Affordable Birthday Party – Celebrate Your Child’s Birthday Without Going Broke

Pros and Cons of Big Parties

My first baby, Jo Jr., just turned four this week! To celebrate, we threw an affordable birthday party at the City of Plano pool, The Aquatic Center, this past weekend. I can never bring myself to cut people off of the guest list, so we always end up having close to about 90 guests. That breaks down to 30+ kids and 50-60 adults. Now that a lot of our friends have kids and everyone is busy, it’s nice to see everyone at least twice a year for Jo Jr. and Missy Jo’s birthday parties.

On the flip side, hosting a birthday party for 90 guests twice a year can get expensive! To cut costs for Jo Jr.’s first two birthdays, we hosted his party at our home. That was wrong on so many levels. First of all, it is hot AF in Dallas in August, so you best find something to do indoors. We did a bounce house outside at 10 am two years ago, but it was still way too hot. Second, cleaning the house and preparing food takes way too much time and effort. And finally, hoping that your house does not get destroyed and cleaning up the aftermath when you are exhausted legit sucks.

After 4 years of throwing big birthday parties for my toddlers, I have accumulated a few tips and tricks to minimize the cost without sacrificing any of the awesomeness.

Location, Location, Location!

No to Chuck E. Cheese

First things first, location is so important when you’re trying to throw an affordable birthday party, especially if you’re guest list is long. Jo Jr. recently went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese, so naturally, he said he wanted to have  his birthday party there too. Of course, I researched online and found that even for the most basic package, it costs $14.99 per child. That includes 30 play points, 2 slices of pizza, and drinks for each child, plus 3 helium balloons for decoration. The next package costs $18.99 per child, and the best package costs $23.99 per child. That is insane!!

On top of all that, I would have had to pay for all children that wanted to play or eat. There are other birthday places that have free admission for children under 1, 2, or 3, which cuts your guest list down significantly if you’re like me and have friends with infants and toddlers.

Most of the other birthday party locations in Plano cost $300-$400 to rent the space, which usually includes admission for anywhere from 10-20 children. Each additional child costs anywhere from $7 to $20+. These prices don’t exactly make throwing an affordable birthday party an easy task. To help all the other birthday-planning Plano moms out there, I made this awesome spreadsheet that compares 13 different affordable birthday party locations around Plano. Chuck E. Cheese is also on there for comparison.

Crayola Experience?

Another option we considered was the new Crayola Experience that opened up right by our house. We have annual memberships to this place and it is really awesome. There are so many activities for the kids as well as a play area and live show. Unfortunately, they charge admission for adults too! Many of our friends already had annual memberships, but it was still way too expensive.

Refund at Michael’s

A little discouraged, I went online and researched “cheap birthday party.” There was actually a great thread on the Plano Moms Talk page on Facebook that suggested either Michael’s or Plano Aquatic Center. I had no idea that Michael’s hosted birthday parties. I went to the store by my house and asked about it. They have a craft room that will seat 28 kids maximum. You can choose a themed party package for $120 that includes a craft for 8 children. They told me each additional child is $10.

The other option is, you can rent the room for 2 hours for only $50 and do your own craft! Since it was so cheap, I actually booked the room. Later, I realized that it would be pretty tight for the 30+ kids we were expecting. In addition, the parents would have to stand outside of the craft room in the actual store. Sadly, I had to go back and ask for a refund.

Plano Aquatic Center for the Win

Luckily, I looked into the Plano Aquatic Center next. It’s owned by the City of Plano, so residents get a discount for party room rentals. It only cost me $65 to rent the room for 2 hours ($75 for non-residents). In addition, I paid $3 per adult and child 3 years and older. They only ended up charging me for 50 guests, even though we probably had closer to 70 guests that were three years and older.

Their party room in the back is large and fit our 85 guests with room to spare. By the way, they have a limit of 75 guests, but they don’t really keep track. They have several tables and chairs that they set up for you and clean afterwards. The only downside is that you have to bring all other party supplies. I made sure not to forget the candles, lighter, plates, napkins, utensils, balloons, etc.

Book Early

Coincidentally enough, Jo Jr. has a good friend, Piper, who was born on the same day, only a couple hours later. We also happen to have several other friends with July or August birthdays. Because of this, we plan Jo Jr.’s birthday party about 2 months in advance. With that much wiggle room, pretty much all of the affordable birthday party places I looked into had availability at the date and time I wanted. Of course, if you wait too long and stuff gets booked up, you may be forced to book a more expensive place. Or worse, you may have to host at your house!

Bring Your Own Food

Costco Pizza

The best part of our affordable birthday pool party was that we could bring our own food. When pizza costs $15 a pie at other birthday party places, it saves a significant amount of money to bring your own food. With my research, I found that most birthday party places sell food and will not allow you to bring your own. So, if you want to feed the adults too, it’s going to cost you a lot more money, even just for pizza. The Aquatic Center allowed us to throw an affordable birthday party partly because we were able to bring in Costco pizza. Costco pizzas are delicious and enormous, so they feed a ton of people. We purchased 11 pizzas and had 4+ left over!

Fruit

I was originally planning on bringing a prepared fruit tray, but I didn’t find any fresh ones at the grocery store. So, I bought a bunch of grapes and a $5 watermelon and prepared it myself. I had a huge aluminum tray of watermelon and two smaller aluminum trays of grapes. My total cost for fruit was $17, with plenty of fruit left over. I did get a prepared veggie tray from Sam’s Club, however, for about $20.

Snacks

As far as kids’ snacks, I bought individually packaged goldfish, Annie’s graham cracker bunnies, and applesauce pouches. One of the most stressful things for me after birthday parties is dealing with all of the left over food. The frugal mom in me doesn’t want to waste any of it, but the healthier part of me does not want to eat pizza and chips for the next week. As a solution, I put the individual snack bags and pouches in the kids’ goodie bags. If the kids didn’t eat it, it was part of their goodie bag to take home. Problem solved!

Cake

Ok, so I know the custom made cakes can be super cute, but I just can’t bring myself to spend $200 or more on a birthday cake! I’m not one to talk though since I definitely overspent on my wedding cake. I had a grocery store cake once at a baptism and it was surprisingly delicious! I asked my friend where she got it and she said Kroger. But, the secret is, you have to get it with whipped icing instead of buttercream.

The whipped icing is light and fluffy and so delicious. Ever since then, we always get Kroger birthday cakes with whipped icing. They do make sure to warn you that the color of the icing may be a little off since whipped icing screws up the colors. Except for the red looking a little more like dark pink, I have never really noticed that much of a difference.

At Kroger, they say a full sheet cake feeds 50-60 people and costs $49.99. I have always gotten this size in the past because of our large parties, but we have so much cake left over every time! For our 80-90 guests, we ate just about half of it and that’s with pretty big slices. I think next year, we’ll try the half sheet which costs $24.99 and just cut more normal sizes.

Decor

This year, I definitely cut down my decoration budget in order to have an affordable birthday party for Jo Jr. I used to buy the themed paper plates, napkins, cups, tablecloths, and helium balloons. Now, I have all of these leftover plates, etc. from previous parties taking up storage space in my house. Instead of adding to my collection, I realized nobody is going to care if I have themed decorations at a 4-year-old’s affordable birthday party. So, I brought generic Costco plates, napkins, etc.  For the balloons, I nearly purchased a set of transformer helium balloons on Amazon.com for about $20. Then, I reconsidered and realized I had a ton of regular 12 inch balloons and half a helium tank already taking up space in my house. I used them up and in the process, have also decluttered my house. #winning

Goodie Bags

Shopping for Charity

So proud to say, my goodie bags, or goodie buckets rather, were the biggest frugal win of Jo Jr.’s affordable birthday party. In total, each goodie bucket costed me about $1 plus the party snacks that went inside. For the most part, the toys inside were only $0.09 a piece! So every year, I help out with my church’s annual Easter carnival. After Easter Sunday, my friend and I go around town and buy up all of the super cheap Easter toys for anywhere from 50% to 95% off. If you like getting that dopamine hit from getting great deals, you can probably imagine how this would be super satisfying. Literally, I get to shop until I drop and it’s all for charity!

Great Deals for Everyone

So this year, I thought I would buy a little (or a lot) extra and save them for Jo Jr. and Missy Jo’s affordable birthday party goodie bags. First, I got camouflage and unicorn/rainbow buckets (instead of bags) for about $0.25 a piece, but they were even cheaper a few days after I got them. Then, I got huge bubble wands for $0.50 each at Kroger, which also could have been cheaper if I waited just a little longer.

Finally, I hit the 90% off sales at Wal-Mart and bought a ton of stuff, both for our next Easter carnival at church and for the kids’ birthday parties. This included: mini basketball games, tons of sticker and tattoo books, licensed Disney backpack clips, costume jewelry, and much more. The regular price was $0.98, so after 90% off, I paid only $0.09 per item. Some of the toys had an Easter egg symbol on the packaging, but for most of them, it was impossible to tell that they were Easter toys. Plus, kids don’t care if the toys were made for Easter. They’re just happy they walked away with a ton of loot! After it was all said and done, each child had a bucket with 4 awesome toys along with water, juice, applesauce pouch, goldfish pouch, and graham cracker pouch in it.

I was patting myself on the back for days.

Post-Easter Shopping Strategy

For most stores, they start of with 50% off sales the day after Easter. Then, they’ll go to 75%, and some of them stop there, such as Kroger. Hobby Lobby also starts at 50% and at some unknown time, they go to 80% off. I just kept calling every day to see if they had gone down to 80% yet. From there, I bought a ton of large sized bunny stuffed animals for $3 that I give to people for baby showers now. They also have kids’ bibles and lots of religious craft stuff that goes on sale. I stock up on my kindergarten Sunday school supplies at Hobby Lobby this time of year too.

Certainly though, the best deals by far are at Wal-Mart. My strategy is to buy the really good stuff at 50-75% off before they get sold out. Then, when they hit 90% off, I collect everything else that’s worthy of giving away as a prize at our Easter Carnival or putting in goodie bags.

Plano Birthday Party Cost Comparison Spreadsheet

Check out my other frugal wins here.

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