I did the 4th birthday on a budget - R485!!!!

Amandalynn's first birthday cost about that and it was lovely too. but i'm done with spending that much money on kids parties.

The catering for the parents is very expensive I agree. My friend would just make a big curry etc which was nice.

I used a venue and it worked out fairly inexpensive. I paid 2500.00 in total for 14 kids (party buckets) etc, and catered snacks and adult cake for 25. I even provided drinks and coffee too. The venue is awesome too.

The main Table inside had the cake on it.



Also the parents were not catered for, i had coffee, juice, tea, wine and if they wanted something to eat we had birthday cake.

i used the pink, white and purple table cloths that i could find by family and friends to decorate the tables outside. The table and chairs i borrowed form friends, so they did not all look the same and amandalynn got her couch to sit on so it looked like she had a throne to sit on.

I baked plain sugar cookies, but them out into stars and after taking them out of the oven (still hot) i put a skewers in them to make it look like a wand.



i also made a pinata myself it was plain pink with ribbon around it. that cost me nothing!!! and they enjoyed the picking up of the sweets the most.



i had a R100 baloons for them to do with what they wanted.

i did not arrange any entertainment - reason 1 it is winter and the party should then be outside, reason 2 it cost to much money - we packed all of amandalynn's toys outside and that was the entertainment - the kids loved it the party lasted till 5 that afternoon and i still have glitter all over my house!!!!

Sounds wonderful. From past experience kids actaully enjoy the more basic parties where they can just run around and have fun.

Will add in some photo's but it wasn't one of these picture perfect parties that parents want for the kids!!!! i did a lot of shopping around.

17 kids were invited... only 10 showed up. rule of thumb only half tend to come. A friend of mine designed the invitation and i printed it on color paper and handed it out at her school. also emailed the ones that i could.



The party boxes i bought @ help you bake R1.50 a box. the sweet i had a 2 plastic bags filled with them for only R81 , try chinese shops and markets. Each child got a box filled with sweets and a juice.

Party boxes: All moms must have scrap booking things for the baby books, i looked in my boxes and used everything that was white, purple, pink, black and silver. none of the boxes looked the same but it was so pretty!!! The most expensive thing i did was buy an Oros juice for each Child. i bought Halls juice (1 liter makes 5 liters) which i pre-mixed so that when the bottles are empty we can just fill it up. each child also got a colorful bracelets with bells on it as a toy in the box, R1 each.

Cool so tell us what you did and how many kids etc. We can all learn from you. x

It can be done and it was a great party!

here is the link on how it all started out: www.moomie.co.za/forum/7-toddlers/19074-...day-on-a-budget.html

The only thing that i did not pay for or have anything to do with was the cake, my mother made it. everything she needed was in her cupboard at home except the icing sugar.