The puja
Bathe, wear clean clothes and purify yourself and the place. Make the sankalpa for the puja and worship Ganesha first. Place an image or picture of Kubera with Lakshmi, or worship the family safe, cash box or jewellery box as Kubera's treasury, marked with a swastika in kumkum.
Worship Kubera with sandal, akshata, flowers, incense, a lamp of ghee and sweets, and offer coins, coriander seeds and new utensils bought that day. Recite the Kubera mantra 108 times, or simply "Om Kuberaya namah", and pray for wealth gained rightly and kept well. Then worship Lakshmi in the same way, and perform the aarti.
Many also worship Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods, who rose from the ocean on this day, for health.
Yama Deepam
After sunset a four-wicked lamp of flour or clay, filled with mustard oil, is lit facing south at the main door, as an offering to Yama, so that no one in the family meets an untimely death.
What to buy
Dhanteras is the day to bring new wealth home: gold or silver coins, jewellery, new utensils of brass or steel, or simply a broom, which is said to sweep away poverty. Whatever is bought is placed before Kubera and Lakshmi in the evening puja and blessed. Iron and sharp objects are usually not bought on this day.