WY Quality Counts

Fun Budget Friendly Birthday Parties

Date : Wednesday, November 02 2011
Source: Autourina Mains

Unlike most adults, children look forward to having birthdays and I remember my kids usually had several birthday parties every year.  They had to have a family birthday party, a girlfriend birthday (sleep over), guy friends birthday party and the list went on and on. They always looked forward to it and reminded me every day that their birthday was approaching (as if I would ever forget).  Though we lived on very limited budget, we had fun parties.  I love to cook so preparing a meal or the cake was not a problem.  Some low budget meals to make are tacos, spaghetti, hamburgers, tortilla wraps and French bread pizza.  I always made our own birthday cakes as well, because I could not afford to buy a store made birthday cake.  I either made them homemade or from a cake mix that I bought for less a dollar and decorated it with sprinkles or bought the rice paper decorations for less than a dollar from our local bakery.

There are a lot of ways to have a low budget, fun birthday parties for children and some things to keep the cost down are:

·         Have the party in your home rather than renting a facility. You can also use a church hall or the park (weather permitting).

·         Cut your own vegetables and fruits rather than buying precut trays from the grocery store

·         Make your own invitation.  It is easy to make invitation on the computer and use fancy paper to print them on.

·         Plan meals that feed a lot of people on a small budget (like pasta, egg dishes, simple sandwiches, etc).

·         Use what you have around the house to decorate (if the child likes Sponge Bob and collects them, use them to create a theme or use a child’s swimming pool, umbrella, and lawn chairs to create a tropical decor)

·         Use Christmas lights to create a fun atmosphere (hang them on the walls or around the ceiling)

·         Buy food in bulk (big bucket of ice cream, big bags of chips, big bags of vegetable, and fruits, 2 liter bottles of pop or juice)

·         Make and take party favors (have an art project where the children make the craft that they get to take home, like origami or picture frames, paper furniture, paper dolls and cars etc.)

·         Buy reusable plastic ware that you can use for parties only

You can also make it fun by having a theme party. Just recently we had a prince and princess party at our child care center and the children absolutely loved it.  Before the party we had ‘get the prince and the princess ready’ time.  The prince helped make swords and shields and got dressed up and the princess put on ‘make up’ and dressed up.  We then had a red carpet competition and each child won an award, such as longest dress, longest hair, shiniest sword, tallest prince, shortest princess, etc.  The winners (all the children) got to choose a toy from the treasure box which is filled with donations from parents (unwanted toys that are in good shape). Other theme parties include, pirate theme, safari, sports party, spa party (give each other manicure and pedicure, facial, etc.), scavenger hunt, decade party (60s, 80s and so on), karaoke party.  Parties don’t have to cost a lot in order for them to be fun. It just takes creativity and thinking outside the box.

Helpful Books: 

11 Birthdays By: Wendy Mass.

http://www.creativeworksforchildren.com/photo_gallery_birthday_parties.htm This website has really fun pictures of different theme parties to give you ideas.