Kids birthday parties on a FIRE budget

Unlike a lot of people in the FIRE community my wife and I have kids and one of the hard parts about being a parent who wants to FIRE is that we often worrying about whether our children are missing out because of our own desire to hit FIRE.  There are lots of ways in which this can play out from the big decisions like public vs private school, medium ones like brand name clothing vs generic clothing, and little ones like whether they get their own meal when we eat out vs just sharing the adults.  Another example of this is their birthday parties.  Read on for some of the ways we’ve tried to balance costs vs fun!

One of the first questions is whether or not kids need a birthday party, particularly for the first few years of their life.  At age 1, although they’ve got some idea of what’s going on it really isn’t a whole lot.  They’re certainly not going to remember it for long and given kids at that age are mostly just doing parallel play anyway there isn’t really a huge amount in it for the kids.  That’s not to say they won’t enjoy the party and the presents, but as every parent knows at that age kids are probably more likely to want to play with the wrapping paper and the boxes than the actual presents! 

What we ended up doing for our eldest’s first birthday was just having a bunch of family around for a home cooked meal and a cake.  It was very low key. I’m sure there were some presents from people but I must admit I have no idea what they were and I’m guessing my wife doesn’t either, certainly the recipient doesn’t and he has no memories of the party either.  I’m guessing it cost maybe $50 max, and given we would have eaten lunch anyway at least some of that would have been spent no matter what.  Our son had a pretty good time as I recall but given he couldn’t say anything beyond mumma or dadda at that stage I’m not 100% sure!

On the flip side we recently attended another 1 year olds birthday party and it was a huge event.  The food was from a high end caterer, there was plenty of champagne and beers, lots of balloons and party stuff, maybe 50 guests with a mix of family and other friends and a cake which I’m guessing cost the better part of a hundred bucks if not more just by itself.  At a guess the party would have cost anywhere between $500 and $1,000, possibly more.  

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a birthday party like this for a 1yo if it’s what you want to do.  I’m a huge fan of the idea of spending money on the things that are important to you, so long as you don’t spend more than you need to on the things that aren’t.  This is a pretty close family, they love celebrating with friends, go nuts with it I say.  Particularly if you’re going to invite me along to partake in the festivities!  But if it’s not something that’s particularly important to you then maybe take a look at not having a huge party and spending a lot of money.

At age 2 most of the same reasons exist for not having a huge birthday party.  Kids are still mostly doing parallel play rather than playing with each other much, they won’t remember much of it when they are older, the wrapping is more fun to play with than the present etc.  Really the party at this age is still more for the parents and family than it is for the kids.  Because our parents live a fair way apart we ended up having two parties for his 2^ndbirthday.  Both were home catered for the food, both featured home made cakes, one was at my Mum’s house and the other was at a local public park near my in-laws house. 

Again at a guess they both cost around $50 max for each party.  We could have done them cheaper I’m guessing, but $50 is not an unreasonable amount of money to spend especially given that’s pretty much the same as two adults having a cheapish meal out at a pub or restaurant.  Our son seemed to have a pretty good time, but he doesn’t have any memory of the party or the presents he received.

At age 3 the situation changes a little bit.  Our son was definitely playing with other kids at this age, he was more interested in the presents than the wrapping, and although he probably won’t remember it as he gets older a year on he does still remember some of the events.  We were actually on holidays for his birthday this time so he ended up having a bunch of parties, but they were all pretty low key. 

He had one with each of his grandparents beforehand which were again all home catered and had home made cakes, and then on the actual holiday he had another cake with a regular meal to celebrate with another grandparent, plus on the actual day we went to a Zoo with some family friends whose house we were staying at on the holiday.  Which was nice and great fun, but something we would have done otherwise given he enjoys looking at animals and we don’t often have a chance to go to a zoo.  Even better this Zoo gives free entry for kids up to a certain age if it’s within a week of their birthday.  So although it was full fare for us, we saved about $30 on his entry.  Win!

Recently it was his 4^th birthday and so we had another party.  Given he now has a bunch of friends from his kindergarten and other ones he’s made along the way we thought it would be great if he celebrated with them as well as family.  We held the party at our house, catering was a bunch of home made pizzas, sandwiches, sausage rolls plus some party pies from Aldi.  We also had some fresh seasonal fruit and some cheese, dips and crackers from Aldi or on special from Coles, plus a fairly small amount of chocolates, again from on special or Coles brand and a home made cake. 

Everybody seemed pretty happy with the food, or nobody complained at least, the kids all had a fantastic time running around the house and our backyard, the adults seemed to have an enjoyable time, and it didn’t cost us much money at all.  We had maybe 10 kids and 20 adults over for a total of 30ish people, all of whom seemed to have a great time.  We’d told people not to buy presents but pretty much everyone did anyway so he ended up doing pretty well out of it.  I would hazard a guess that we spent a total of $100 on it, plus a bit of time cooking and cleaning.  And given we have two small children cleaning is a bit of a constant anyway!

All up we’ve spent a grand total of well under $500 in total on 4 birthdays, and that’s including the cost of two adult tickets for the Zoo which we would have bought anyway.  As far as I know everyone who has attended the parties has had a great time, our son has had a great time even if he doesn’t remember the first two parties, everyone’s happy and we haven’t spent much money at all.

So what should you be thinking about when having kids parties? 

First off do they need to have a birthday party and how big should it be?  At age 1 and 2, really it’s not about the kid.  They won’t remember it, they will play more with the wrapping than the presents, and they’re not really playing much with other kids.  Which is not to say that they won’t have a fantastic time, but to my mind at least it’s more about the parents and the family.  After that it’s a bit of a different story and it is more about the child.  I’m certainly not saying don’t have a birthday party for the first few years, but you probably don’t need to have a huge one, unless of course it’s something that is important to you!

Secondly, how many guests do you want to have at the party?  The reason this matters is because the more people come the more food and drinks that you need to provide and the answer comes back to what does a birthday party mean to you.  Is it about family, is it about your child and their friends, is it about your friends, is it about all of these things.  For the first two years ours was just about family, and the same to a lesser extent for the 3^rd birthday as well.  Now that our son is older and has more friends for his 4^th birthday we made it a lot more about him and his friends rather than just family.  The costs went up a bit, but that’s fine.

Next, where do you want to have the party?  If you have it at your house then you have zero costs for the venue, can easily prepare food and hopefully have plenty of storage space for drinks etc.  A public park is another cheap option, although you may then have to worry about how to cook/reheat stuff and weather can be more of a factor.  If you want to have it somewhere else like an activity centre or restaurant, costs start going up a fair bit.  Around where I live you’re looking at paying at least $30 per kid for an activity centre, and it can easily be a lot more depending on what sort of packages you want.  If you’re going to a zoo then it’s probably more again.

Another factor is do you want to pay for entertainment?  If you’re going to a zoo or activity centre then hopefully that’s already provided.  But if you want to have a clown at the party, or a face painter or any of a number of other types of entertainment then it’s costing you more money.  There are also plenty of options like having someone bring a mini zoo to you, a family we know recently had this where there were snakes, lizards, possums etc all brought along to the party.  I can’t say it appeals much to me, but it may be something to consider for a lot of people.  So far from just the one party we’ve had with plenty of kids they all had a fantastic time running around and playing with all the existing toys and didn’t need any extra entertainment, but things might change in the future.

Food and drinks is another area for consideration.  It’s almost always going to be cheaper to have homemade stuff or from a supermarket rather than getting catering or going out to a restaurant.  As I said our most recent party was all either home cooked or food from the supermarkets and everybody seemed pretty happy about it.  I’m sure that food from a catering company likely would have been tastier, but it wasn’t a priority for us so why spend more money on it?  If it’s something that is important to you though, fair enough. 

We also had plenty of apple juice and soft drinks for the guests at all of our parties (bought from Coles on special!) but haven’t provided adult beverages for a variety of reasons such as not being big drinkers ourselves and not really wanting to have too much alcohol consumption around young kids.  Nobody seems to have had a problem with this so far! 

While I’m talking about food and drinks, the cake may also be a consideration.  So far we’ve gone with a bunch of home made and decorated cakes which I’m guessing cost us maybe $5 each.  They’ve all tasted just fine, our son has pretty much only eaten the icing and toppings anyway, everyone seems happy.  But you can also have someone else make the cake, and the costs for those can go from a bakery job at $20 and up to a designer cake at $50 and potentially a lot more!

You might also want to think about help from your family for birthdays.  This might be in the form of them hosting the party, providing some of the food, covering some of the costs directly etc.  We’ve had some parties at our house, some at our parents houses, and generally when it’s the latter they will provide at least some of the food.  Given it’s all supermarket or home cooked stuff it doesn’t make a huge difference to the cost anyway but I guess it does help reduce your spending.  

So there’s lot of different choices to be made, all of which will affect how much you spend.  As I’ve said I’m a big advocate for spending a lot on what’s important to you and minimising the rest, so if any of these issues are important to you then feel free to spend a decent amount on them.  But if they’re not, then don’t spend more than you need to!  By the way the reason I’ve only written about one child’s birthday so far is that our daughter isn’t one yet so hasn’t had any parties.  I’m pretty sure though that she’ll be getting much the same sort of parties at the same ages as our son.

Do you have children, and if so what have you done for your kids birthday parties?  If you liked this post and would like to read more like it then please subscribe using the link on the right!