$30 Dinner Party is a Monthly Column that lays out a detailed 3-course meal (appetizer, entree and dessert) for a dinner party of four for under $30. With a detailed listing of ingredients (and their cost) and super easy recipes, along with budget wine pairings, you’ll never have to put off socializing due to budget restrictions again. Recession be damned!

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and with all of the dinner invites and family gatherings, you’ve got to come up with a quick and easy dish to bring over because you can’t show up empty handed. So for those of you who are a bit domestically challenged, like us, we’ve got you covered with some simple and inexpensive Thanksgiving worthy side dishes. Keep on reading for our Top 5 sure-to-please recipes.

We know that dating can be expensive, but it’s still somewhat mandatory if you want to pull off a social life in the city of bright lights. So rather than spend a quarter of your paycheck on an over-priced dinner, we’ve dug up some of our favorite places to go for low-cost (and delicious!) meals in New York City.

My mother was always an avid coupon cutter, and with three kids and a husband I guess she pretty much had to be. Dutifully following in her footsteps, I am picking up the same money-saving habit, albeit in a somewhat updated fashion.

Think Ramen is just for broke co-eds scraping a few quarters together for a week’s dinner? True, it is one large consumer group. But those Marachun noodles can come in handy with a quite a few other meals, too. We’ve pulled together some of our favorite hearty meal ideas with our dirt cheap ingredient of choice: Ramen.

You know those weeks – you’re midway between paychecks and you’ve already spent the bulk of your income (hopefully on essentials instead of spontaneous spending) and now you have $20 to feed yourself for the week. But before you hop on over to your local grocer and start sorting out the many flavors of Maruchan, you may want to have a look at some other cheap meal options. We at LifeStyler bring you 5 healthy and cheap (although not .25 cheap) alternatives to that 10-pack box of Ramen.

A few months ago, I noticed that my paycheck didn’t seem to go as far as it normally did – even when I was making less money. I sat down one evening, pulled up my online bank statements and started categorizing every expense for the last 30 days. What I found out was pretty shocking to me.