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Great Birthday Parties for Next to Nothing
Filed under: Holidays
When it comes to birthday parties, moms are finding that a little creativity goes a long way toward cutting costs and making great memories for their children.
Take Anne Beller, a Dallas mother of four, for example. She actually turned a profit on her son's birthday party (don't worry – she didn't sell admission tickets). Instead of paying $200 to rent a giant, inflatable moonwalk for bouncing, Anne bought one on eBay. After the party, she neatly re-packaged it, put it back up for sale on eBay as "only used once," and sold it for more than she paid for it. The difference covered the cost of decorations, party favors and food, and she even had a little left over.
Autumn Thomson of Tallahassee threw a pajama party for her three-year-old daughter at Krispy Kreme. She bought small pillows at a dollar store for a pillow fight, and bought all the guests donuts and milk – plus coffee for parents. They hosted about 25 kids and 30-or-so parents, and spent less than $75 total. And Wendy Thomas from Nashua, New Hampshire says her nine-year-old's birthday party cost a grand total of $3.19. Not bad.
Regardless of the type of party, if you plan in advance, get input from your child and keep the guest list to a manageable size, you can throw a successful party and maintain your sanity in the process. Plus, you can add free treats to the day by signing up your child at Free Birthday Treats.
These tips will help you make your child's day special and also save you cash. Just remember: Your goal is happy children, not impressed adults.
Encourage kids who are old enough to use My Own Party Planner. Work together on brainstorming and party details.
Come up with several themes for your child to choose from. You can build a party around almost anything your child has an interest in.
Select a kid-friendly location. Home is a great choice -- if you have room to accommodate guests -- since you don't have to transport supplies. The downside, of course, is preparation and cleanup. But parties outside the home can be pricey. Most places geared to birthday parties start at more than $10 per child, and that usually doesn't include goodie bags.
Work together learning simple origami to fold paper napkins into fun shapes that carry out your theme.
If you don't want to host the party at home, consider other free or inexpensive options. Check with your local fire department to see if firehouses host parties. If not, they may send a fire truck to your block, and you can celebrate in your front yard. Consider using a playground with play equipment and picnic tables. You can often rent a room at your town's library or community center.
Send an evite birthday invitation or make your own, using a computer and printer or construction paper and markers. Let your child decorate with stickers or hand-drawn designs. Hand-deliver the invitations if possible to reduce postage costs.
Plan simple activities that don't cost much money. Let guests draw on the wall. Set out markers and crayons and hang butcher-block paper for this purpose. Fashion jewelry from Froot Loops or gummy Lifesavers and shoestring licorice. Have all the supplies to make a place mat. Make color copies of illustrations from a favorite book and provide pre-cut poster board and glue. Have the kids glue and arrange the illustrations on the poster board, write their names on it and then you protect their masterpiece with a piece of contact paper.
How much did you spend on your child's birthday and what did you do?
Kathy Peel is Founder and CEO of Family Manager Coaching. Her latest book, "The Busy Mom's Guide to a Happy, Organized Home "is a 2009 NAPPA (National Association of Parenting Publications) Honoree and 2009 Moms Choice Award winner for Best Family and Parenting Resource. www.familymanager.com
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
4-01-2009 @ 12:56PM
Karen said...I'm not at all opposed to throwing elaborate parties. I enjoy it, but one of the least expensive parties I did for my daughter was one of the best.
We had a kidnap party. I contacted all the parents in advance and told them to make sure their children were wearing PJs to bed that could be worn in public.
Then, at 5:30 am I woke up my daughter and told her she was being kidnapped. I gave her a dollar store throw and a pair of slippers I got on sale. (80% off - after Christmas sale -- each child got them and they were less than $2 a piece). Then we went house to house and "kidnapped" each friend. The parents were waiting for us to let us in (I gave them an approximate schedule) and we came in and GENTLY woke up their friends. Each child got their blanket and slippers and a flashlight and off we went to the next house. It took a couple of hours.
After we picked up all the kids we ended up at a breakfast shop. DH went ahead and put balloons at the table and all the kids ordered pancakes, etc. The kids got a kick out of being out in public in their pajamas and so did all the patrons (most of which were older - grandparent types out for an early weekend breakfast). This could easily be done at a donut shop though to keep the food costs even lower.
.
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4-01-2009 @ 12:40PM
Kathy Peel said...Great idea, Karen. Thanks for sharing.
4-01-2009 @ 2:34PM
queenoqueens said...That is an amazingly creative idea for a party!
4-01-2009 @ 7:51PM
Cari Pemberton said...Just in time for my daughter's April 27 birthday celebration. Thank you!
Reply
4-01-2009 @ 9:55PM
Khaki said...One of our favorite and very inexpensive parties was a "Purple Party in the Park". We had everyone wear purple, which instantly created a festive decor--for free! We had purple balloons, home made purple cupcakes, and dollar store purple water bottles filled with candy for favors. Playing at the park was the "event" and that was free!
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4-02-2009 @ 12:44AM
Kathy Peel said...Thanks for sharing, Kacki. Years from now, photos with all the fun purple outfits will make you smile.
4-02-2009 @ 10:53AM
kate said...We just hosted my daughter's 3rd birthday at home - her first "big kid" party with friends. Our favorite, inexpensive activity was coloring t-shirts. She selected a horse theme for the party, so I thought a horse craft was in order. I bought a pack of white t-shirts (about $1/kid), fabric markers, and a package of printable iron-on transfers. I found a black-line coloring book page online, printed it out, ironed it on the shirts and then the kids were able to color their own horse t-shirt! They loved it - and, most importantly, I had five 3- and 4-year-olds completely still and occupied for 15 minutes!
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4-02-2009 @ 1:07PM
penny said...Thanks for all the great ideas! I know it sounds cheap but when my kids are invited to a birthday party we head to our local dollar store and pick our some toys and put them in some sort of container and add candy to it. This last party was a sand bucket filled with a bat/ball set a football a few other outdoor toys (tis the season) and then a couple of different bags of candy. With 4 kids I could go broke trying to buy gifts for all the invitations we get, and I was feeling guilty about this but one of the dads said "the kids love it, they never know what they are going to get and everything down to the wrapping is fun!" I use the Itunes card and candy in some sort of bucket for the older kids. Its a little more expensive but the older ones love the Itunes cards.
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4-19-2009 @ 2:29AM
v Bugge said...We have done some fun parties that were not expensive but really fun. We have a park that has a petting zoo (free) and public swimming pool($1.50 per person) and had the kids meet at the petting zoo then go swimming and end up in the park eating home baked cupcakes and popsicles (easy to serve and no paper plates plastic spoons to buy) it was under $20 for everything and all the parents thought it was fun too, they did need to be there to swim with their kids.
I also had a Mary Poppins party for my daughter last month, it was really fun and not the least bit expensive, the most expensive part was probably the parts of my "Mary Poppins" costume that I had to buy ( I already had the hat coat and umbrella). I blogged about it if you are interested. http://bettyboogie.blogspot.com/ I have included posts about how to make the crafts etc.
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