The Ultimate Guide to a Fun and Frugal Easter

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Did you know Easter is right around the corner? It’s coming early this year, with Easter Monday being April 1st (and I’m sure some folks out there will have a blast combining their Easter celebrations with April Fools Day). While I love the holiday and the fact that it’s a time to gather with loved ones, like any holiday, it can get expensive. Aside from attending the religious service of your choice, how can you enjoy this holiday without breaking the bank?

We’ve got you covered. In this article, I’ve got tips and tricks to have a fun and frugal Easter.

Decorating eggs for a frugal Easter

While there are endless possibilities for egg decorating kits at stores and online, in most cases, I don’t think the $10 to $20 spent on most kits is worth it. Here are some alternatives I recommend:

  • Try boiling ingredients you already have with your eggs to create a natural dye (e.g., beets, onion skin, tumeric, and more). Sara has a great article explaining how to do this and getting a wide range of colors.
  • Use some water, a splash of vinegar, and the food coloring of your choice to color your eggs. The more food dye you use, the more intense of a color you’ll get.
  • Use crayons to draw patterns or designs on your eggs before dipping them into dye. The wax from the crayons will actually repel the dye in that specific area, and you’ll wind up with a beautiful and simple design.
  • Get a nice set of wooden eggs. They can be kept as keepsakes (maybe everyone decorates one a year), or, you can just repaint over them the following year. While it would be an upfront investment that is a bit more expensive than the other options, once you buy them, you probably won’t have to again if you keep them. While Amazon has a few great options, I’d also recommend doing a little research in your community to see if any local carpenters or wood carvers offer something similar because if you can support a local business, all the better!
  • If you have little ones, stickers are a great and easy way to decorate the eggs with easy cleanup and lots of fun. After all, who doesn’t love stickers?

 

The Big Meal

When it comes to holiday meals and family get-togethers, I have always been a big fan of potlucks. I find they might need a little organizing, but only so much as you make sure there are some sides, some main dishes, and desserts. This way, everyone is helping, and no one person has to bear the burden of feeding a large group (because it adds up quick!)

If your local store has a special on hams, you may be able to get one really inexpensively. Sometimes, this requires you to spend a certain amount of money at the store, but as long as you shop carefully, you can win big with this loss leader.

Easter egg hunts

This is a traditional Easter activity that is always a blast! There are many ways to do an Easter egg hunt, and they may also differ depending on how old your kiddos are. Here are a few ideas, to make the most out of it on a budget.

  • Check out your community. Many communities have a variety of public Easter egg hunts, many of them free or affordable to join. I recommend checking out local church groups, community services, and groups like the Lion’s Club. Heck, even a quick Google search of “Easter Egg Hunt in my area” will probably bring up some good options.
  • A scavenger hunt. While this might not work for really young kids, it is super fun for older kids. Instead of it being a free-for-all for candy, leave clues (with maybe just a piece of chocolate or two). What it leads to is up to you, but some fun options could include chocolate, their Easter basket, a note or surprise, or, really, anything you want. If you’re setting this up for more than one person, you can also color code the clues so everyone can easily tell if it’s a clue for them or someone else.
  • Reusable plastic eggs. You can often find the simple, plastic, reusable eggs that you can fill fairly cheap at places like the dollar store. My mom found hers years ago at a thrift store and probably still has them. While you can go crazy with what you put in them, you can also do it in an affordable way. Here are some things you can try putting in:
    • Small change like a quarter, some dimes, or nickels.  (I went to an egg hunt like this as a kid, and it was so much fun!)
    • Fruit snacks like those little gummies your kiddos might get in their lunch or as a special treat. While it’s still sweet and tasty, there’s also a little less sugar.
    • Non-food items such as hair clips, erasers, bouncy balls, or small toys from the dollar store, like the ones you’d get for birthday loot bags.
  • Puzzle egg hunt. This is a cool idea I’ve seen floating around lately. Try getting a new puzzle, putting a few pieces in each egg, and as they’re found you can work on building the puzzle. This will also help you know if you’ve found all the Easter Eggs, because you can’t finish the puzzle until you have all the pieces!

Frugal Easter baskets

With the costs of everything being so high lately, it’s very easy to spend more than you meant to on an Easter basket. An easy way to balance this out a little is to buy things you already need for the season, such as new warm-weather clothes or toys for the spring and summer, like jump ropes and chalk.

For a full list of ideas, check out this article on how to Build the Ultimate Frugal Easter Basket.

How do you have a frugal Easter?

While the cost of the Easter holiday can add up, I hope that these tips and tricks that have saved me money over the years will also help to make your Easter a little more affordable. Are there any tricks that you intend to try for the first time this year? What ways do you save on Easter that I haven’t gotten into?

Let’s discuss this in the comments!

About Chloe Morgan

Chloe Morgan grew up living with a tight budget. In her late teens and early 20’s, all the lessons she’d learned started to slip, like it does for many college-age students on their own for the first time with their first credit card. As she’s gotten older, she’s started to deal with the repercussions and has taken on a frugal way of living, keeping her costs low, as she pays off debt and saves for her future. Chloe lives in Northern Ontario, Canada, with her dog, Rhea. 

Check out her work on TheOrganicPrepper.com and TheFrugalite.com where she writes about food, frugality, finances, and self-reliance, or her work on Medium, where she writes about lifestyle, mental health, and writing.

Picture of Chloe Morgan

Chloe Morgan

Chloe Morgan grew up living with a tight budget. In her late teens and early 20’s all the lessons she’d learned started to slip, like it does for many college age students on their own for the first time, and with their first credit card. As she’s gotten older, she’s started to deal with the repercussions and has taken on a frugal way of living, keeping her costs low, as she pays off debt and saves for her future. Chloe lives in Northern Ontario, Canada, with her cute dog, Rhea.

5 thoughts on “The Ultimate Guide to a Fun and Frugal Easter”

  1. Well, I don’t celebrate Easter but I do celebrate spring. Today, I traded for some just laid duck eggs and I’ll make some sort of fancy treat from them. I’ll go out and cut some greenery to bring inside. And, my potted bulbs are coming up. It’s still cool here but spring is coming. I just wanted to offer an alternative for folks who might not celebrate this holiday. Thanks

  2. Back when I celebrated Easter, I have fond memories of going off and gathering wild flowers (usually sweet peas or wild currant) for my mom. We also had a tradition of eating nettles if we could find them, boiled like spinach. We didn’t have a lot of money so often I would find things like a can of pineapple – a rare treat – in my basket. We always reused the same basket, and I think usually reused the plastic grass too. I loved hunting for the jelly beans, the black ones were (and are) my favorite. I loved making things so would usually do all the holiday decorations. If we didn’t go to service, my dad would always read the relevant portions of the Bible on Good Friday and Sunday morning. We’d usually get up early to greet the sun.

    Later, when I celebrated Ostara, I focused on the meaning of the holiday too, thinking about the meaning behind it. Honestly that’s the best way to save money, to focus on the meaning behind things – and then make what you do have more significance because of it.

    Now I don’t really celebrate any holiday around that time but I expect I’ll still be out in the garden, cheering on the pepper plants and baby tomatoes, nurturing the seedlings that will shortly be in the ground. Plus probably snagging some post holiday deals on chocolate. Whatever you celebrate, I hope that day is beautiful for you.

    1. I forgot to post one idea. Spring themed origami! There are some fun and simple patterns for things like flowers and birds out there, and the paper needed doesn’t have to be super thin if it’s a simpler pattern. Anyway they can make really cute decorations or a fun activity.re

      1. I love that part of your family tradition growing up was gathering early spring flowers, that’s such a wonderful memory to have!
        I haven’t done origami since I was a kid myself, but that is such a fun way to decorate! I’m also always out here snagging on sale chocolate, too! I’m down to my last couple of pieces of Valentine’s Day chocolate, just in time for the Easter chocolate to go on sale!

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