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Christmas wouldn't be the same without holiday cooking. Make the season merry with ideas to save money and simplify cooking and baking chores.

Frugal Feasts: Save Money on Holiday Meals

Posted by Cynthia Ewer on November 17, 2011

"Frugal" holiday meals? Something of a conundrum, isn't it? The very nature of holiday meals is to express the value of abundance.

Finances, on the other hand, have definite limits--and never so much as during the Christmas holidays.

Take heart! It's possible to serve bountiful holiday--yet frugal--holiday meals with a bit of care and forethought.

Consider these tips to serve up holiday meals without breaking the bank.

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Save on Food: Beat The Holiday Grocery Game

Posted by Cynthia Ewer on November 14, 2011

During the holiday season, department stores, catalog retailers and online sellers aren't the only businesses anxiously queuing up for a slice of the fourth-quarter pie, i.e. your holiday wallet. Been grocery shopping lately?

What a difference a few days makes! By November, Halloween's candy displays have given way to a maze of buy-me buy-me holiday foodstuffs.

No more straight shots down the aisle. Even in the dog food section, shoppers must dodge flimsy cardboard displays of holiday this-n-that. Formerly well-mannered spices abandon their tidy shelves and tower in unsteady stacks at odd corners. Holiday paper goods, holiday turkey pans, holiday stuffing mix, even holiday toilet tissue force shopping carts into desperate evasive maneuvers.

It's those grocery guys. They want your money. If you shop wisely, you can fund your family's holiday meals for less than you think--and for lots less than the grocery guys want you to spend!

How? By understanding how to play the Grocery Game. You must get inside the heads of those very same grocery guys to save money during the holiday season.

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Save Time With Holiday Baking: Make It A Specialty!

Posted by Cynthia Ewer on December 12, 2010

Food and the holidays go hand-in-hand! Holiday cooking magazines are among the first signs of an approaching holiday season.

Sumptuous desserts, winsome cookies, glowing turkeys warm our images of Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year.

But oh! My aching feet! Even those of us who lead a Little Debbie life from January to November succumb to holiday baking madness. Cookies. Breads. Pies. Candy. It wouldn't be the holidays without them--but isn't there any way around the baking chores?

Here's a suggestion that can simplify the holiday bake-fest: a baking specialty.

One baked good--cake or cookie or tea bread or candy--that you make each year, in bulk, and give to everyone with a flourish that proclaims it a specialty. Put this time-saving strategy to work for you with these tips.