A few weeks ago we celebrated Grace’s first birthday! Some people spend a lot of money on birthday parties. We don’t believe that our money is best used on parties (especially with a child so young) and I just wanted to give a quick breakdown of the activities, the budget and our guests.

 

The budget for the birthday party was $300. It was a lot for us to spend on a party, but I saved $40 a month since she was born and so I had $360 saved for the event. I already knew the outfit I wanted would be $60 and that was the most important thing to me. I wanted to be able to take a lot of nice high quality pictures as a keepsake. With $300 for the party we spent $50 on the venue. We decided we would only be using it for a few hours and so we were able to get a good deal on it.

With the $250 left we made it work. We did away with the expensive meals and since it was at lunchtime we had hot dogs, mac and cheese, water and juice boxes. My mom suggested some sandwiches and I’m glad I listened. No one and I mean NO ONE RSVP’d and so we had no idea how many people would be coming. I kept that in mind and decided if we run out food then that’s on them. That’s the reason why you RSVP!

Along with the main foods we had some snacks for the kiddos like cheerios, froot loops and Goldfish crackers. The party was only 3 hours and we would be having cake as well so I was sure there would be more than enough and there was.

We also got some loot bags. Dollarama was my best friend. My mom introduced me to her favourite dollar store and we ended up getting all the loot bags for super cheap. Finally, we bought colouring books, crayons, markers and other crafts and games for the kids to play with. These ended up costing next to nothing since it was back to school season. We paid pennies for the paper and crayons and it was a huge hit!

 

We had 4 play-stations:

I was blessed and my sister and niece made her such a wonderful cake. I couldn’t have asked for a better cake and that’s saying a lot because I scoured Pinterest for months for birthday party ideas.

My aunt also made some soup and cupcakes for everyone to enjoy and another one of my aunts came early to setup. It was a team effort and I’m glad for the help from everyone involved. The decorations were extremely minimal. We only decorated the main table and got balloons for taking pictures against a wall. It was a huge hit! Even though she wasn’t in the mood for smiling for her pictures, family and friends were able to get their exclusive picture with Grace! My sister and brother brought the jumbo bear and Grace loves it.

 

Here’s the budget breakdown:

 

Outfit: $60 from Etsy (not included in the $300 since we would have bought with or without the party)

 

Decorations: $20 (table cloths, printed Pinkfong themed cards, balloons)

 

Food and Snacks: $160

Games, Crafts and Loot Bags: $120

Cake: FREE

Photographs: FREE

Venue: $50

All together we ended up spending about $350 for the party and it was worth every penny. She loved it and we got some amazing pictures with friends and relatives.

 

How much do you spend on birthday parties for your children? Do you think birthday celebrations are important? What did you think of Grace’s party? Let me know in the comments below!