Best Birthday Party Ideas to
Save You Time and Money

Are you looking for the best birthday party ideas to help you stay within your budget or save you lots of time? These tips will help you stay within your birthday party budget and avoid stress over all that has to be done before the big day.

Best Birthday Party Ideas for Keeping Your Party Simple

Themes- When planning your party, focus everything around a central theme. If your theme is broad like trains or Sesame Street, then pick the one thing from that theme that your child loves the most and center the party around that. When my son had a train party, we focused on Thomas the Tank Engine only. It was easier to decorate, decide what cake to make, what games to play, etc.

Family or No Family?- That is the question? When my kids were little, we used to have one big party where we would invite both my kids friends and our family. We soon found that this would not work for us. Sometimes this works beautifully for some families. One problem we had was that we always felt like we never got to spend any time with our family. We were always so busy entertaining everyone else. We also felt as though our family didn't have as relaxing of a time as they did at other times that they visited our home. For these reasons, we did away with inviting our family to the "kid" party and decided to always have a separate family party. This may sound like a lot of work to have a separate party, but to us it is one of the best birthday party ideas and totally worth it. It takes the stress out of worrying about our family having a nice time and the feeling that we didn't really get to enjoy them as much as we could have.

Now at our house, this is the plan that we follow. If the actual birthday falls on a Saturday, we have the party during the day and have the family over at night. If the kids want to have a birthday sleepover, then we have the friends sleep over on Friday night and have our family over on Saturday night. If the birthday falls on a weekday or on a Sunday, then we have the kid birthday party the weekend before and have our family over the night of the actual birthday. My kids have grown to love this so much. They love getting two parties and look forward to this special time with grandparents. I wouldn't have it any other way. Be sure to get grandparent input on this if you have grandmas and grandpas who love to help and get involved with the kid parties.

Having Less Guests is Sometimes Best- When you are having a party that is really involved like a princess party or a sleepover, then less guests is usually among the best birthday party ideas. On the other hand, if you are having just a regular theme party such as a pirate party or a butterfly party , then inviting the whole class is perfectly fine. We tend to have a nicer party and can afford to do more things at the party when there are less guests. However, a good rule of thumb to follow is this:

Best Birthday Party Ideas for a Sleepover- 3 guests plus the birthday child is a perfect number for nobody getting left out and things not getting too wild.
Best Birthday Party Idea for a More Involved Theme Like a Princess Party- 8 children is a good number. For a party such as this one, you usually will spend a little extra on favors and/or pretty party ware. Many packages of party supplies come in packages of 8, and it is less expensive than having to purchase a second package for just a few guests.
Best Birthday Party Idea for Parties Outside of the Home- Many of us find it easier to have our child's birthday party at a fun place like a gymnastics center or the local bowling alley. This can get very expensive especially when you go over the amount of allotted guests for the quoted price. Make sure to check with the person setting up your party about extra charges per guest. Sometimes it won't be very expensive and it will be worth the extra money, but sometimes it can be as much as $10-$12 per extra guest. This can get expensive! This is why having your guests rsvp is so important when having a party outside of your home.
Teenage Helper- One of the best ideas that a friend shared with me is to hire a teenage friend or family member to be your helper for the party. You can do this just like you would a babysitter. Have them come to your party to face paint, monitor a jump castle, to watch younger siblings for you, etc. These are just an extra set of helping hands. Sometimes, you can get the teenager to do this at no cost, because they need to earn volunteer or community hours for National Honor Society or student council. All that is needed from you in return is a letter of verification of how many hours of service they did and what they did for you. It is a win win situation.

Best Birthday Party Ideas for Games and Activities

When planning the games and activities at your party, keep in mind the age of the guests coming. If the guests will all be roughly the same age, then plan activities around what that age enjoys. For example, if you are having a toddler birthday party, you would not want to play a relay race where the object is not to drop something that they are carrying on a plastic spoon such as one of the games mentioned on the Halloween birthday party page. Why? It is simple. Dropping things is what toddlers do. They are fine tuning their motor skills, and this would not be a fun or fair game to play with toddlers. Also, toddlers don't understand when they don't win at a game. You would be better off playing a game where everyone is a winner such as the game of "Diggin' for Bugs" on the Butterfly party page. In contrast, elementary age kids love activities like treasure hunts that would be way too hard for a toddler or too babyish for your teens. Also it is important to make sure that you have something for the little ones to do if you are allowing the moms to bring younger siblings to the party. Your motto should always be to "Make it fun for everyone!"

Don't Reinvent the Wheel!- Don't think that you have to come up with new and different ideas. Sometimes the games that you may have played at birthday parties when you were younger can still be the hit of the party. Activities like limbo, hide-and-go-seek, piñatas, pin the tail on the donkey, etc. are still popular and loads of fun to do for birthday party games today. I always like to take the theme of the party and tweak these fun games just a little. For example when we play limbo, I turn the limbo stick into a themed stick. When giving a princess party , you can wrap the stick in pastel ribbon or paper and tape giant glitter stars on both ends. You instantly have a limbo wand! Another example would be to change pin the tail on the donkey just a little bit. Why not have your guest try to pin the shoe on Cinderella instead?

Theme! Theme! Theme!- Center your games and activities on the theme of your party. It is easier to stay focused and use your time/money more wisely when planning.

The Simple Things- Don't forget that sometimes the most fun our children have is just simple old playing. I have given many parties where my children and their guests were just happy to play in the birthday child's room or on our playground in the backyard. Don't feel like you always have to plan activities to fill up every single minute of the party. Downtime of just playing is great party fun.

Last minute party planning? No problem! Print great birthday party games right now!

Best Birthday Party Ideas for Food

Don't feel like you have to serve an entire meal at your party. Just have fun with the food. See the food ideas page to get help with when it is or isn't appropriate to serve food. Just remember that the only time that food is absolutely necessary is when you are having your party during a meal time. The parties that I find it fun to serve food at are parties that have a theme that lends itself to fun food like a Halloween party where you can serve witch's brew punch and witch fingers or at Buzz Light Year party where you can serve moon rocks (doughnut holes). However, I have found through the years that the most relaxing parties for me have been the parties that I have only served cake and ice cream. Also the kids never missed what they never had. The cake and ice cream parties have always been just as much fun as the themed parties where I served fun food.

Best Birthday Party Ideas for Cakes

The best birthday party ideas for cakes are endless. For this, anything goes. If you are a mom who loves to make cakes, then you can be as creative as you want to be. I have even seen some wonderful animated cakes. On the other hand, if you have no cake decorating talent whatsoever, then your local grocery store or discount store has a wide selection of cakes to choose from. What if you are a mom like me that loves to make your child's birthday cake but has no cake decorating talent? You do what I do. You make a simple cake, buy the cake toppers from the grocery store, and stick them on top of the cake. Everyone is happy. Your child gets the cake he wants, and you are happy that you were able to make a homemade cake.

In addition, never limit yourself to just a birthday cake. You can have birthday cupcakes, a giant birthday cookie, an ice cream cake, and even birthday doughnuts. Whatever your child likes best is great to have for the birthday sweet treat. The best birthday party idea I have for cakes is to have fun with it but always think simple. The cake can be a source of stress for some mothers.

Best Birthday Party Ideas for Party Favors

Goody Bags- Begin your party preparation on the day of your child's birthday party by placing the goody bags by the front door. Some people don't find giving out goody bags to their guests necessary, but my kids love to give their friends a treat as a way to say thank you for coming. For us, it is a nice gesture for the guests taking time to spend their day celebrating with us. Either way is appropriate and okay.

Setting them by the door can serve two purposes. First, you won't forget about them when the party is over like I almost have before . Secondly, if any of your activities lend themselves to keeping something as a party favor then you will have a place to put them. An example of this would be the painting nails activity at a Barbie party . If your bags are already by the front door, you can just drop the girls' nail polish in each of their bags and their ready to walk out the door at the end of the party.

Clearance! Clearance! Clearance!- This is the absolute best birthday party idea that I have ever used. If you have never shopped the clearance section of the stores that you visit most often, then you need to start. I buy almost everything on sale, and this has paid off tremendously when trying to stay within my birthday party budgets over the years. Decide well before your child's birthday what type of party you are going to have and/or what theme your child's party will be. This way, you will be able to keep your eyes open for those wonderful items to use at the party. After holiday sales are great for finding items for princess parties and superhero parties.

Best Birthday Party Ideas for Invitations and Wording

If you are sending out invitations to the entire class, always remember to put the invitation in an envelope. It is easy for moms to throw away papers that aren't school work and aren't official looking either. If your invite is inside an envelope, parents are more likely to take time to read it rather than to just throw it away. For more help with invitations, please visit the invitation wording and invitation ideas pages.

It is easy to get so caught up in the planning of your child's party that you lose track of how much money and time you are spending. I hope that some of my best birthday party ideas will help you save money and time all at the same time.