DIY Tips To Save Money from Rachael Ray

Good Morning DINKS.  You may remember that I am a big fan of Rachael Ray.  I first started watching her TV Show when I was learning to cook, and I have continued watching The Rachael Ray Show because she always offers great tips on how to save time and money in our everyday lives.

Rachael Ray recently had a show that featured ways to save money on everything from dinner meals to our wedding.  What is Rachael Ray’s advice?  Do It Yourself.  She recently had several experts on her TV Show that explained very simple ways to save money on dinner meals, parties, and weddings.

Check out these money saving DIY Tips from Rachael Ray:

DIY Dinner

Rachael Ray made a One Pot Wonder Chipotle Chicken Soup.  It’s a simple dish that is easy to make and it only leaves one pot to clean at the end.  You will need 4-5 pieces of chicken; we can use legs, breasts, or thighs whichever type of chicken is your favourite.  We will also need some salt and pepper, olive oil, bite sized corn, chicken stalk, oregano, chipotle seasoning, lettuce and radishes.

The entire cost for this Rachael Ray DIY Dinner is only $2.54 per person.  To start we have to season the Chicken pieces with sea salt and black pepper. We should pour some Olive Oil into the pot and crisp the chicken on both sides; then we can add the Chipotle and (Mexican) Oregano for flavour.

Once the oil is absorbed and our chicken pieces are crisp we can add the chicken stalk and the can of bite sized corn.  We should mix it all together in the pot, cover it, and let it simmer at a low temperature in order to allow all of the great flavours to mix together.  After 15-20 minutes we can serve it in a bowl and top it with lettuce, a bit of cilantro, radishes and even guacamole if you want. Bon Appetite!

DIY Party

Many people feel that there are huge costs involved when we plan a party.  Rachael Ray and her team of DIY experts are here to prove us wrong.  Rachael Ray says that we should set the tone for our party in the theme, and we can use our same theme materials for both the invitations and the decorations.

As an example if we are planning a garden party we can make flower shaped invitations out of Foam or Construction Paper. Foam and Construction Paper are both cheap material and they come in a variety of colours.  We can then use the Foam flower shapes as decorations at the actual party, or as the place settings with our guest’s names etc.

A huge DIY Party money saving tip is to use one recipe two or three different ways. This is cost efficient because we can buy and cook in bulk, but it still allows guests to eat two or three different dishes. Pasta is always a good cooking base because we can feed a lot of people on a little budget.

DIY Wedding

Forget a Party Planner. Rachael Ray gives us great tips on how to keep our costs down with a DIY Wedding.  A huge wedding cost saver is to make our own invitations and create our own center pieces.  Unfortunately there is not a lot of saving that we can do on the music or the food, but we can save costs on the cake, the invitations, and the center pieces.

Handwriting our own invitations may be more time consuming, but it can also be very cost saving.  Buy invitations at stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Office Depot, or Sam’s Club. Never buy them at specialty paper stores, or card stores such as Hallmark.

Try and grow your own flowers for the center pieces; this way we only have to buy the vases.  It is best to try and buy our vases or center piece dishes at bulk craft stores.  Tall Skinny drink glasses can also be used as vases for our centerpieces.  We can add coloured rocks for decoration into the vases and then we can add flowers or float candles on top to add ambiance to the room.

Never tell a baker that you are ordering a wedding cake because they double or triple the price.  Describe your perfect cake and use the words “special event” or “specialty cake”.  If you can choose another colour for the cake other than white it can also save you money.  You can still have white accents or white trim on the cake but choosing a different primary cake colour helps make the illusion that it is not a wedding cake. Instead of several tiers ask for a cake with a bigger surface and fewer layers, this way it doesn’t look like a typical wedding cake and we won’t be overcharged.

Photo by Blue Diamond

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.