6 Tips for a Cheaper Easter
Easter is right around the corner, and if you are like me you are dreading the pocket book drain due to yet another holiday. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is right around the corner, didn’t Valentine’s day just happen? Not to mention 3 of our 4 kids have birthday (oh, and my husband!) in the Spring. Drain! Drain! Drain!
Our friends at Mint.com get it. They’ve sent over some tips to help you enjoy the holiday without hurting your pocket books, but still letting them kids have a fun time! Check out these 6 tips for a cheaper Easter!
1. Buy Candy Last Minute
If you buy your chocolate bunnies and Peeps weeks ahead of time, you probably paid too much. Buying your candy as close to the actual holiday as possible, perhaps even the night before, means you’ll pay much, much less. Stores want to get rid of their stock and make room for the next holiday’s decorations, and many will slash prices anywhere from 50-90% to do it. What sounds better: a giant chocolate rabbit for five bucks for one for 75 cents?
2. Throw Your Very Own Easter Egg Hunt
Why waste gas by driving to some organized Easter egg hunt in the park (which somebody might want to charge for) when you can just as easily hold a hunt in your own home! Hide the eggs all over the place and when the kids wake up, challenge them to find them all. Whoever wins gets the big piece of bunny.
3. Make Your Own Easter Egg Dye
However much you pay for Easter egg dying kits these days, it’s too much. You can make your own dye and, for all intents and purposes, it’s free. Simply use a few drops of food coloring (if need be, you can pick up a package with several colors included for a buck or two), boiling water, and a teaspoon of vinegar. Mix it all up, and you’ve got 100% workable egg dye at virtually no cost to you.
4. Buy Easter Clothing at Discount/Thrift Shops
Who says dressing up for the holiday has to be expensive? Rather than taking a trip to your local mall, hit up the local discount stores and thrift shops for suits and dresses. Make sure there are no secret tears or holes, then bring ‘em home and put ‘em on. Your family will look awesome and no one will know you spent squat to do so.
5. Make Your Own Easter Basket
You could buy an Easter basket, or, you could take an old pail that’s just lying around the house, clean it, decorate it yourself, and make THAT your Easter basket. The latter is far more personable and fun, not to mention less pricey and far less likely to be thrown away and forgotten about by Monday. If you want to save even more, use old wrapping paper for basket grass vs. purchasing it at the store. Throw you scraps of paper the shredder (or manually cut them if you don’t own a shredder), crinkle them up a bit, and line your basket. It’s easy, it’ll look pretty, and gives random scraps of paper a reason to live.
6. Have Your Easter Feast at Home
There is no reason to go out and pay some chef to feed you Easter ham when you can so easily do it yourself, for much less money. Open up a cookbook or search online for some yummy-sounding recipes, pick up the ingredients you need, and get to cooking! It’ll taste better than whatever restaurant you were planning to visit, plus your bank account will thank you. And then, once you realize you have a bunch of food left over, meaning free meals for the next several days, it will thank you even more.
Read even more tips on hosting a cheaper Easter at the mint.com blog.
