Planning for a child’s birthday party can be super expensive after its all said and done with. We have first hand experience with this as we shopped around to various ‘play’ areas for our daughter’s 7th birthday party. If you have an upcoming birthday for your little one and are looking for ways to save, than you are in luck. Here are a few sweet and simple tips that you can save money on your child’s birthday party.
Start Your Planning Early
It’s always best to have a theme or idea in mind that you want to focus your child’s birthday around. This way when the holiday sales hit you can keep a look out for trinkets, decorations or even presents to fit this theme. For example, if your little one is wanting to have a Princess Tea Party, why not stock up on tiaras and necklaces, or princess costumes after Halloween when the items are typically 50% off or more. In addition after Valentine’s Day keep a look out for the cutesy little pink and red candy bags, to hand out at your daughter’s party. Remember, as the saying goes “The Early Bird Catches the Worm, or in this case, the sales”.
Start your cutting with the cake
And I don’t mean actual ‘cutting of the cake’. You pay a lot more money for fancy decorated birthday cakes at your local bakery than that of a plain iced cake. Why not spruce up a plain cake with figurines that you can find at a local dollar store. If your son loves military figures, pop some on top to give him a military themed cake. Dinosaurs? No problem, you can find those very inexpensive too. Another way to save on cake is to bake your own. But before you think that is tacky, it’s really not at all. You can create just as nice of a cake as you would find in any old store. You know what your child loves, so why not try baking their favorite cake and icing.
*Thrifty Sue Tip: For my daughter’s 3rd birthday party she told me she wanted a ‘pink cake with balloons on it’. To save some money on funds, I baked her a cake, popped in some red food coloring into white icing (hence the pink cake), and used colorful lollipops to make the bunches of balloons. She was more than thrilled at the cake.
For our son’s 5th birthday party he was in LOVE with Superman, while I’m not the best cake artist I still tried my hand at making a Superman cake for him, and he loved it as well. Plus it tasted perfect to all the kids.
Decorations Can Be Expensive – So Make Your Own
I’m not going to lie, we buy the normal, balloons, and from time to time crepe paper. If however we can’t afford to put crepe paper into our budget we use construction paper rings.
Batman Themed Party
You can make the perfect themed birthday party at home with a few simple pieces of construction paper and some character sheets. The table cloths you see in these pictures were a simple piece of fabric from a local craft store.
Princess themed party
Last but Not Least Invitations
You can save at least $25-$30 by sending out invitations online instead of going to the store and purchasing them.
As you can see with a few simple items, and some planning ahead you too can save big on your child’s birthday party and create one that they will love.
