What creative ideas do you have for entertaining? Not birthday parties for kids, but real "grownup" parties?
How do you save on invitations, decorations, food, beverages, etc.?

__________________
Check out the Mommysavers Fan Page on Facebook
Frugal Tweets! Follow Mommysavers on Twitter
Preorder the NEW Mommysavers.com Book: Instant Bargains

Well, to be honest, most of our "parties" don't include decorations, as they are generally for no reason at all.
Generally, the food is one of a few things: boiled crawfish (where sometimes we will split the cost, depending on how many people are coming), a barbeque of chicken, links, and boudain, with potato salad and beans, or a big pot of something like chili, taco soup, stone soup, or gumbo. We don't have trouble cooking for a lot of people, it's sorta how I grew up, always having leftovers is normal for us. So we just make a giant pot of something and if it's gone, it's gone, if not, we will eat it later.
Drinks, is always BYOB. Always. Unless we are making mixed drinks or margaritas, in which case you can either bring your own, or sometimes the "house" will pay. Depends, most of us drink beer anyway.lol. Or we all just share whatever the other brought.
Our parties are always very casual, generally outdoors, or in front of the tv watching football. Invitations are made by phone, not sent out, so no money there. We keep it pretty low cost, and low key. Unless the Dallas Cowboys are losing, of course, in which case, it can get rowdy.

Invitations are a phone call. No decorations. Food is potluck. BYOB. My hubby makes frozen drinks also.

You can send you invitations through evite.com. Its free of charge all you need is your friends email address. A friend of mine is having girls night out at her home and she send us all evite.

We recently went to a lovley Christmas party and I do not think it cost that much at all:
-invatiations were computer generated and so cute!* I think she told me she only mailed like 6-8 invatations becuase the rest were family, close freinds, and co-workers she just handed them to them.
-Have a grown-up party that starts at 7, have party mix, hand made, many dips and crockpot dishes are cheap. DO NOT TURN DOWN OFFERS FOR OTHERS TO BRING SOMETHIING.
-Have the party around the time of year you know your house already looks great due to the normal decor, fall, christmas etc. (no extra decorating)
-Have an exchange, at the party I went to everyone was to bring a beverage of choice, to exchange all wrapped up you could bring wine, beer, liquor, even non-alcholoic if you wanted then we pulled names and everyone got to pick a gift that brought one. This was done 1/2 through the party and most people opened the bottles and shared.

Serve punch in a punchbowl rather than buying individual sodas or liters. This is always a hit, kids especially love it. I've seen punch bowls at thrift stores for a few dollars. Freeze water with orange and lemon slices in bundt pan for an ice ring. Float the ice ring in 1/2 generic gingerale + 1/2 storebrand cranberry juice.

Make your own shrimp platter! We had ordered a platter to go from Red Lobster a while ago, and it occured to me that it was just thawed frozen shrimp. Just buy a bag or 2 of frozen precooked peeled shrimp. Defrost, arrange on a platter with a bowl of cocktail sauce in the center. Garnish with lemon slices. If you're feeling fancy, you can buy a couple of kale leaves and garnish the platter edges.

Moosemom

I love to entertain but it can get expensive. I am getting ready to have one of those lingere (sp?) parties. Since my house will already be decorated for Christmas, all I need to do is provide some snacks and beverages. The wives will be bringing their husbands so it should be fun for everyone. The consultant takes care of the invitations, but I would have done an evite, had she not sent out the post cards.

We usually have everyone BYOB and a snack.

I was entertaining the thought of having a chirstmass party at our house, however when commenting on the idea to one of my freinds, she totally ran with the idea, now its at her place, and mostly to her expense. ( Although all guest are helping with the food). So now I save on having to clean up afterwards as well as all the other costs.

Just this past weekend, I hosted Bunco on behalf of one of our group's other members as her house was out of commission. This means making dinner for 12, so we had a potluck. Since there are vegetarians in the group, I made a double batch of the highest-rated crockpot veggie chili recipe I could find on allrecipes.com and a couple of toppings on the side. (It was hit!). I also made corn muffins and bought beer. It was byob and a side dish of choice - everyone signed up via the Evite I sent out. Decorations included a nice tablecloth, scads of lit votive candles all over the house, and a blazing fire in the fireplace. It was very cozy and inviting. There was more than enough food (plus leftovers), everyone enjoyed themselves, and it didn't cost me much.

__________________
Attaining financial freedom is like eating an elephant . . . it takes one bite at a time.