Cost of children’s parties

[WhenTheyComeForYou]

Now, I realise this may come across a bit tight but OMG the cost of children’s birthday parties are crazy!

Ive been planning a class party for my soon to be 6 year old. He’s intent on having a class party and I can’t see a way to make it cheaper than £400/450.

• Hall for 3 hours (covers party and 30mins set up and clean up) £70
• Entertainer £250
• Food and drink £75 (sure it would be more if I added berries and pushed the boat out - I’m not)
• Party bags £50 (2 small toys each and some sweet bags).
• Balloons, tablecloth, cups, plates, banners £20

Can’t do a home party as our house isn’t big enough for 30 kids + parent.

Could do a smaller party but my child doesn’t have a set friendship group yet and would like everyone to attend.

Could potentially share the party with someone but I don’t know anyone well and I’d personally find it a bit awkward. We’ve only been to one shared party.

Ive toyed with having it outside but the weather is unpredictable.

Im personally not keen on just having a bouncy castle in a hall, those parties have fallen a bit flat in my experience and I can’t entertain 30 kids on my own, I just can’t.

We’re in a cost of living crisis yet we’ve been to loads of parties in the past 6 months.

How are people affording this?! £400/500 seems so much to me, or am I being tight?

Does anyone have any fun and cheapish party ideas that have gone down well?

They really are. Personally I’m not a fan of sweet cones, my kids eat too much sweet stuff as it is 🫣

I’ve never been to a party for 3 children but been to ones for 2.

If your DC only knows one of the children id just get them the gift and maybe get the others a card/ chocolate bar.

If they knew all 3 I’d buy them all a present but it would cost less than id spend for 1 child. I spend around £10 for one child so for the joint parties spent £5 on each. I’d probably spend about £4 each if there were 3 kids.

It’s the norm here in London to cater for parents! Never been to a party even growing up where there wasn’t food for parents. Usually it’s a cheese and wine board!

Not sure an entertainer is worth it if you’re cutting back, children can entertain themselves, but you’d need to put effort in with music and crafts etc.

You don’t need table decorations, but if that’s important then do it. You can usually hire plates and things to cut down on one-use waste.

Party bags are a bit of a waste, cake and a £1 book, or 50p crayons and colouring in book is fine. I don’t think most children need any more plastic toys (or any little toys wooden or otherwise). It’s a pain to store them or the guilt of chucking them when you can’t donate!

I think a good trick is, never do a party where you have to rent the hall, rent the entertainment, everything being a seperate cost etc. personally I would just do soft play, a gym club, somewhere that’s already set up and you just pay one cost for everything and be done with it.

party bags - instead just go on The Works and buy the £1 books for each child. They usually do 10 books for £10. Give them a book each instead.

@Tcsha I also live in London and that's not the "norm".
It's only normal for families that clearly have a LOT of money.
I hate to sound rude but I think this comes under more money than sense.

Definitely find out who else in the year has birthday around the same time and ask the parents if they'd like to pair up. We've done this since DD started school and nearly everyone else does too. Not only does it save on cost, other parents prefer it because it removes another party from the calendar - it can sometimes feel like every weekend there's a party to go to!

Get the works 10 books for £10 offer and give a book instead of a party bag. Standard practice where we live and honestly so much better than the tat! Should shave £20 for you!

Sing happy birthday at the start of the food and cut up the cake on the buffet so you don’t have to buy buns/biscuits or sweets.

£250 for an entertainer is high and where your budget it falling down! Rent a bouncy castle for £100 and do a few party games!

Cut out the entertainer and think about a bouncy castle. Six year olds are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves. As a child I remember my favourite party was going to a school friend's and her very tight, according to my DM DM did very traditional party games in their back garden. There was a treasure hunt, memory game, Simon Says etc. It was so different and unusual compared to the generic bowling/soft play identikit parties.

Not the norm in my part of London no. Sometimes paid for coffees at the cafe for soft play. We've been to 6 parties recently and only two of them catered and even that was primarily party food so mostly for grazing - drinks had to be bought separately. I don't mind ultimately, these days I just eat enough beforehand.

Our leisure centre does one for about 110 quid. It's epic, 2 bouncy castles and a few soft play bits. Squash, tea coffee included.
Bring your own food, get it from aldi and do individual boxes. Job done.

I've never done full class parties- just invited all boys or all girls. Works out a lot cheaper.

Someone we know did a cardboard box party a couple of years ago. Everyone brought a cardboard box. It worked really well.

To what? Colour on? Sounds cool!

As a Mum of two (5yr & 7) got to say I hate plastic tat in party bags and try to avoid giving & dislike receiving. Last year, for not much £ we cake, a packet of sunflower seeds "grow your own" and a wee colouring book. Scrap the entertainer, so expensive! Do you have a kid friendly relative who'll lead the party games? Btw, I'm not a fan of Alexa but we discovered at Xmas that if you say "musical chairs" music & all instructions are played, so we had an impromptu party! Or hang a piñata. Kids prefer family input, I think. Good luck!🎊🥳

The sunflower seeds are also tat. I'm fed up of them being given to me in party bags you only need one packet a year. It's greenwashing.

The thing with sunflower seeds (or similar) - they are only good if you know 100% that all the children have a garden to plant them in.

Other flowers are available!😆🌻
We had a family competition with the seeds, kids loved it. Don't think it's greenwashing, Kids are inquisitive. Ours still check on their growing wee oak trees from acorns we picked on a walk. No cost. Interest in nature. We have a tiny garden, hoping our oak trees are slow growing. That makes memories not some plastic tat!

Ok, I think I do have some sense, but could be wrong!! We tend to have smaller parties and the adults get on well. Some bread, cheese, meats, vegan options don’t tend to be that expensive. It’s more that everyone can help themselves to the food, we don’t police it, but it’s nicer if you’re having a party over a meal time everyone can have a bite to eat so it’s easier for everyone.

It is most definitely the norm for us to cater for everyone, it’s not for you, so maybe it’s down to areas, friendship groups, etc. It’s not that much more and I’d prefer everyone to be able to eat than spend the money on table decorations or expensive party bags.

Have you looked at other places where it's more done for you?
When I priced up a hall and everything, it would work out cheaper to go to the local activity park / farm place, where they do all the food, do the entertainment and give the kids a party bag (though we didn't realise this in advance and took our own). That was £11 per child which I thought was a bargain.
Though maybe that's because we used to live in London and had a soft play party a couple of years ago that cost bloody £1150!

For your kids sure but I had 5 packets of the things last year from parties and weddings. If people could try something like radishes or strawberries this year, maybe some onion sets, mix it up a bit that would be grand.

I was responding to (and disagreeing with) another poster, who I quoted, who said whole class parties didn’t happen 30 years ago, @252833z.

I don’t really see what the CoL crisis has to do with my comment as I wasn’t saying that all class parties are good or bad or should be the norm, just that they are nothing new 🤷‍♀️ Although, my kids’ party attending days included the credit crunch and the winter of discontent so like for like… 😂 Personally, I love an old school simple at home party.

I disagree with you though that the trend for fancy parties is led by social media 😂 If anything, I would say that parties are getting less ostentatious as parents shun plastic tat party bags, helium balloons and avoid food waste. Bouncy castles, entertainers, animal encounters, discos, bubble machines were all fairly usual at parties when my DC were kids, before social media. At home parties were rare. Not so much for my DGC.

Feed them to the birds instead, @Piccalow!

It’s not really - our school asks that we invite everyone in class (or all boys/all girls) in terms of being inclusive. It definitely isn’t boasting to me - I just couldn’t leave some kids out when they are so small.

Can't - we get squirrels if I do that

Why not get the books from a charity shop. The books might even be 10 for a few pounds. Someone mentioned pizzas to me that sounds a good idea as i have noticed at parties children don't eat that much .For the bag you could put in a chocolate treat from fun size bags from £1 shops and with cake that should be enough.