Family Reunions (are you brave enough?!)

My purpose here is to provide you with cost-cutting ideas from my experience but also from a variety of other resources that you may have missed. Whenever the info is available, I will provide the author and source of anything I have not written personally!

This particular post is re: saving money on family reunions (ok,admittedly not something I plan on hosting in the near future :) My source for this blog post is USA Weekend (see usaweekend.com) for 5/15-17, 2009, article entitled "Save on your family reunion" by Walecia Konrad.

Walecia provides some very useful advice as follows:

* Trim food costs - i.e. holding a potluck (MY suggestion - use cherished family recipes from your childhood...how fun would that be - mine a carrot/pineapple jello mold - yeah, sounds vile, but it's really quite tasty!)

* Communicate online - use online invitations or even create a Facebook or other webpage designed for the event! MY note: great for posting pics of the event later too!

* Raise money to offset costs - Ms. Konrad suggests auctioning of a family heirloom or holding a raffle or putting favorite recipes into a cookbook and selling copies...MY thoughts: a bit tacky - who would want to support your reunion when they could support a worthy charity...but, hey, whatever works if you are comfortable with it, I suppose!

* Make use of free stuff: "Canvass family members to see who may be able to donate items for goodie bags. Also, go to reunionsmag.com and click on 'free stuff' for ideas."

I would also suggest the following ideas that can be done with minimal expense:

* Donate mileage points to get tickets for family members who may have difficulties getting to the event (same for hotel points, car rental coupons, etc.)

* Hold a raffle to offset expenses - family members can each bring something they've made or have access too (i.e. gift cards from work, etc.) - family members can buy raffle tickets at the event...costs will be offset by earnings.

* Depending on the season, hold the event at a local park where you can rent a covered picnic area for minimal expense.

Any past life experiences you'd like to share on this topic? Waiting to hear...!