Thanksgiving Budget Tracker

What you get

Thanksgiving spending creeps. A second trip for butter, a centerpiece, extra chairs, a bag of ice on the way home, and the total is far past what you meant to spend. This tracker sets the budget before the first shopping trip and keeps every receipt in one place, so you know where you stand all month.

It also handles the part that gets awkward: when several households chip in, the shared-cost splitter works out each fair share and who owes whom, with a worked example. Category pages come pre-filled with the usual Thanksgiving costs, and the last page has twelve practical ways to spend less.

What's inside

• Budget at a glance: total budget divided by guests for a per-guest figure, planned against actual for food, drinks, table and decor, extras and a held-back reserve
• Food: the usual Thanksgiving items pre-listed with store, planned, actual and who paid
• Drinks, table and decor: two category tables on one page
• Extras: rentals, foil pans, to-go containers, cleaning supplies and more, plus a borrow-before-you-buy list
• Expense log: 20 lines with category, who paid and a running total
• Splitting the shared costs: how it works, a worked example, who paid for what and a settling-up table
• Twelve ways to spend less, with a line to record what you saved