Last night we had a 6th birthday party for my son.
Although many of his friends over the past year have had great parties at places like Chuck E. Cheese, bowling, a gynmastics center, and bounce places, I couldn't bring myself to pay for the steep cost associated with such a party. I worried about setting a precedent for the party and then being expected to have a party like that every year (and for his brother too).
So, I wanted a frugal birthday party, but I wanted to try to avoid having it at my house again. We decided on a party at the park. With a summer birthday, you can do things like that :-). We decided on a Thursday evening to allow time to cool off a little (it didn't really), and we hoped the park wouldn't be so busy as on a Saturday.
Food - We ordered $5 Little Caesar's pizzas, since we had the party during dinnertime. If I had the party on a Saturday, I would have had the party between 2-4 and just served cake. We also had juice packets that I had purchased on major sale a couple of months ago and bottled water (although I should have just brought our big camping water dispenser to have lots of water available).
Cake - My son doesn't like cake (just the frosting), so I made him a WallE cookie cake...easy to make and very low cost
Entertainment - The boys played on the play structure at the park, ate pizza and cookie cake, opened presents, and threw water balloons at my husband.
Party Favors - Since WallE is apparently not very popular anymore, all the WallE stuff at the party store was on clearance. I purchased some WallE noise makers, stickers (gave each child a page of stickers), and I visited the dollar store. I splurged on WallE bubbles that I found ($1 for each child), and purchased other items with multiple items per package (dinosaurs and card games).
I think the boys (and my son) had just as much fun as if it were at a party place. I just had to do a little more work myself to pull it off :-).
What have you done to save money on birthday parties? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life as Mom.
Tia Y
I love park birthdays and am sad that we have no summer birthdays. We try and work out a park party for our spring or fall kiddos and that is the plan again this year weather permitting. Thank you for sharing your breakdown! My kiddos are cake fans with no frosting -- isn't that funny? I love those cookies though. Happy belated birthday to your little guy!
FishMama
WallE CookE is very cute! Don't forget next week's Birthday Cake Round-Up! And I'm taking theme suggestions for next week's challenge here: http://www.lifeasmom.com/2009/07/throw-birthday-cake-theme-my-way.html
Recent blog post: Frugal Friday: Making the Most of In Season Produce
Lori Z.
Adorable! We did a Halloween birthday for my daughter last month. It was fun, all the kids dressed up and my daughter got to be "spooky" her favorite!
Recent blog post: Proud to be a Bunny Hugger