Hellobee Boards

Planning my lo's 3rd bday right now... So far, it's $450'for the entertainment, $50 for cake, prob around $100 for food + drinks, at least $50 for decor ... I'm DIYing almost everything but the materials are still so expensive (tulle , cardstock, etc)

So far, it looks like we will have 8-10 kids and about 15-20 adults.

We're doing a pizza and cake party at home for a 2 year old. 21 people. The pizza alone costs almost $100, and after all the paper goods and other food and decorations, it's in the $200-300. Which is still more than I wanted to spend.

for LO's second birthday, my parents treated all of us to brunch at a nice restaurant. later on we gave LO a cupcake. we didn't get him a gift because he's young enough that he doesn't notice and he got gifts from our other family members. oh we also bought some cupcakes for his daycare class. so $50 or less, i'm guessing, but we didn't have a "party".

Like maybe a little over $100? It's was LO'S first birthday, my mom made most of the decor and my best friend purchased her cupcakes so all I did was food and favors mostly. We had about 30 guests.

Our first was expensive because we had dinner and had it catered for about 40 people. Maybe around $500? Ugh. Maybe a little more. I also bought some platters because I had nothing to entertain with. Plus drinks and appetizers....And I had to rent tables and chairs! This time, it's $100 to rent a park pavilion on a weekend, plus I am just doing cookies and milk so the cost should be under $100 for that. Since I went big for #1, I feel obligated to go as cheap as I can this time

I feel very extravagant now! We had 50+ people and served lunch so it ended up being very expensive.

It was about 100 for 15 people at our house. Decorations were about 35, food/cake was about 50 (ground beef for burgers, buns, hot dogs, fruit & veggies, chips, drinks, and cake - we made it all so this was just for the ingredients), invitations were 15

We only do 1st birthdays, so Char didn't have a party last year. For her 1st, we spent over $500 because we had it at home and rented a bunch of shit.

--$100ish for jumper, pinata, tables and chairs
--$100ish for 15x20 shade canopy (her birthday is in the middle of July and it was 90*+... so we needed to shade our guests)
--$200ish for food (ordered trays of pasta, pizza for kids, grocery store cake)
--$100ish for invites, decorations, favors

I REALLY want a taco guy for Harry's 1st birthday this coming May, but it costs about $400 just for that! So if we do that, we wouldn't be renting the tent/canopy, but we might be able to get away with that with our 10x10 easy up and it being a cooler time of year.

Her 1st was $500+. I never totalled it up. Her 2nd is going to be $100 max! At home with some balloons and I am going to make all the food/cake.

200-300. The cake was the single most expensive cost. It was at home for 30 adults, ten kids.

@regberadaisy: I"m sort of thinking brunch food. I make really good breakfast casseroles. I was thinking two egg/cheese/sausage casseroles and two french toast ones. Fresh fruit. Bagels and cream cheese. Maybe some muffins or a few quiches (my mom would probably make those because she likes making broccoli cheese quiche). For drinks I was thinking of a coffee/hot chocolate station with our Keurig and then doing a lemonade and some sort of alcoholic drink like sangria or maybe mimosa (we use cheap champagne lol). And I'll make cupcakes for us (I use box mix bc it tastes good, and make my own frosting-- comes out cheap!) and I plan to make a modified banana bread-ish cake for LO's smash cake. It's entirely possible I'll do evites (or even just call people!) since it will just be our families and a few close friends. And I don't really plan to do much in the way of decor. I'm not pinterest-y in that way and it annoys me to spend money on things that will only be used for one day. Probably some balloons and streamers or something.

I probably spent $450-$500 by the time I bought decorations, food, and drinks for 40 people. I mean beer alone was $100.