Does Being Frugal Make You A Cheap Host?

[indieretailer]

I am curious to know to what extent a frugal lifestyle influences a person's sense of hospitality. Do some people who are careful with their spending see having guests as an imposition?

My mother is from Mexico and our household was influenced by Latino customs.
Guests, invited or otherwise, were always offered some form of refreshment, even if only a glass of cold water.
Anyone who happened to be at our home during mealtimes was always offered to eat at our table.

There are Spanish proverbs that refer to sharing with unexpected guests---such as "just add more water to the beans"---meaning there would always be enough to go around.

Being of limited means or being on a budget did not mean limiting your spirit of generosity with others in your own home.



While I may not have a fridge full of Cristal, I do try to have at least one or two things I know I can offer someone in a pinch.

[khorrell]

There are tons of ways to be hospitable without breaking the budget. That said, I tend to have a couple of really huge parties a year and spend a fortune on them. However, they are budgeted for and hopefully I'm paying cash for all that great food. I would welcome some unusual suggestions for entertaining inexpensively.

[anitra]

Yeah, I always will stretch meals to share with visitors, and offer them water, tea, or whatever else we have in the fridge. If it's a big stretch, we'll dig out bread, or make more rice/pasta, and maybe have a larger serving of veggies.

Much like khorrell, I do have a few large parties, where we buy a lot of booze and some food, and our friends will usually bring more food and/or chip in with some money. It's tradition, since we started these parties when we were poor students (and so were the vast majority of our guests).

Even if you don't have money, you have some time - our church likes to encourage members to host people on Sunday afternoons who come a long way to church, just so they have somewhere "homey" to rest rather than traveling back and forth. In some cases, these people have brought their own food or a contribution to the family meal, so the hospitality goes both ways.

[Thursday Bram]

Hospitality was drummed into me as a kid — my mother would even invite Jehovah's Witnesses who were going door-to-door in for a cup of tea.

I've grown to enjoy being hospitable. I like having people over for dinner, even if I didn't know they were coming. I use the same tricks as Anitra — just add a bit more in the way of sides and it'll be fine.

[purplefdu]

That was a big thing in my family as well, my maternal grandfather is Chezch ad he was the patriarch as well so he had the grandkid, he hosted the visitors unless they were sick. Period. We always had trays of food we made and drinks, etc.

I recently held a party last week for about 10 people (only three showed up though ) I used it as an excuse to use coupons for things I wouldn't normally buy like blocks of cheese, sparkling juice and fancy crackers. Total spent was less than ten bucks and we had plenty of snacks for ten people.

Back in college we did the divide and conquer thing. Everyone brought their own alcohol and shared some or put in and we bought it all since it was at our place and we didn't have underage roomies. We divided the rest:water, snacks, dinner among the rest of the people equally or expected them to bring and share.