Just realized last Thanksgiving season a bunch of grocery chains were actually giving away free turkeys if you hit certain spending thresholds. Wish I'd known about it back then honestly. BJ's Wholesale was doing this thing where you'd spend $150 and get a coupon for a free Butterball, Giant Eagle had a similar deal if you dropped $350 on groceries. ShopRite and Acme were in on it too with their loyalty programs. The spending requirements ranged from $300 to $400 depending on where you shopped, and you had to claim everything by late November. I'm thinking next Thanksgiving I'm definitely going to track where to get a free turkey early instead of just paying full price like I usually do. Also found out Feeding America runs this whole network of food banks and local pantries that hand out turkeys to people who need them - you just go on their website, find your area, and reach out. That's probably the move if money's tight. Turkey prices were up like 25% that year which is wild, so these free turkey promotions actually saved people decent money. Definitely something worth planning around if you're trying to cut costs on holiday meals.