Having A Party?? Saving $$ by PREPLANNING!

Last year I wrote a post about Saving Money on Children’s Birthday Parties which really has some creative and key ideas to how we save money on our kid’s parties but one thing I didn’t really touch on was pre-planning! Right now our boys are 4 and 2 years old (with April and June birthdays) so we have been having combined parties in May. They are getting older, however, so this is probably the last year we will do that.

You may be wondering why I’m thinking about their party SO early – I mean it’s 4-5 months away! You’re right – but by even just thinking about it this early I can save hundreds of dollars with creative ideas and by having the time to collect the right resources! We usually do a themed party of some sort (first it was Blue’s Clues, then it was trains, last year we threw a ROCKING bug birthday party!) and this year will be ROBOTS! I’m not sure how I will top off last year’s birthday party where we released live ladybugs and used our bug nets to catch them again but I’m going to try hard!

Typically our biggest expense for parties is the food itself. This is what we really budget for.

For decorations I do not buy themed decorations – I stick with a themed color. For robots I am doing silver/black and green/blue. I spend half of the year keeping my eyes peeled for clearance on balloons, plates, etc. After New Years and Christmas is mostly when I pick up these items as they are “after holiday clearance”. I’ve already bought balloons, streamers, and plates for $.50 a pack.

For outside, sidewalk, and other indoor decor I typically make my own. Of course my kids are younger so I can totally get away with it! For our Blue’s Clue’s party I cut out pawprint shaped construction paper and lined pawprints up our walkway. For the pirates I put Halloween spiderweb on the porch with our fog machine and “Caution” yellow tape. For our bugs party we made our own “ladybug” pinata that you see in the picture earlier in this post. This year for robots I am going to build a huge robot out of boxes to go on our porch and let him “welcome” our guests. I will also be utilizing every box I can get my hands on to create life-sized robots hanging on our walls and build robot buddies out of boxes for the tabletops and corners of the house. Needing this many boxes takes time – but I’ve got time on my side right now.

Putting together games can be SO inexpensive – and free most of the time – if you’re a bit creative. Google your theme’s party ideas if you aren’t as creative as you would desire to be. There are plenty of neat ideas out there! One thing I am going to do for our robot party this year is have a huge pile of “parts” in the backyard – boxes, kitchen utensils, containers – anything I can get my hands on. The kids will then get to rush over to the large pile and create their own robot! I will be hitting up garage sales as I have time the next few months to look for cheap “robot gear”.

For invitations I typically make my own for about $5-8 but this year I snagged a steal on a daily deal site so I will actually be ordering my boy’s party invitations and thank you cards for about $10.

I always make our own birthday cake and I get creative. Last year money was tight and we were just trying to figure out what my youngest son could eat since we’d learned he had a severe food allergy – so we actually made this cute ladybug rice krispy cake! This year I’ve already bought some pound cake mixes I found on clearance that my boys can have and they will help out in making the robot’s arms on their cake. Did you know that buying a birthday cake from the bakery can easily run you $50-$100? Ouch!

The last area where I really look hard to save money (but not look cheap!) is party favors. I don’t want to find something that will break the second that kids walk out of the door, but I do want to get creative in saving money. Last year each child that can to our bug party got to keep their butterfly net and magnifying glass that we had supplied during the party. For Blue’s Clues we had plain treat bags filled with Blue’s stickers and other treats we had bought. This year I found a SUPER cute idea for robots (see picture below from Family Fun Go) – save and clean out soup cans and decorate them with nuts/bolts then fill them with goodies for the kids to take home! Cute huh?

I am really counting on garage sales this year to help me find some cheap “junk” to decorate and build our robots with! How do you save money when you are throwing a party? Do you have any cool robot ideas for me? Let me know by leaving a comment – I’m all ears!!