If you’re like me, the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday is starting to look like that bright idea I had a few years ago to get a large dog. Fond memories of the little pooch I played with as a kid were quickly replaced by the reality of a huge four-legged black hole sucking down all the dog food, people food and yard creatures that entered his gravitational pull. In a similar way this year, recollections of my childhood Thanksgiving dinners have been sucked into an economic black hole called the grocery bill.

As expected, food magazines and cooking shows have seized upon this fowl-weather tsunami and are offering shopping tips, dinner plans and recipes for the budget-minded Thanksgiving dinner host. The advice usually falls into one of three general categories:

Go vegetarian: This dinner plan is centered around eating a meatless substitute for the traditional bird. The most frequent choice is tofu -- Asia’s way of proving that Americans will eat anything if someone says it’s good for you. While making a turkey-shaped lump of pressed soybean curd is even more disgusting that fisting a turkey carcass for giblets, the effort is worthwhile because the thought of eating that misshapen congealed mass will kill the appetites of your guests, thus eliminating the need to prepare bean-and-tofu-bacon casserole, sweet potatoes with tofu marshmallows and pumpkin pie with whipped tofu milk topping. While pondering how one milks a tofu, remember that “tofu” is the Chinese word for “yuck.”

Go potluck: The traditional “Show up at Grandma’s hungry and leave with ten pounds of leftovers” Thanksgiving dinner gets flipped over like two drunk uncles fighting over the remote during the game with the “Go potluck” plan. Instead of blowing what’s left of your retirement savings on fixings, call each guest and ask if they wouldn’t mind bringing “a little something” for the dinner. Make sure you emphasize “a little something” and get a firm commitment before revealing the three-digit dinner headcount. To make it easy on guests, let them know you set up a food registry at your favorite warehouse club and that your back door has an unloading dock. To insure each guest gets some leftovers, remind them to leave a portion of what they made at home.

Go freegan: By far the most inexpensive Thanksgiving dinner plan is the “go freegan” approach. According to Wikiknowseverything.com, a freegan is someone who has “limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources.” When I was a kid gorging on traditional Thanksgiving feasts, that person was called “a bum” or “your father’s no-good brother.” Freegans try to eat without spending any money whatsoever. While this usually involves begging, dumpster-diving or saying “Is that George Clooney sitting over there?” when your waiter brings the check, it can be accomplished at Thanksgiving by watching for free turkey promotions at grocery stores, making copious use of coupons and saying “Isn’t that George Clooney over there in the 10-items-or-less line?” when checking out. Freegans start preparing their Thanksgiving dinners on Halloween night, which explains the chocolate stuffing and chunks of candles in the pumpkin pie.

After carefully evaluating these three options, I’ve come up with a fourth that will give me a traditional Thanksgiving dinner while staying well within my meager budget: I’m training my large dog to sniff out and retrieve roast turkey, stuffing, cranberry dressing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. Sure, the foods will be covered with bite marks, dirt and dog spit, but that can’t be any worse than tofu.