Saving Money on Kid Birthday Parties Part 2

Save Money on Birthday Parties Part 2

One of the lowest stress parties our kids were invited to was at the school district pool.  The mama didn’t have to clean her house.  She brought cupcakes for a swimming break and sent home movie boxes of candy for party favors. Genius.

The other low stress party we attended was at the roller rink.  Let the kids skate, throw them a cupcake (some rinks include drinks and a snack with the party package too) then send them home exhausted. No cleaning, no clean up.  That’s my kind of party.

Grant's 4th birthday cake

The highest stress destination party I’ve seen is at Chucky Cheese.  If you like strobe lights, deafening noise, trying to keep eyes on kids going in all directions at once, helping with ticket exchanges with multiple kids simultaneously, and strangers eating your pizza while you try to manage it all…you’d like it.

I’ve been determined to have a low stress destination party the last few times our kids rolled around to a significant age.  I researched locations and prices and when it came time to book it, I just couldn’t spend the money.  Most of the parties I researched were about $300 and I still had to get my own cake and party favors.   In the moment that was more stressful to me than cleaning my house.  If your budget doesn’t sweat over a $300 party you might feel differently.  Either way is ok.  Don’t apologize if you have a destination birthday party, and don’t apologize for having one at home.

Heidi's 15th birthday

The trend for at home birthday parties has been going OVER THE TOP.  I’m all for taking it down a notch or 200.  The kids don’t care if it belongs in a magazine.  They care if you care about them.  If magazine parties are low stress for you, go for it.  For some people it’s a gift and comes naturally.  There’s nothing wrong with using your gifts to create an incredible event.

Caleb's 13th birthday

My gift is not decorating or crafts or anything like that.  My gift is encouraging words.  The best way I can throw a party is to greet each guest at the door by name, be completely overjoyed to see them, and then stay and hang out and play along with the kids.

Caleb's 13th birthday gifts

This month, we found ourselves in the unusual position of having 2 birthday parties within a week of each other.  With our “significant” age party rule, that has never happened before and it won’t again.  It was super fun and exciting and also potentially rough on the budget.  I tried to talk the brothers into having a joint birthday part at the archery shop.  Our friends own it and if I’m going to spend a wad on a party I’d feel great about giving it to them.  The boys would have had to cut their guest list to just 3 friends each (or ban brothers and sisters from coming along.) One brother was all for it, the other was not at all.  He had his heart set on a lego party with friends, cousins and family. The idea of giving that up brought him to tears.

Lego Head Marshmallow Popsicles

So I invited each son to come and cuddle up with Pinterest and help me gather ideas for their parties.  To keep things low stress I limited the parties to 2 hours each, and scheduled them for in between meal times. I set a budget of $150 per party, which was the same if they had shared a party at the archery shop.  We ended up spending much less than that, saving around $90 overall.

Here’s how we broke it down for the lego party:

•Lego sets for party favors $5 each x 10 = $56.85 56.85
•Lego Sweet Tart Candy 16.56
•Lego Candy Molds 4.99
•Postage for invitations 4.5
•Printing for Invitations 5
•Yellow Cups: 1.08
•Yellow Plates: 1.08
•Blue Napkins 1.08
•Edible Marker 4.99
•Balloons: Yellow 1.00
•Cake Mix x 2 2.08
•Chocolate melting Discs 5.2
Ice Cream 3
 Frosting  $2
112.37

Nerf War Party Target Practice

and the Nerf War Party

•Nerf Gun Party Favors:  $5.49 x 10 = $55 55
•400 extra bullets $18.64 18.64
•Plates, cups, napkins $3.24 3.24
•Postage for invitations $4.50 4.5
•Balloons: 5
•Cake Mix $1 1
•Ice Cream $3 3
Game supplies:  poster board etc $8
98.38

I decided instead of buying a bunch of little trinkets and candy for party favors that we would buy the kids a small gift for around $5 each and send something home that they would treasure for awhile.  I purchased the lego sets directly from lego.com (they had the best price and selection after I searched all around.) And I bought the 3 shooter nerf guns from Amazon. We used them for target practice, in the epic capture the flag nerf gun party, and then they took them home. I’ll give details on the lego party tomorrow and the Nerf gun party after that.

This is Day 27 of our series 31 Days of Kids and Money

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6 thoughts on “Saving Money on Kid Birthday Parties Part 2

  1. Amy Castillo says:

    I thought I was the loner parent that didn’t enjoy birthday parties at Chucky Cheese! We have also done the swimming pool and brought our own treats. Having a kiddos with food allergies it is more difficult to have a “destination” party where none of the food is safe (or very healthy, either!).

    What do you mean about “significant” page parties? And at what age is okay not to have friends’ parties anymore?

    • Angela says:

      Amy, yesterday I wrote about significant ages we do parties: 5 (starting school); 8 (baptism); 10 (double digits); 13 (teenager; 16 (driving.) We don’t have any older than that, but are thinking about 18. After 18, I can’t imagine doing friend parties any more. And of course the older parties look a lot different than the younger ones. Our girl 13 year old party was based on Nancy Drew and was a giant treasure hunt/mystery that took them all over our (then) new house. The girls were curious to snoop anyway and I gave them free reign. Our 13 year old boy party was a giant capture the flag war game. I just turned them out to play out back and it was a fabulously easy party for us. It was an epic success though.

  2. Shawna says:

    We have done a couple birthday parties at our local zoo. Ours is very reasonable (about $150) they provide hot dogs, chips and drinks, for 10 and we provide the cake. We also added the small animal encounter for $50. They were wonderful parties and everyone had a great time. We allow each child to have 1 destination party so budgeting for it isn’t too bad. Other parties are very simple.

  3. Elizabeth Rogers says:

    Our favorite party spot is a small local park/swimming hole. We cook hotdogs on the grill, have a homemade cake or cupcakes, and let the kids swim and fish and play. A couple of our favorite themes was a pirate party with a treasure map cake and a chest full of chocolate gold coins and mardi gras type beads and a movie theater theme with a cake that looked like a marquee sign, boxes of popcorn, and movie theater type boxes of candy. Our January birthday is a little more challenging because we have to stay inside, I’ll remember your nerf gun war for that one next time.

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