maybe your beloved hobby is scrapbooking, but you can’t afford all the materials. Limit yourself to a reasonable amount of scrapbook spending each month proportionate to your budget, and take a break when you reach your limit. It may take months to complete your projects, but that will just make them all the more satisfying when they’re done.

Above all, being frugal is about finding a way to live the lifestyle you want without living above your means. Get creative. Find a way to make it work. You might be surprised what you can work into your budget if you want it badly enough.

How do you make room in your budget for the hobby you love?

Dressing your wedding on a dime

I realized early on that no matter how silly it seemed before I started planning, looking the part of “the bride” was important to me. My wedding was really my first and only chance to really overdress, and since I knew I’d have the pictures forever (more on the photography later), I really wanted to look fabulous.

I didn’t want to spend a fortune on a dress I’d only wear one day, though.

Here’s what we did to outfit the bride, groom, and attendants stunningly, simply, and affordably.

Wedding Gown

I’ve heard a lot of things about David’s Bridal, positive and negative. The fact of the matter is they have a huge selection of dresses in a lot of different styles, and they’re pretty affordable. Was I treated like a princess? Um, no, and I didn’t need to be. I just wanted a deal on a dress.

I bought my dress during the $99 gown sale. Unfortunately, the selection of $99 gowns is pretty limited. I didn’t find anything that I liked in my size.

It didn’t matter, though. I had already flipped through a catalogue and found a dress that was exactly what I’d envisioned. I tried on several dresses, but I ended up going back to the first dress I saw in that catalogue, the first one I tried on. It was on sale for $50 off the original price. David’s Bridal has this sale about 4 times a year, so make sure you buy your dress during the sale.

The really nice thing about David’s Bridal is that they usually have your size right there in the store. I can’t imagine special ordering a gown without being able to try it on first. You never know how it’s going to look until you try it on.

I really lucked out as my dress fit absolutely perfectly right off the rack. I saved a ton in alteration fees. Even though it fit perfectly, they tried to convince me to order it a size up and have it altered for a “custom” fit. Um, no, it fit fine. Don’t let them talk you into alterations you don’t need. If you feel comfortable, then it fits. They might try to tell you that it doesn’t, but only you know what’s comfortable for you.

If you decide to go with David’s Bridal and you do need alterations, I suggest you do some comparison pricing at other places. Sure, having David’s Bridal do it is probably more convenient, but you can save a lot by taking it to a private alterations shop.

Wedding Accessories

I went ahead and ordered everything at David’s Bridal. The grand total for dress, shoes, undergarments, and veil was a few dollars over $500. Yikes. It adds up so quickly!

I considered buying things on eBay, but honestly, I didn’t really want to do that. Choosing everything specially to match what I envisioned was important to me, so I made room for it in my budget. I don’t regret it.

The Tux

Our original plan was to buy Tony a new suit that he could wear at the wedding and to future events. He has a black suit that he bought in high school that still fits, but we both wanted him to look extra spiffy for the wedding.

We looked at a lot of suits. Tony wasn’t crazy about any of the suits in our $300 price range. We wanted to stick to our budget, but he didn’t want to buy a suit that he didn’t like just because it fit into our budget.

Just for comparison’s sake, we stopped in at a tux rental shop to check out prices. When Tony saw the classy three-piece tuxedos and I saw the prices (about half what we had budgeted for a new suit at $125), we decided to go with the rental.

The bonus was that his best man wore a matching tux, and they looked great in the pictures.

It would have been more economical to buy Tony a new suit that he could wear later, but he already has a black all purpose suit. The tux looked extra snazzy at half the price.

The Attendants

Choosing attire for our attendants was super simple because we only had a maid-of-honor and a best man. Tony’s best man wore the same tux as Tony. My maid-of-honor and I shopped for her dress when she visited us a few months before the wedding. I picked the color, and she picked out a dress that she liked. Simple.

We got her dress at David’s Bridal as well. I really like that they have many different styles in the same color. It makes it easy even for brides with large bridal parties to allow their bridesmaids to choose something flattering and unique to their styles. An added bonus was that my maid-of-honor was able to order her dress in North Carolina when she visited and pick it up in Indiana.

We spent a total of $625 for bride and groom attire. We were very grateful that our attendants picked up the tab for their own attire.

When I look at the photos, the only lasting thing we have from our wedding day, I’m really glad we didn’t cut corners on attire. We both looked our best, and most importantly, we felt great in what we wore. That’s what’s really important when it comes to choosing your wedding attire.

Sometimes saving money can cost you money

Update: Um. I just replaced the ink cartridges at Costco. I paid $50 for two black cartridges and a color. They’re slightly smaller, but $10 cheaper than what I paid for the ones that didn’t work. Doh. Now I really feel stupid. But the good news is my printer is working fine with the new cartridges. Whew. Now I just have to fight with 123InkJets to get my refund …

In June, our printer ran out of ink for the first time. Since Tony is a grad student and teacher, he does quite a bit of printing, and he pays 8 cents a page on campus. Obviously, it’s cheaper for him to print at home, so we needed to replace the cartridges as quickly as possible.

Because ink jet cartridges cost somewhere between an arm and a leg and your firstborn, I decided to go through 123InkJets, which sells remanufactured printer cartridges. I was also interested in the green aspect of cartridge recycling. I had a MyPoints offer that earned me 10% off my order and 350 points. My total for two black cartridges and a color one was $60 with free shipping. I thought it was a steal.

I was a little nervous because I’d read conflicting reports about remanufactured ink cartridges online, but it seemed like the reviews were 50/50. Many people were happy with their experiences and convinced that the warnings about remanufactured ink cartridges were part of a grand conspiracy by printer companies to rip off the consumer.

When reading reviews, I usually follow the mantra that the majority of reviews are written by unhappy customers. Unless the company has somehow gone WAY above and beyond the call of duty, satisfied customers generally don’t bother to write reviews. Since there were a number of positive reviews, I decided to go for it.

Sigh.

About a month later, the first cartridge stopped working. The error message says, “Cannot recognize cartridge.” It won’t let me do anything. It won’t print, clean the nozzles, or do anything beyond a frustrating beep and a flashing “alarm” light when I press any buttons.

I thought maybe it was out of ink, which was disappointing since I’d used it for such a short time, but I figured I’d gotten what I paid for. I changed the cartridges. The brand new one doesn’t work, either.

After over a week of troubleshooting, attempting to make it work, and coming thisclose to taking a baseball bat to the thing “Office Space”-style, I’ve given up. I contacted 123InkJets for a refund, but the biggest customer complaint seems to be poor customer service when it comes to refund requests. My chances at actually getting a refund are slim to none.

The worst part? Costco currently sells brand new ink cartridges for about $5 more than what I paid online for the defective remanufactured ones. They’re a little smaller, but since they probably work, it’s a better deal.

Now I’m afraid the remanufactured cartridge has somehow damaged my printer and voided my manufacturer warranty. I can chalk the $60 for the printer cartridges up to a stupid mistake and file it under “live and learn,” but I’ll be pretty depressed if I’ve broken my printer, too.

The moral of the story: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Sometimes it’s not worth it to save $5.

Has anyone else had a bad experience with remanufactured cartridges? Is my printer damaged?!

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Make eating out the exception, not the rule

Who doesn’t love going out to dinner? Unfortunately, frequent dinners out are not part of a frugal lifestyle. It’s expensive and usually leads to weight gain.

Before I found a full-time job, we avoided restaurants for months. We just couldn’t afford to eat out. Only on very special occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries, did we opt to eat at a restaurant. The rest of the time, we cooked our meals at home.

When I was hired and we found ourselves with more wiggle room in the budget, we decided to cut ourselves some slack. However, I still didn’t want to make it a habit. In the past we ate at restaurants at least once a week. That was costing us over $100 a month!

Our compromise? We eat at restaurants only once a month. On the last weekend of the month, we look at our budget, and if we have room for a restaurant meal, we treat ourselves.

This weekend will be the third month that we’ve followed this rule. So far it’s worked out well, and it’s been a lot of fun. We can afford to fit $30 into our monthly budget for a meal out, and I enjoy it a lot more now that we don’t go out frequently. It’s a fun way to celebrate a successful month and a great incentive to stay on track to make sure there’s room in our budget for it.

We carefully select a local restaurant that we’ve never tried before instead of settling on a chain. In fact, I think we’re more likely to try new things now that we only go out once a month. We were more likely to be complacent about our restaurant choices when we ate out frequently. After all, why not make things easy and pick a chain when we know we’ll have the opportunity to try something new later? Now that we only get to pick one restaurant a month, we choose carefully and try something new.

It’s also a lot easier for us to choose an expensive restaurant if there’s room in the budget, because it’s only a once-a-month expense.

The best part? It’s a lot easier to manage a $30 restaurant budget than $100+.

TGIF link round up: Labor Day Weekend Edition!

Is it really Labor Day already? I’m not complaining … the sooner we say goodbye to summer, the sooner my electric bill goes back to normal. Unfortunately, here in North Carolina, we’ve got another six weeks of summer temperatures and humidity (at least). Ugh. Hopefully September will fly by as quickly as August did!

This weekend also marks the end of our first month of budgeting! I’ll be posting an end-of-month budget round up on Sunday, but here’s a little spoiler: I think it’s been a success! More to come on that later.

We also found out that my husband is getting a raise for his teaching assistantship. Yay! More to come on that later, too.

I participated in two blog carnivals this week. My post on saying ‘no’ to the birthday lunch was featured in the Festival of Frugality hosted by FIRE Finance, and my post on being frugal when temptation strikes was featured in the Money Hacks Carnival. I hope you’ll head over and check them out if you haven’t already.

And now here are the posts that inspired me this week! Enjoy!

  • Kelly at Almost Frugal asked what frugal habit would you give up if you could? I enjoy most of our frugal habits. I am much happier and feel like I have way more control over our money and our future now that we’re frugal. The only thing I’d give up is the bare-bones grocery shopping. I would love to buy exclusively organic produce, fancy cuts of meat, and other expensive specialty items. Maybe someday we’ll be able to budget for higher grocery costs, though. Kelly also posted some frugal gift ideas that you don’t want to miss.
  • Christina at Northern Cheapskate asks the question: to Wii or not to Wii? I think we can all relate to this. We scrimp and save so much, then sometimes it’s hard to decide if it’s time to reward ourselves.

I’ve got lost of posts planned for the three-day weekend, so I hope you’ll stop by again before the holiday is over. For those of you heading out of town, have a great holiday!

Planning an elegant wedding reception without spending a fortune

In the past two Wedding Wednesday posts, I discussed getting started on the right track and planning a stunning ceremony on a budget. This week I’m sharing some tips for an elegant reception without spending a fortune.

The reception is usually the most expensive part of any wedding. With catering, entertainment, and venue costs, a typical reception can cost as much as $20,000. My total budget was only $5,000 for the whole wedding, so obviously I had to get a little creative.

The reception is your only opportunity all day to spend time with your guests and thank them for joining you at the wedding, so I wanted to find a balance between frugality and elegance. I didn’t want a wild and crazy party; I wanted a simple, intimate affair where I could spend some quality time with my guests.

Here are some tips for finding that balance yourself:

Look into unconventional reception venues.

I called many places in my rush to book a reception venue before we moved. I was shocked at the prices. Most of them charged a facility fee of $500-$2000 for the space. They also required a minimum catering bill of $1000-$2000, which wasn’t tough to reach with catering packages that started at $20 per person. Yikes. I did the math, and even for my small guest list, I was looking at a minimum of $3,000 for the food and venue alone. That wasn’t going to work on my $5,000 budget.

Out of curiosity, I called a classy little restaurant and art gallery where Tony and I used to eat Sunday brunch. With a gourmet menu and table linens even for brunch, I was pretty sure it would be out of our price range. To my surprise, it was exactly what we wanted.

For $13 per person and no facility charge, we chose 5 of their gourmet appetizers with non-alcoholic beverages included for our guests. We had chicken, steak and cheese quesadillas; artichoke and kalamata spread with fresh bread; mozzarella crostini; Thai-style chicken wings; and chicken sate with peanut sauce. The presentation was gorgeous. The appetizers were replenished throughout the night, so even though we opted to do appetizers instead of a sit-down meal, there was plenty of food.

The best part? There was no down-payment to book the date. This was a huge relief for us since we’d only been engaged for a few weeks and hadn’t had time to save the money for the wedding yet. All of our savings was going to the move, so we were relieved to have extra time to get the money together for the reception.

Part of the reason this restaurant was so affordable and elegant is because it was super tiny. The absolute limit was 50 people with no room for dancing, so they probably don’t host a lot of weddings there. My number 1 priority was elegance, not a dance floor, so this was perfect for me. Holding your reception at a small restaurant is a sure way to save money if you’re willing to sacrifice space for a DJ and a dance floor.

A bonus tip: When you call, don’t tell them upfront that it’s a wedding. Just tell them you’re planning a party for X amount of people. When people hear the word “wedding,” they’re inclined to charge you more.

Skip the sit-down dinner.

This is becoming an increasingly popular option. Many couples are opting for trendy cocktail parties with champagne and appetizers instead of traditional sit-down dinners. I chose to do it this way not only to save money, but because I liked the idea of spending the whole night mingling and sipping champagne instead of spending part of the reception tied to a table for dinner.

If you choose this route, just be sure to order enough appetizers that your guests won’t be starving when the food is gone. We had an unlimited supply, so there was plenty of food.

Don’t let the crazy wedding culture pressure you into paying thousands for an open bar.

I never even considered an open bar. It’s just too expensive. I also didn’t want a bunch of sloppy drunk people killing the elegant mood of my reception. I doubt anyone on my guest list would have been “that guy” anyway, but I wanted a classy affair … not a college kegger.

I was appalled when I read wedding books that said that cash bars are downright tacky. The thought of couples putting themselves into thousands of dollars of debt for liquor just to avoid being deemed “tacky” really upsets me.

Obviously, if an open bar for your guests is a priority for you, then by all means work it into your budget. But I’ve known too many people who say, “I don’t really want an open bar, but I don’t want people to think we’re tacky.”

If you’re not really into it, then don’t spend the money just because you’re worried about what people will think. This is a good rule of thumb for all of your wedding planning. If you spend money just because the etiquette tyrants say it’s tacky not to, your wedding will end up costing about $30,000 (the national average).

The fact is nobody that cares about you is coming for the free booze. Sure, people like to have a good time at weddings, but the people who matter most (the only ones who should be there, in my opinion) don’t care a bit about what beverages you’re serving. Besides, if they’re only coming for the free booze, do you really want them there?

The restaurant that hosted our reception had a full list of beers and wines that our guests could order in a cash bar system. We bought enough champagne for all of our guests to have a glass at the toast. If they wanted more alcohol, they picked up their own tab.

It worked out beautifully. There was an extensive wine list sold by the glass or by the bottle, so the tables that wanted wine with dinner just ordered a bottle. The wines were reasonably priced and quite good.

Another option is to do a partial open bar by supplying beer and house wine for your guests. Personally, I’m not that into that idea, either. My honest opinion is that the wine and beer served is usually not very good. Most of the time I’d rather shell out the extra money to get a glass of good wine, but the only option is the cheap house wine. I love cash bars, and I think they work out well for everyone involved.

As for full open liquor bars … well, in my opinion asking your guests to buy their own drinks isn’t as tacky as a reception hall full of sloppy drunk people who eventually end up behind the wheel. It’s also not as painful as a $5,000 bar tab at the end of the night.

Make your own centerpieces or decorations (if you have them at all) and keep it simple.

We didn’t have floral centerpieces at our reception. The restaurant supplied elegant white linens and pretty candles for each table. Roses were the only flowers at the wedding, so I bought some rose-scented votive candles and some fancy candle holders for each table. The room smelled like flowers, but the whole thing only cost about $30 with no labor beyond dropping the candles into the candle holders. Simple.

We skipped additional decoration because our reception venue doubled as an art gallery. Paintings and photographs by local artists adorned the walls, and I thought that was much prettier than any decoration I could come up with.

Be your own DJ.

DJs and bands are fun, but they’re also expensive. Because there was no room for dancing at our reception, we didn’t care much about the entertainment factor. Music is important to both of us, though, so we knew we wanted a special playlist for the reception.

We carefully combed through our music collections and uploaded a list of meaningful songs onto my iPod. We chose songs that symbolized different times in our lives and our relationship. At the reception, we hooked the iPod up to some speakers and pressed “play.” It was a personalized playlist for next to nothing.

Find a freelance baker for your cake.

When I started calling around for cake prices, I was disheartened. Since practically everyone was traveling a couple hours to come, even us, we knew that nobody would even be able to take home leftover cake. I didn’t want to pay hundreds for something that was ultimately going to be wasted.

I wanted a traditional cake, though. So I contacted Kacie at Sense to Save to ask who baked her cake, because she was also married in Bloomington. She recommended a friend of a family member who bakes cakes out of her home. She made us a beautiful cake that was exactly what we wanted for half the price of professional bakeries. She also delivered it and set it up for free.

It’s important to get referrals if you’re not going with a professional business, because you really never know what you’re getting when you hire a freelancer. Kacie was pleased with her work, so I trusted that it would be fine even though I paid her before the wedding and never even met her. If she hadn’t been recommended by a friend, I would have requested references so I could speak with other couples who had hired her to bake their cakes.

The grand total for our entire reception including food, champagne, entertainment, decorations, cake, and gratuity was $800. Not too bad for a beautiful evening of food and fun for 50 people.