by Hope
Last week, I hosted a party for two of my friends who are selling things…I’ve NEVER played hostess for one of these things before. I actually did it on a “bet” per se. A month or so ago, I went to a friend’s party and before I would purchase any product (I went saying I wouldn’t, but I wanted to support her venture,) I had to see it work at my house. She showed up the next day with her personal supplies in hand and AMAZED me.
I don’t take the best pictures, but this is the before and after of my all wood, farmhouse table that is our kitchen table, school table, craft table, just about everything table. Everything happens on this table. It’s about 5 years old (a post marriage split purchase) and is covered in paint, glue, and a variety of other things that just won’t come up. We have tried all sorts of cleaners, scraped it, etc. but either varnish comes off or it just doesn’t work. When I saw her product work with very little effort, I was hooked. And then she showed me what it would do to my glass top stove and shower. So I purchased and I ate my words and said I would host a party for her. So here we are.
I added my second friend who also just started selling a complimentary product 1) because it is a complementary product and 2) because I wanted to support her and didn’t think I could pull off two such house party type things. I did check with each and make sure they were okay with it, and they were. Yeah!
Ok, so hosting a house party can be expensive especially if I did it like I’ve seen my friends do it. They have a cleaning service come in, buy a ton of food and alcohol, etc. So I was terribly worried about all this for a couple of reasons….1) I am not hiring a cleaning service; 2) I don’t drink alcohol at all, never have, so not only did I have no clue on how to buy alcohol if I wanted too but I don’t have the glasses (or stemware as I was told) to serve it; 3) food, OMG, what in the world would I serve?!
So here is how I tackled my dilemmas:
- I paid my kids to clean the house. Yes, it’s not as clean as a professional service, but it is clean to our standards, and I’m proud of the job they did, and they are happy with the money they made.
- I asked the two women that I was hosting the party for to cover the alcohol issue. They both drink, have stemware and are aware that I am clueless and even a little uncomfortable with alcohol in general. (It helps that one lives across the street so wasn’t labor intensive to move stemware.)
- I spent the last couple of weeks researching good snacks that I could make at home and again enlisted the kids to help with preparation. We even fit it into our weekly grocery budget so no extra money spent.
So out of pocket was the housecleaning money to my kids (who as you recall, gave up their allowances last month.) As the “hostess” I get free products based on what others buy so I didn’t actually have to purchase anything. And to top it off, had a really great night with my girlfriends!
Now this is the way to have a house party!
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
I’m impressed you were able to serve food, yet not go over your grocery budget for the week.
You are absolutely right…these things can get pricey!! Good job!
However, in the future…..if you ever did it again….alcohol isn’t a prerequisite!! If you don’t serve alcohol in your home, then don’t. People will get over it. You can have mocktails, juices, sparkling water. You put the right garnishs on stuff and it still makes it fancy. You can get clear plastic cups, and call it a day.
I agree with Mysti about the alcohol. When we are true to ourselves, we can buck the societal norms and avoid a lot of spending on things that aren’t important to us. (At my expensive lunch yesterday, I drank water and my friend had a glass of wine, each of us were true to ourselves and didn’t feel the need to change who we were for the other.)
Oh, and isn’t funny how every once in a while there will be a product that actually does what it advertises? I’m so cynical, I avoid buying almost everything. I have too many bottles of cleaners that didn’t deliver on their basic promise. But my stainless pots came with a sample cleaner that my dh thinks is magic (and when we move we’ll buy another package) and almost 17 years ago I got turned onto a carpet spot cleaner that works (what made me buy it was online friends commenting that they have no idea where the stain goes but it is gone!) Since then, I bought that company’s laundry spot remover and was completely disappointed. Then my friend loaned me the product she uses and I found something else that did work.
Weeding out the crap from the few gems out there is hard so I’m glad you found something for your table. I would have been clueless.
Wow, awesome job Hope! Having a party and not spending a lot of money is a pretty rough task for even the most seasoned frugal person. I am so impressed and proud of you! There are so many great things in this post, that I don’t know where to start! I think it was great that the kids were able to earn the extra money by cleaning the house. I think it’s great that you had a plan, researched snacks to make, put the ingredients into your already super frugal budget AND had enough time to make all of those wonderful snacks. It would have been so easy to just go and purchase snacks for the party. I agree on the alcohol, I wouldn’t know where to start either since I don’t drink and while I think it would have been fine to go without, I think it was very creative to do it the way you did. More money savings by earning the free products! But what I am most proud of is that you had a great time with your girlfriends. Is this really the same Hope I read about a few short weeks ago that associated spending money with having fun? By taking a little more time, you had an amazing time, kept to your financial goals and helped your girlfriends. My hat is off to you my friend.
By the way, this is exactly the kind of post I like to read on BAD. I love seeing someone make the necessary changes that it takes to meet their goal. Congrats.