Yes, simple. Except I had to figure out how to pull off two parties with food, decor, and his presents without spending a ton. A "save money" type blog I found bragged about how she only spent $300 on her kid's party and that was the cheapest she'd ever gone. I have to be able to do better than that! Here's how I did:
My children are very big on their birthday themes, so there was no negotiating there, but I can take the main colors from his theme and buy colored coordinated decor and only a few character items. I also keep any leftover party items in a box in the pantry and it turned out that we still had enough plates and napkins with our needed colors. Score! I am doing goody bags for the kids coming to the "friend" party, but only the goody bag itself has the character theme on it. I'm filling it with bulk candy and little dollar store random items (bubbles, dinosaurs, stretchy frogs, etc). Breakdown:
Goody bags: $18.48
(that's roughly $2.05 per kid)
Decor: $18.37
As far as presents go, we're trying to limit our belongings and he's going to be getting a bunch from other people anyway so I stuck to two gifts: one was bought from eBay at a very discounted price and the other was bought from a store that's going out of business so everything was on sale. Breakdown:
Star Wars DVD set from ebay: $23.00
Star Wars Book: $12.00
And then there's food. Probably the biggest expense of all. I tried to look up different blogs on cheap foods to have at parties and honestly wasn't finding anything besides "Just give them chips and ice cream". Um, no. While that would cost very little, it also makes me look really stingy and/or unprepared. These people are nice enough to come to a party and bring my child a present, so the least I can do is give them some decent snacks. So I spent an hour on a "menu" and narrowed it down to reasonably easy, cost effective, and healthy snacks. I'm also doing the exact same thing for both parties, so I'm just doubling everything. Any leftovers from the party on Saturday can also be used on Sunday. One big cost saver: I'm not ordering a cake. I actually haven't ordered a cake since my oldest's 1st birthday. I prefer the taste of homemade cakes and there's always too much frosting on the store bought ones. Yes, he wants a Star Wars cake, but we're going to for coordinating colors and then I'm going to use a few figurines from his Lego Star Wars sets as cake toppers. It'll be funny and memorable on top of saving me money. Here's the menu and the cost breakdown:
Menu
Homemade Cupcakes (park)/Cake (home)
Cantaloupe melon balls
Cucumbers, carrots, celery with hummus, ranch dressing, and spinach dip
Crackers
Homemade rice krispy treats
Homemade pumpkin bread
Food Cost
$63.56
Grand total for two parties: $135.41
I don't know if I could have done any better. Maybe I could have found an even cheaper way to do goody bags, although I feel like $2 per kid is pretty darn good. Even so, I still found my heart sinking a little when everything was rung up at the store. Maybe just because I know we're over our food budget for the month anyway or maybe I was unrealistically expecting to pull off a kid's double party under $100. I guess that begs the question: Is a $100 kid party (with presents) even possible?
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