Celebrating a birthday doesn’t need to break the bank. With a little time and creativity, your child’s next birthday celebration can create memories for a lifetime.

Birthday parties for children have become very elaborate. In fact, the business of birthday parties have become a money making industry like never before. A friend of mine recently called me and said that her 7 year old son had returned from a friend’s birthday party where a spiderman moonwalk rental was purchased for $125 for the day!

When my friend asked her son what he wanted to do for his birthday, he replied, “I’m bored of moonwalks, they are at ever birthday party I go to.” I suspect that children are bored with the birthday-in-a-box approach because it lacks ingenuity and they want their birthday to be special.

Step 1: Decide on Your Budget. Just because you’re limiting your budget doesn’t mean you have to limit the fun! You should be able to create a birthday to remember for under $50.

Step 2: Have your child choose no more than 7 friends to come to his/her birthday party. Including your child the guest list is an even 8 children.

Step 3: Two weeks before your child’s birthday decide on a theme. Spend a couple hours with your child creating invitations which incorporate the theme of the birthday party. By having a definite start and end time listed on the invitation you can better manage drop-off and pickup times for the parents.

Mail out the invitations.

Step 4: Spend the next two weeks buying any necessary birthday party supplies. Ideally you can shop throughout the year for birthday supplies when they’re on sale such as balloons, streamers, and birthday accessories which will help keep expenses low.

Step 5: The night before the party, bake the birthday cake. A homemade birthday cake tastes so much better than the bakery cake from the grocery store. Remember to ask your child to help pick out the cake flavor he or she wants. Use some creativity when making the cake. Sprinkles, food coloring, and even the shape of the cake can make the birthday cake more festive. Grocery stores now offer tin foil mini-cake shapes so that you can create individual “cake-ettes” for each child.

Step 6: On the day of the party, start by decorating your home or yard. Birthday party activity stations will also need to be set up.

Step 7: Enjoy yourself. Children know when you’re stressed out, upset, or distracted. Lead by example. When your child sees you enjoying yourself they will know that they should enjoy their special day.

The most important aspect is to have well organized birthday party activities. Some ideas can include:

A Scavenger Hunt
If you have a safe neighborhood and are friends with your neighbors, ask them to participate in the hunt. Split the children into two groups and provide them a map of what they need to find:
• A grocery bag
• An old shoelace or sock
• A banana
• Once they have successfully returned with the prescribed items, they need to search for their goodie bags.
• The team back first wins!

Pizza Making Stations
Children enjoy making their own food and pizza is a favorite.

Create a pizza station making table with all the ingredients that the children can choose from:
• pita bread, English muffins or a pre-made pizza dough for the crust
• tomato sauce
• mozzarella cheese
• pepperoni
• cooked sausage
• onions
• green peppers
• mushrooms

You can even be more creative with the pizza topping ingredients such as pineapple, olives, and red onion.

Birthday Party Favors

Birthday party favors have become very common with children parties. Have your guests create their own carmel apples:
• Braeburn, granny smith, or red delicious apples work the best. Wash the apples and remove the stems
• Push a popsicle stick into the apple where the stem normally is
• Melt caramel (75-100 caramel cubes, 2 tablespoons of water in the microwave for 3 minutes)
• Assist each child with dipping their apple into the caramel to ensure that the apple is properly coated
• Have nut and chocolate chip stations so that the children can make their own creation.
• Place the apples on a cookie sheet with wax paper and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
• Wrap each apple in wax paper and tie with a bow.
• Make sure that you give the children their own apple when they leave the party.

This is sure to be a big hit with the children!

Birthday parties are a lot of fun for the birthday boy or girl as well as all of his friends and family. He gets to be the center of attention for an afternoon, or evening, and enjoy whatever fun topics you have planned for them. The only problem for you is often keeping the cost of the big day under control. Although you want him to have a great day, you probably don’t have a bottomless pocketbook to fund the birthday party.

Don’t worry; there are plenty of great kids birthday party ideas that won’t require you to take out a second mortgage on your home. With a little creativity and some planning, you can plan a party that will be the talk of the neighborhood.

Movie Night (Day) Party – Everybody loves going to the movies, but taking eight or ten kids to the theater can be awful expensive. Add in the cost of munchies and you’ll quickly exceed your party budget. Instead of going to the theater try hosting a movie party for the kids at your house. Rent a favorite movie and order pizza.

A Day in the Country – A country-themed birthday party will be a favorite with the younger crowd. Give each youngster a bandana (They’re really cheap at craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michael’s.) when they arrive. The bandanas can be tied around the necks of the boys or over the girls’ hair. Play old-fashioned games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey or Hot Potato. You can serve simple food like cheese cubes or apple wedges.

A Proper Tea Party – Little girls will love dressing up and having a tea party. Dust off the tea cups that you never use, or buy inexpensive ones from your local thrift store. Unwrap the iced Little Debbie snack cakes and stack them on a serving dish to resemble the sweet cakes.

Super Spy Party – Give your youngster and his friends permission to be sneaky for a day by hosting a birthday party with a spy theme. You can help them write messages in secret code for an activity. Pick up inexpensive sunglasses at the dollar store to help the kids remain incognito.

Sleepover Party – There’s something about hosting a sleepover that is just timeless. Plan to have plenty of snacks and rent a few movies for the youngsters. Just make sure you set a final “lights out” time or you may be up until dawn.

Sports Party – A sports-themed party is always a good idea for a boy’s party. Games are easy; you can just organize a friendly game of soccer or kickball in the backyard. Food can include the hot dogs and popcorn that you typically buy at a baseball game.