Holiday Help: Drink and Be Merry!

So, a week until the holiday season officially kicks off! I've got my card table to seat more people (a table and 4 chairs for $40 - thanks Target!), table runner, napkins, decorations, menu...now I just need some drinks! I definitely don't want to break the bank for drinks - I'm keeping my budget at $25 for 5 people. What am I going to do?

First, I'm going to make a seasonal cocktail. I saw Rachael Ray's Thanksgiving episode and thought a pomegranate prosecco drink sounded great! I can't find it anywhere to share, but basically, she took a bottle of pomegranate juice and a few slices of fresh ginger. Let that steep for awhile and add an entire bottle of chilled prosecco. Mix and voila! I found a bottle of prosecco for $7 and pomegranate juice for around $4. For a non-alcoholic version, I bet ginger ale would be fantastic in place of the prosecco, and a whole lot cheaper!

For my wine, I'm going to have a rose (I hear it is fantastic with turkey) and beaujolais nouveau, which also pairs well with turkey. You can find both wines for modest prices. Beaujolais is also a great wine to have because it comes out the 3rd Thursday of November! Perfect timing, don't you think?

I'm leaving beer off because I think it's a little heavy with all the food. I'm sure if my husband's reading this, he's getting ready to go pick up some PBR Light. I bet he'd say nothing goes better with Thanksgiving than PBR Light because it's American, it won a blue ribbon, and it goes with just about anything. I think I'll disagree, but it's a great price point!

Since I love wine, but I'm far from a wine expert, I have a FANTASTIC blog, Good Wine Under $20, and her post for good holiday wines here.

Cheers! Salut! Prost! Happy Holidays!

Free Beer!

Okay, so not exactly, but we have another guest post this week from David Seidman. David is a true frugalisto. He would rather do something himself than pay someone else to do it, and that includes making his own beer and his own business. David mixed his business smarts, his frugal sensibilities and his desire to save people money to create splitts.com, an online matchmaker to help people share large purchases like boats, vacation homes, and even airplanes. If you're interested in finding about what splitts.com has to offer, check it out. Here, David shares his love of the homebrew.

Okay, brewing your own beer (“homebrewing”) isn’t quite free, but it’s a lot cheaper than at the store or the bar. An average microbrew costs anywhere from $1-$3 or more at the grocery store and $4-5+ at a bar, but you can brew it yourself for as cheap as $0.50. On top of that, it’s really simple and you’ll have a lot of fun doing it.

The big sucker punch here is up front – a basic starter package costs about $50, but most people wind up buying about another $50 or so in equipment, and sky’s the limit for fancy gadgets (spouses: great gift opportunities!). Once you have the basic equipment, you’ll spend about $30-40 per 5 gallon batch for good-quality beer. Cheap light beer can be, well, cheaper, and really hoppy or malty beers cost more. Wine is also simple to make but it has a different process that takes longer and doesn’t save you as much money. Also, it gives me a hangover.

So how does it work? Well, it’s a lot like cooking. You boil some water, and while it comes to a boil you steep a teabag-like bag of grains in the water. These give it flavor and color. Once the water’s boiling, you stir in “malt extract”, a syrup made from malted barley, the base ingredient in your beer, and throw in some hops. You boil this for about an hour, adding hops at a few key points along the way. Then you cool it down, pour it into your fermenter (a big bucket with an airlock), toss in the yeast, seal it all up, and put it in an out of the way place for a week or two. Like magic, the yeast will turn the malt into alcohol, and you’ll have beer! Flat beer, though. So the next step is to transfer it into bottles (there’s a gizmo for this) along with some sugar. As the yeast digests the sugar, it makes carbon dioxide, and in a couple weeks your beer is carbonated and ready to drink!

To get started, you can order any of the basic starter packages off the internet, or go into your local homebrew store. In the Seattle area, Larry’s in Kent, Mountain Homebrew in Kirkland and Homebrew Heaven in Everett are all good. They’re used to beginners and can get you all set up. They can also help you pick out a recipe and get all the ingredients. You can make any kind of beer you’re interested in drinking, and once you know what you’re doing you can even make up your own recipes, try crazy ideas (maple syrup beer, anyone?), and you’ll always have beer on hand when you want it. There are lots of great sites on the internet (search for “homebrew”) to help you out, or find a friend who homebrews - brewers are a friendly bunch (nothing to do with the alcohol…) and most people love helping their friends get started. So take up a hobby that actually saves you money! And as the homebrewers’ tagline goes: Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew.

Bar-Hopping...Broke

This weekend was an expensive one! A birthday party, a girls' night, warm (which of course meant purchasing a new bocce ball set at Target)...one of the best weekends I had in a long time, but definitely not my cheapest weekend ever. I wish I would have followed the advice I'm about to lay out, but here are some good ways to keep your tabs low when out having fun with friends.

*First and foremost, make sure you have a game plan and a ride home. A designated driver, a bus, a taxi...but if you are drinking more than a glass of something, you should not be driving.

*Have a pre-party. Not only are you more likely to get some quality socializing time in at a home versus a crowded, loud bar, but you can also bring grocery store purchased alcohol, which is far cheaper than getting drinks at a bar.

*Get a round of water in between each round of drinks. First of all, you forget how quickly alcohol can dehydrate you. But second, what's the point of just chugging things down? You're there to enjoy your friends' company and a couple of drinks, so you don't want to finish in 45 minutes and completely destroy your budget. You'll still have a drink in your hand, you'll feel better the next day, AND you'll cut your bar tab in half.

*Don't go to a bar with a cover charge, or go before the cover starts. Covers can range from $5-$20 - and most of the time, you don't get anything for that except entrance. By arriving 10 minutes earlier, you avoid paying more money than you have to. Put it towards your cab fare.

*ASK how much drinks are or to see a menu. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a receipt and been shocked at how much two or three drinks ended up costing. You don't want to be surprised - and having all of the information is your best defense.

*Eat something before you go out. Having a few beers or glasses of wine definitely kicks in the "I need to eat something fried" instinct. Bar food, while almost never good for you, can also be pretty expensive. $10 for a few chicken fingers? Order pizza in at your pre-party or make a delicious spread of crackers, baked cheese and roasted garlic (like my friend did this weekend), but just be sure to eat. You'll be glad you did.

I hope this blog doesn't sound like I'm a big drinker! :) I'm really not - and I usually prefer staying in with friends than going out. But I know not everyone feels that way, and I'm sure most of you would like to save some of your hard-earned money for other things than overpriced drinks. So have fun, be safe, and save your money!