How much should your child's birthday party cost?

rosierosierosie

I was reading this article and it states that the average cost of a birthday party is £214.. Would you agree with this?

http://dadzclub.com/articles/kids/birthday-parties.ashx

I would like to think that my average spend has been around £100.. Some birthday parties have, of course, cost much more & less than others.

How much would you say (on average) you spend on birthday parties for your kids? .. I wonder how many of the 9% (who spend avg. £800) are on here?!

InsideInsurance

But how big are your kids parties? What age are yours?

Any average figure is going to be more distorted by those that splash absolutely stupid money on their kids sweet 16 party than those that do things on a shoe string.

Don't have kids myself so cannot answer from a personal perspective. Certainly wouldnt be putting iPods in the gift bags though if we did.

opinions4u

Money saving tip: Don't have a birthday party!

They just turn in to oneupmanship campaigns between competitive mothers, driving the price up for all.

Money_maker

Cheapest way is to have it at home with traditional games. Only food and party bags to pay for. Having said that, there's no way I would entertain the little darlings in my house!

GwylimT

We don't tend to have parties at home because there isn't a lot of room, there aren't enough seats and we don't want to deal with the mess afterwards. Our daughter had her last one at a soft play place, it was £150 for 15 children and food and drinks.

[Deleted User]

Our last party cost about £375 once you added up the hall hire, entertainer, party bags, decorations, cakes, food. He's 4, it wasn't overly extravagant to be honest. The bulk of the cost was the entertainer (£190) and hall hire (£90) and cake (£45)

He's in reception, so you need to invite and feed 30+ kids. I'm sure when he's older we can get away with taking 10 of them bowling/cinema ect

We're figuring about £10k for his 13th birthday though.. (Bar Mitzvah). See how easy it is to mess up an average?

DigForVictory

We dodged competitive parties by taking a Costco cake into school. Everyone (including staff, visitors, all pupils & birthday child) all happy! Now if it's over £5 each I'm thinking we're overspending - but we do have one big room into which we can fit 10 folk for a DVD & boxed party food.

Hall hire?! Find a pub that's feeling the pinch & ask how much for use of function room... £90 may be the norm in the South of England at a recognised party venue, but a lot of pubs have a room they struggle to heat let alone use, and have carparking & clear signage.

For the teen, I may take him & pals to Costco, ply them with all the pizza & soda they can eat & use a Transit to shift their replete carcasses back for collection... Or have a word with a Scout Leader, hire the Scout site for the afternoon & let them build a fire & cook on it. (If I invite him, it may even score towards their outdoor cookery badge, which Some mums value more than party bags!)

[Deleted User]

We're cutting costs for the next one, since it'll be split 3 ways, so I doubt it'll cost more than £125. We're not allowed to send food into school anyhoo.

le_loup

You are all mad!
Call yourselves MSEs.
Nuts.

krustylouise

My DD turned 6 not long ago. I threw a "party" at a local animal sanctuary which cost £150, but I had to supply party bags and cake. Because the place was small they insisted only on having the children there and not DD's extended family. So I threw a separate party at home on her actual bday, which came to a cost of £100 for food, decorations etc. DD's dad never contributed to the cost and didn't throw his own, but that's another story! Next year I will tone it down (though I at that every year!) I wouldn't say I try to one up anyone, I just like to see the smile on DD's face and this year being at a sanctuary it was different for her and her friends

krustylouise

le_loup wrote: »

You are all mad!
Call yourselves MSEs.
Nuts.

You say this, but would what be nuts is if we spent alot of money in lots of areas. If I come under budget every week on my groceries, manage to shop around for the things we need etc, then I feel spending money on those that matter is justified. And I don't consider myself any less a MSE because of that.