Thrifty Birthday Party Budget

We had a great party for DuckyBoy's 7th birthday. As some of you know, we are living fairly comfortably this year off last year's excess income (the Lord DOES provide), but are trying not to be extravagant since simply living in NYC is an extravagance itself.

So, we set a budget of $200 for this year's birthday party.

It helped that DB got into his head to "only invite 8 kids," I think because he saw that the birthday paper products come in 8-packs. So, despite my usual inclination to invite more, more more, I invited 8, and didn't even invite more when I got a couple of no's.

So, we ended up with 7 kids, including DB. It was plenty.

We always invite parents, too, 'cause no way am I crazy enough to have a drop-off party, and most of my friends are Nest parents anyway and they aren't ready to drop their kids off anyway. So we feed the adults too, which some people might not do. So there were 8 adults who ate dinner.

And, in true Poverty Party fashion, here are the actual expenses:

Cake: $23
This included a Transformers cake-topper toy DB had been eagerly awaiting. It's a bit of a dud because It.Will.Not.Stand when properly transformed, but there's a priceless lesson right there.

Beverage total: $36
Beer (plus bottle deposits): $18
Soda (plus bottle deposits): $13
Ice for the cooler: $5

I splurged on beer we like, Stella Artois and Blue Moon, and on the little 100-calorie cans of soda 'cause they're cute and Husband likes them.

Food total: $73
5 lbs beef brisket: $25
Other food: around $48

I got buns from a local bakery outlet, BOGO potato chips, and a few veggies from our weekly CSA box, which all helped. And we have a bunch of stuff left over -- buns, bbq brisket, veggies, and a whole $7 package of nuggets -- so some of this can roll over to the grocery budget, right?

Paper goods: $25
I got both sizes of plates and both sizes of napkin, plus extra 99-cent plates in case we needed more. I could have returned one pack of big plates abnd a pack of big napkins, if I hadn't opened them already. Could still return $1.98 of plain plates, but is it worth the gas? Anyway I'll use the napkins for his mini-party at school.

I didn't buy a Transformers tablecloth; I had one with the right colors (red and blue) so I used that. Also, I decorated with a couple of printouts of the page I scanned to make his t-shirt, and also with drawings of Optimus Prime cut from gummy boxes (I've been saving them for this). Oh, we did buy one poster for $2 (half the price we'd seen weeks earlier at the same place!)

I made a $4 impulse splurge on little popcorn boxes so the kids could have popcorn while they watched the cartoon on the big TV. Those were SO worth it. Could have skipped the $14 worth of nuggets, in fact, since we let them snack first...

Games and prizes: $25
Um, we didn't play any of the games I planned. DB has a lot of toys, and after they watched a Soundwave episode of Transformers Animated, they colored these paper guitars I have left over from a splurge order of misc. nonsense years ago from Oriental Trading, and they played with those.

Soooo, we didn't hand out any of the prizes. Well, we had one $3 ring we dubbed the Allspark ring (it's a blue square), which we gave DB's girlfriend 'cause she was the last one there. (Her mom said, "Is this an engagement ring?!")

But DuckyBoy already knows about the prizes, so I don't think I can return them (except $3 worth and again, worth returning? hardly). I'm hoping to save them for rewards for the school year -- a week of completed homework or of no reports of yelling, stuff like that.

Favors: $27 + $10 = $37

I made favors for 10, and here's why. Two of DB's friends each have 2 younger sisters. I didn't know if one set was coming, and knew only one of the other set was coming, but didn't want the sister-who-couldn't-come to feel left out. 'Cause I like her. Now, they're younger, and they're girls, so I thought they might prefer something other than Transformers stuff, so for those 4 girls I got some different stuff. About $10 worth of stuff. Would do it the same next time.

My friend on LI had her son's favors in brown paper bags, which made me want to save those few bucks too. So we gave DB the choice -- Transformer goody bags, OR he could have the $ they would have cost (which was like $8 since I'd have needed 2 sets!). He chose the money, so all I spent was $1 on ribbon to tie the bags shut. (I folded the top over and punch2 holes, then tied each bag shut and put the name on. I think they looked nice.

6 favor boxes had: Transformers coloring book with mini markers, bubbles, package of gummies, and an Allspark cube.
4 had: Tiny purple notebook, Pez dispenser (shh! don't tell DB!), gummies, bubbles, and 2 got a coloring book and 2 got an Allspark.

Other: $54

• About $20 for a plain T-shirt and iron-on transfer paper, which I had to buy twice (long story).
• $4 for a special birthday-boy ribbon to put on his shirt. Which we forgot to put on him, but he'd worn it the day we got it and got the use out of it. Maybe we'll reuse it for the class party.
• $30 for babysitter. I expected more siblings who'd have needed wrangling. Even though the group of kids was smaller, she was still a big help. Plus I just liked having her around.
  

Grand total: $286.

• About $15 of the prizes, I will use for rewards.
• At least $25 worth of food and beverages was left over.
• He'll wear his custom $20 t-shirt all year long.
  
• $5 of paper goods will go toward his school party, for which I'd have to buy something anyway (and still need to come up with other favors for).

So that's $65 worth that, with some creative accounting, can get lopped off, meaning I can think of my party expense as: $221.

Since we spent cash we'd been saving from our weekly budget, Husband says it seems like it was free.

But he also said that for what we did, a low-key home party, it seemed like it should have only cost $50. Next year he can do more of the shopping!