Making Holiday Meal special but Affordable

We all have our favorite holiday meals.
Turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving are universal musts.
But what about other holidays? Birthdays? Special days?
Some meals we aren't willing to compromise cost over not having our special meals. Most of that has to do with our memories. Creating memories can be just as important and it doesn't have to be expensive memories.
What made me start thinking about this is the 4th of July. Today in fact. It has been my tradition to make homemade ice cream. This year when we started being serious about keeping to a budget and I realized I had agreed to keep to $80 grocery budget for the month and that had to include my homemade ice cream supplies and grilling for the 4th. It was hard to accept. We already had some hot dogs and Turkey patties in the freezer. I reserved those for grilling on the 4th. (With the cost of low-fat beef burger patties, turkey patties are a great alternative for saving money). I made sure I bought buns and cheese for the burgers. But there was the matter of the ice cream. How was I going to make homemade ice cream on a budget.
Then I saw this video from Buzzfeed. Around the time the video came out I had 2 friends say they tried it that night and their ice cream turned out awesome. So I thought this 2 ingredient ice cream was the answer to still keeping tradition. Not my normal recipes but sometimes you have to change it up to still keep what is important to you.
1 pint of Heavy Cream and 1 can of Sweet Condensed Milk
So I added about $1.50 for a pint of Heavy Cream to keep a tradition.*
What about other special days?
ideas- consider breakfast as a special meal.
Breakfasts are a cheap, nutritious, and there are so many options that are probably not apart of your regular breakfast rotation.

suggested breakfasts:
Omelets
Eggs Benedict (if you have difficulty with the sauce, I recommend the Korrs brand sauce mix)
homemade muffins
waffles (to make them extra special use fruit as toppers)
Rice Pudding (can be made in the crock pot and makes a great Christmas morning breakfast)
Bread Pudding
Quiche
Scones/fry bread/donuts
Hot cocoa with toast
Crapes
German Pancakes
cinnamon rolls
biscuits and gravy
Breakfast Pizza
Apple cobbler

What are some of your families' favorite special breakfasts?

For Father's Day we made my husband a massive omelet. Twice a year (first weekend) in Oct and April are the General Conference of the LDS church. I made Eggs Benedict those mornings. Our ward (local church congregation) has a huge pancake breakfast on the 4th of July. We have Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast most Sunday mornings. Create some of your own traditions. It doesn't have to be one of the big holidays, and it doesn't have to hurt your wallet.

Don't forget that breakfast food can be used to make special meals for non-breakfast meals too. Breakfast food isn't just for breakfast.

What are some of your families' favorite tradition foods and how do you keep them affordable?

*Follow up story for the 4th of July: when my in-laws learned that the amount of ice cream this year was going to be decreased, they offered to buy the cream if I would make full batches. We took them up on the offer, after all who doesn't love lots of ice cream. That can be another tip. If the budget isn't going to allow for your favorite dishes, if others participate in the joy ask if they wouldn't mind adding to the pot. I did still make the Buzzfeed video recipe and it turned out really good.

Cheap Meals: Ham and Potatoes

Easy recipe that used affordable ingredients. As is the recipe feeds 4 full adult portions.

It uses:
oil (of your choice just enough to cover the pan for use)
6-8 potatoes (scrubbed and diced) approximately 30 ounces of potato.
1 cup chopped loose chunks/cubes ham/pork meat (thick sandwich ham, leftover Easter ham, pork roast, bacon, hot dogs- use what you have or what is cheapest, I have even used diced chicken).
1 can cream of whatever (I prefer cream of mushroom) *
1/2 can milk
1 TBS flour or gravy thickener mix
salt and pepper to taste
optional- 2 TBS sour cream (if you are feeling extravagant more makes a nice creamy sauce. My mom always used a whole 16 oz container in one meal)

*to save money, if you double this recipe, don't double the soup, add an extra 1/2 can milk (for a total of a 1 1/2 cans of milk)

directions:
dice potatoes, put into hot oiled pan, on a medium heat cook the potatoes till they are just starting to soften, add your meat (the more raw your meat is the soon you'll want to add it)- add it by creating a space on your pan for the meat to go. Let it sizzle for a bit and them start mixing the two together. Cook together until the meat is cooked and the potatoes are softy and getting crispy outers. Add the cream of soup, milk, and thickener. Stir well and let sit only stirring to keep it from sticking to pan bottom. Let everything thicken and attach to the potatoes. Remove from heat. Add sour cream just prior to serving after removing from heat. Suggest serving with cooked peas. My mom often mixed cooked peas in, I serve them on the side.

Enjoy. My kids all love this dish. It is one my mom always made for us. She used SPAM (because she liked it), I hated and swore I would never make it for my family. Then one day I was craving the version she'd make after Easter with the leftover ham and I made it. Still can't eat it with SPAM- but if that is what you have it totally does work. (My disgust for SPAM lead me to make this crazy fake cooking show video for a contest back in my single days).

downloadable and printable recipe card (right click and "save as")

Meal Cost Breakdown: based on my last shopping trip (6/16/2015)
potatoes +.69,  bacon(in the picture used 1/4 of package I bought for 2.50) +.62, can of soup +.98, milk +.12, flour +.02, sour cream +.05=2.48 for the main dish + sides