I've seen that frugal extroverted people are having trouble staying very social on the cheap so I will share my favourite and cheapest party plan: a fancy tea!
Budget:
- tea: 1€ per variety (1 is enough)
- bread: 1 or 2€ (you may want 1 or 2 loaves of sliced bread)
- small breads: 0,10 per unit (get at least 5)
- about 100g of cheese slices: 0,50€
- about 100g of ham slices: 0,60€
- 1 jam jar: 1€
- 1 butter: 1,10€
- 1 cucumber/zuchini: 0,30€
- 1 cake: 3€
- Total cost: 8,5€ (slightly more than a McD's menu)
Use your nice tea set if you have it, and go all out with nice towels and plates. If you don't have any of this stuff, just put things on your regular plates/cups and it'll still be fun
Things to make:
- Cucumber sandwiches: spread some butter and top with thin cucumber slices. Close it with anither slice of bread and cut into shapes (4 rectangles or triangles waste the least amount of bread)
- Ham sandwiches: spead butter, top with ham, close, slice
- Cheese sandwiches: my personal favourite, just bread and cheese, cut into triangles or slices
- Jam sandwiches: use butter and jam, or just jam
- Cake: don't be afraid to buy a ready-made cake and just put it on one of your plates and dust with icing sugar at home to make it look homemade. I won't tell anyone :) If you prefer, bake your own
- Optional: if your budget can take it, bake or buy scones. Super fun and delicious, but adds to the cost
- Toast: take the small breads and slice very thinly (as much as possible without shredding it). Put the slices into a tray and toast it in the oven for 10-15 minutes until lightly gold. Looks like you bought the fancy organic toast from the gourmet supermarket, but costs 0,10€ per 6 slices-ish
- Put your sandwiches on plates and on your table
- Put your toasts on plates and on your table
- Make a plate of remaining ham/ cheese/etc to put on the toasts.
Remember to set out at least one dish and one cup per person. Make the tea when your guests arrive and you're done :)
If you have the budget, dishware and patience you can make this even nicer with a small milk jar, a tiny dish with lemon slices and many other ideas, but my goal here is to spend as little as possible.
This results in a fun party and we can then play board games or cards on the table too. I've done this party with a nice tea set and also in a dorm room with an electric kettle and paper plates and requested each guest to bring their own mug (as I only had 2). Make do with what you have, but use the nicest things you already own for a free and fun touch (go dig out your nice cake stand!)
Let me know about your cheap and fun ideas!
January 22, 2019 at 08:20AM
