We save $ buy doing it at the pool, so it's another way to justify our expensive pool membership. There isn't a party fee, just the usual guest fee ($5). We do it in the afternoon so no lunch or dinner, but of course provide snacks, fruit, and cake.

Anonymous wrote:Tips:
Make the cake yourself
Buy disposable table cloths and plate products from the dollar store
Make the activity/craft double as the favor
Do it at a time you don't have to serve a full meal. Ie 2-4pm, various snacks and cake is plenty at that time.
2 hour party max, then you'll have less time to fill and won't need to spend as much on activity/game supplies
Do an evite instead of paper invitations.

We do all of the above and kids love our parties, even if they seem cheap to parents, the kids love it!

I do all home parties. These are the things I do as well. If I do serve food, besides cake, I either make it part of the activity (tacos, make your own pizza) or I make Mac n Cheese - these are all really cheap to serve. I tend to throw in some outside activities, like maybe a relay race, a treasure hunt or a scavenger hunt. I don't ever spend more than like $50 and usually way less.

We stopped having venue parties a few years ago. Not only are they expensive, but I found that the birthday child hardly interacts with every friend, just the usual couple. So, now we have a more intimate party at home. They just play in our yard and I get some extra things like water guns or balloons (summer birthday). We have pizza and cake, and everyone's happy. DC gets to have fun with closest BFFs. I also give DC cash for bday; DC has fun looking at all the stuff and deciding what to buy.

Yes, we have to clean up by I can live with that vs shelling out $500. I could probably hire cleaners for $100 to clean the mess if I wanted to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS turned 7 and every year I say the same thing, these parties are so expensive by the time I rent the party/play space, get pizza, cake and snacks! but it's fun for our son and we celebrate his baby sister birthday at the same party. Does anyone else feel like this? I am not hurting for money but geez, now I know why my parents never had friend parties and just had family celebrate at the house growing up! Good thing this is a once a year event!

Sounds like your parents were level headed and refused to be followers and braggers.

Translation: This responder is passively aggressively calling you a follower and a braggart.

Well, she has a point. This is self inflicted suffering. You do not need to have a birthday party. You simply don't. If you don't like doing it, you're only doing it to put on a show for others. The End.

Anonymous wrote:I was hoping for some $ saving tips.

Starting in third grade or so, we started doing "special" outings with our kids for their birthdays where they can invite 5 or so friends to do something cool that's further away from home. Last year my 8 yo invited 6 kids to go to one of those aerial obstacle courses. This year he wants to take a small handful of his friends to an amusement park for the day. It's still expensive but less so than the whole class party at one of those $300 + party places.

haha yes!

My DS also just turned 7. ~ $300 for the party place plus ~ $50 for the cake plus ~ $75 for the goody bags. It adds up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In the "olden day" we had 10 kids or less at home for 2 hours with cake. The end.

I was born in '76 and had exactly ONE birthday party at home - my second birthday. Every other one was at a place, there were at least 20 kids (I had a lot of friend-groups), and they were 2.5 hours.

I was born in 78 in an umc suburb (not DC) and there was always one or two kids in my class every year who did a whole-class rented venue party. I specifically remember the other parents talking about how they threw those parties to compensate for other things. Like, Tara's dad was under indictment for stealing serious money from the childrens hospital, and laura's family looked like they had money but turns out it was all a facade. In fact, my mom has become friends with laura's mom in retirement and it turns out they have zero money, had to sell the $2m home, and her mom now works minimum wage to pay the bills.

I kid you not. The ONLY kids throwing expensive parties in the 80s were people who felt they had to prove something. Given the old negative reputation, i'm not sure how these whole-class monster parties became the norm.

Anonymous wrote:In the "olden day" we had 10 kids or less at home for 2 hours with cake. The end.

I was born in '76 and had exactly ONE birthday party at home - my second birthday. Every other one was at a place, there were at least 20 kids (I had a lot of friend-groups), and they were 2.5 hours.

Anonymous wrote:Just shelled out $400 for a bday party for 14 kids and their parents. It was at a bounce house place. My ds is only turning 5 so not a gull on drop off party yet. I'm hoping second grade will be the first one where 5 friends at home will be enough.

same here $250 a bounce house + $250 for fajitas, cake, decorations. kids love and parents catch up. we have our babysittr in there too so I'm not running around like a chicken w/o its head.

Anonymous wrote:We had our 5 yo's party at our small house. 10 kids. Made an awesome cake from a mix with some decorations. Basic decorations. Some frozen pizzas, etc. $150. Birthdays are only expensive if you get sucked into the DC party machine.

Wait, what? How did this cost $150? Seems similar to what I do for less than 40 bucks... make a cake from a box and frosting from scratch ($5 and some pantry items), chips and strawberries and pretzels and capri-suns ($15), some games and running around time (free), a goody bag with a couple of pieces of candy ($10), and some paper plates, napkins, and balloons/streamers ($10).

Rented a space for 2 hours for my 8 year old today as well for birthday party, 25 kids + 15 adults, pizza for lunch, home made cake and cupcakes, veggies + I cut up fruit for a fruit salad, chips, snacks, waters, =$500
I prefer to do it outside my house as I dont want the mess. Worth every bit and it's once a year. The kids loved it and great end of year party with friends to celebrate end of school/summer. It's once a year. Sounds like OP got a good deal if you celebrated 2 of your children's birthday at the same party/day. Congrats, do that while you can!

Do it at a public playground or park.

We usually invite the whole class along with parents and siblings. Easily around 60 people. My budget is $800 for the party and I provide full lunch or dinner (I cook), booze, pizza, cake, professional entertainer and balloons. Our house is set up to entertain large groups of people. I could bring the cost down to $550 - $600 too if I cut down the entertainer.

Kids only want big birthdays until they are 11-12 years of age. Since within American culture it is ok to have a low key birthday party - you could call 10 kids, buy a costco cake and costco pizza, play some games and call it a day. I think it would cost you no more than $100.

My kid has only had one birthday party at a place I had to rent out. That was when he was 10 and he invited maybe 6 friends. His other parties were either sleepovers (with just 2-3 boys) or at other places (bouncy place, laser tag, etc) and I just paid for the 2-3 boys myself. I brought them back to our house where we had pizza and cake. The huge birthday parties he has been to don't make much sense especially since the birthday kid doesn't even like or play with more than just a few friends there.

If you have enough space to host at home, do that. We just hosted a party today. Pizza, baby carrots and cucumbers and water melon, grocery store cake, cheap paper plates and cups. Beer for the grown ups. No favors. A baby tub full of water and a bunch of water guns and water balloons. Kids had a blast soaking each other (we mentioned the water stuff in the evitr so parents could bring a suit or extra clothes if they wanted), parents relaxed with some beers, no one asked about any favors or juice boxes or why we didn't have fancy matching napkins and plates.