‘You are helping a lot of people’: Dollar Tree dinner lady transforms Thanksgiving with budget recipes, and it’s already making a difference

As Thanksgiving Day approaches, the nation’s home chefs are preparing for the most stressful batch cooking event of 2024. But thanks to one TikTok recipe, it need not be stressful for financial reasons.

Content creator Dollar Tree Dinners, who is dedicated to sharing budget-friendly recipes, posted instructions to make a three-course meal on Nov. 26, 2024, right in time for the holidays. The best part? The whole dinner costs under $12.

You can view the detailed recipe and the method in the video’s description, but the meal is made up of nine simple ingredients: instant mashed potatoes, green beans, 2 cans of turkey, gravy mix, turkey stuffing mix, dried cranberries, milk, margarine, and chicken broth.

It may lack the decadent vibe of a roasted turkey with made-from-scratch stuffing, but this recipe aims to allow people who may not be able to afford all the trimmings of a Thanksgiving dinner to still make the most of the food-filled occasion. Caleb Cooks explained as much in a sweet and grateful TikTok response, telling Dollar Tree Lady “You are helping a lot of people,” and saying he wants her to know that her content is helping families in need.

Cooks said he visited the Dollar Stone earlier, and that a woman with a “beat up car” and three young kids had approached him. He claims that he saw all the ingredients from the TikTok recipe in her cart. When he asked the mother about it, she said she had originally planned to do frozen meals for Thanksgiving this year, but that the TikTok had inspired her to make the Dollar Tree Lady’s meal instead.

“She’s actually going to be able to give her kids like a real Thanksgiving dinner, and her kids are excited for it,” Cooks added. The Dollar Tree meal lady is a wholesome creator and I want her to know that her videos do help her.”

As if we couldn’t love this story more, Miss Dollar Tree herself responded in a humble post. She captioned it, “Thank you @CalebCooks for sharing that story. It’s an honor knowing that someone out there is able to make a holiday meal for their family because of my videos. This platform is the best thing that has ever happened to me, you all educate and inspire me every day.”

Food poverty in America

Over 47 million people in the U.S. face hunger, and one in five of those are children, according to Feeding America. Inflation, the ongoing impact of COVID-19, rising housing costs, and a stagnated minimum wage are a few factors of many contributing to tighter pursestrings across the nation. The Food Research and Action Center additionally reported that about one in seven households (13.5 percent) experienced food insecurity or lacked access to affordable nutritious diets in 2023.

Accounting for things other than food insecurity, the Supplemental Poverty Measure, which accounts for the cost of living and social safety nets, reported the overall poverty rate increased by 0.5%, from 40.9 million people in 2022 to 42.8 million people in 2023.

When you’re facing rent arrears, have no health insurance, and can’t save for kids’ college tuitions, things like a fancy Thanksgiving dinner are the first ones to go, even though they often have lots of sentimental and cultural value in family homes.

Many folks are simply struggling to live, with no immediate signs of change on the horizon. That said, creators like Dollar Tree Lady are essentially doing grassroots community work, offering whatever they have to give. Some people have money to donate to charity, some offer the strength in their legs when helping a neighbor move, and some know how to make cheap meals so nobody is left out.