Getting off emotional topics-
How do you save money on your loved ones birthdays?  How about your own?

I hate the bags of junk as favors, I like to give one memento- a ball,finger puppet, a little bag of candy like Laffy Taffy.  We like to have parties at home with homemade cake, decorated fun.  We have gone to a roller rink for a party.  The girls LOVE a slumber party!  I make a triple batch of my favorite pancakes in the morning, with homemade syrup, brown sugar, and sometimes chocolate chips.

Sometimes I like to buy myself a present.  How about you?

I buy year round. Dear S-I-L gave us a toddler bike hand-me-down for my DS. It will be his 4th birthday present in Sept. I found a helmet on clearance with Seseme Street characters. Cost: $7 total. With a home-made cake and candles, he will be happy. DS #2 will be 2 in August and will get DS#1 tricycle and his toddler helmet. I know, I am SO creative! The boys' birthdays are 3 days apart so giving the gifts together will be fun.

Growing up, I lived in a small town. We didn't have skating rinks or Chuck E Cheese or even McDonald's play land, etc. Slumber parties were the best. My mom would make us girls pizza, we would stay up late and do our hair, make-up and nails, and then have homemade pancakes the next morning. Great fun and cheap!

My favorite gift for myself was a pedicure and manicure for $20 and then I went to Barnes & Noble (with a library book, lol) and bought a Star Bucks drink. I read for A WHOLE HOUR uninterrupted, lol. DH made me dinner that night. But my Happy Birthday was under $25 that day.

Like Christmas, birthdays are not about the big gift. It's about celebrating life.

 We each donate a set amount to our favorite charities on our birthdays, we have no children.  But as an added bonus we save change thru the year to take each other to our favorite restaurant for dinner.  For me it is Italian for Brian it is Sushi and Sashemi, neither of us likes the others choice.  : )  I like apple pie so he makes me an apple pie for my birthday.  He likes chocolate mayo cake with peanut butter frosting with lots of vanilla ice cream so I make that for him.

Brianschef Michelle 

 We only do parties for the kids every couple of years.They prefer family time out for dinner and a movie or the like.

 When we do have parties we have done things like a picnic lunch then a visit to the free zoo, a Halloween costume party outdoors with a bonfire so the foods were roast hot dogs and marshmallows with a homemade halloween cake.

My husband and I celebrate our birthdays together as a date night and go out.

DS's birthday is in the summer.  So we've had parties at many local parks, some with water some without.

This year we are a foster family.  One of the girl's bithday was in September.  I had a "family" tea party, that was a surprise for her.  We used the good china, iced tea and tiny little sandwiches.

She did have a friend party too.  We went to a different park, and had homemade pizza with cupcakes.  Many of her friends, had pool parties, but they telling her that her party was cool.  We played many versions of tag, and used all the playground equipment too.

Now it's her brother's birthday next week.  We're going to another park, that has ice skating and hills for sledding.  I'm bringing spaghetti and garlic bread with cupcakes.  So that should keep everyone warm.

In June will be our other Foster Daughter's First Birthday.  So that will be fun!

We don't spend a lot on our parties.  It's a great opportunity to be able to play and have fun with friends.  We usually do provide a meal of some sorts.

In the past we have done baked potatoes with different toppings, pizza, sloppy joes, hot dogs and chips, spaghetti and meatballs.

My Mil does family dinners for the adults (except her own of course, then restaurant) with homemade cakes. Usually go out for restaurant meal as a date night if we want for us.  I do the family dinners for the kids. Usually get delivery of chinese etc if it is dinner or go deli, chips, appys etc if it is a mid afternoon party.  Usually have a special dinner at home depending on what day the birthday is. Whole family dinner  with mil cooking is on the weekends only

Since dd is a winter baby usually do a party at the community centre or a bowling party etc.  DS is sept, this year he didn't want a kids party so just the family party.  His first birthday we went to the local model train park and bought food plus bought hotdogs there. So the kids rode the trains and had fun.

We have never done the chuck e cheese thing, or any other expensive party. Can't afford to. We usually have either a homemade cake or store bought if I am working, and have a small family party. Then for DD she is allowed a small friend party with a few friends. I usually take them to the movies, a matinee of course and then back home to hang out. They can watch movies, etc... DD wanted a birthday slumber last year, but couldn't do it with extra people living here. This year it will happen because I don't expect to let anyone else move in or for anyone extra to be here then. I don't know how we ever got along without those expensive parties when I was growing up, but somehow we managed.

they are pretty organized here with kids party options. With lots of rain here, its big business. average $100 for 10 kids. includes entertainment like bowling, goodie bags, and food. Like the local bowling alley, 1 hr bowling, pizza & pop, free game coupon for each kid and a tshirt for birthday kid. Chunk Cheese types are more like $15 per kid.  Of course you can spend lots more money.   movies would probably cost more unless the kids are older and only have a couple of friends along.

 Some of our cakes-  the fruit loop cake-my oldest dd made this, the doll cake- I think I've made about 12 flaming barbie cakes, and Ivy was old enough this year to make her own ironic hamburger cake for a vegetarian-  This is some of our homemade birthday fun!  

kabin:

We have never done the chuck e cheese thing,

We have gone to Chuck-E-Cheese for a birthday but it was as a birthday dinner as a family not a party with extra people. My two older children are a month apart in birth dates so we celebrated them together. We also took them shopping and allowed them to choose a few things as gifts. Their choices? They each found a bike at the thrift store for a total cost of $9 as their gift from us besides the dinner.

They each had money as gifts from relatives to spend and chose to spend their funds at the thrift store as well. They each had books, toys and clothes they wanted and neither spent more than $10 on all of it.

 So we got off cheap with the entire celebration and gifts costing us less than $30 each for them and they thought they had the best birthday with lots of cool stuff.