Family reunions are great events that allow families to come together, have fun, eat delicious food, and catch up with the entire family. But throwing a reunion can be stressful and expensive. We explain how to throw a family reunion on a budget below!
Host the Party at Your Home
While destination family reunions can be fun and exciting adventures, they’re a massive headache to organize and can be exceptionally expensive. Instead of making everyone travel somewhere, consider having a simpler but just as fun family reunion within the confines of your home.
You can save the money you’d normally spend on travel and lodging and put it toward decorations, food, entertainment, and party favors. If you need more space than your home and backyard can provide, consider preparing your garage for a family get-together.
Make It a Potluck
Another way to throw a family reunion on a budget is to make it a potluck! Preparing a feast for dozens of family members at once can be exhausting and expensive. Luckily, you can save yourself a lot of money and stress by having everyone bring something for food.
Potlucks are ideal for family reunions since they allow everyone to break out their favorite family recipes that they’ve learned from generations past. You could even turn it into a family cooking competition to find out who makes the best chili, dessert, or whatever else your family loves to cook and eat!
DIY Decorations
When saving money, the do-it-yourself option is always the most affordable route. Instead of buying a bunch of family reunion decorations at the store, make them more personable and fun by making them yourself with other family members!
Along with making things like streamers and bunting, you can ask family members for their favorite family photographs and display them in the decorations! You can even put together a large family tree board to show everyone how big the family you’re all celebrating is.
Ideas for Frugal and Fun Family Entertainment
While you can go all out and rent things for the party, like a giant bouncy castle or other entertainment, there are plenty of ways to have frugal fun at your family reunion. Yard games like cornhole, bocce, and horseshoes are always fun for kids and adults and are cheap to find or easy to make.
Or you can assemble a series of events for a family reunion competition! Some simple but fun family competitions you can do include:
- Tug-of-war
- Spoon-and-egg race
- Three-legged race
- Sack race
- Relay race
- Charades
- Card games
- And more!
You can find some medals and trophies or make your own and hand them out to the competitors as souvenirs for everyone to remember the fun-filled day.