My baby is growing up - frugal birthday parties

Today my baby turns 6. I feel a little sad at this as he is growing up far too fast. At the same time each year means he is getting more independent and also more helpful. Just yesterday he went outside and without being asked raked up the leaves into the greenwaste bin for me. Boy I love my lads.

On Saturday we had his birthday party with a grand total of 10 friends, their step brother and my boys. Add to that 4 grandparents, Mummy and Daddy plus 1 other Mum who chose to stay. Definately a full house on a rainy day.

Now prior to being a single parent birthday parties were an all out occasion involving big budgets, over the top party food and loot bags to keep up with the Joneses. I am proud to say that this birthday the only extra we spent was on fish and chips for tea for ourselves and friends who came to help me assemble all the lego my wee man got.

And even better than no extra expenditure was the fact that we had a perfect amount of party food and it was the kind of party food the best parties had when I was a kid. Cherrios, fairy bread, chocolate finger biscuits, fruit kebabs, chips, cheezels and birthday cake. All this food except for the cake came in with my weekly grocery budget last week.

The birthday cake as always was made by my Mum who enjoys making the lads cakes each year. I enjoy not having to stress about the cake. Instead of loot bags Mum also made a batch of cupcakes which she decorated like cookie monster which each child took home. Man they looked awesome. Reasonably cheap to make but very time consuming. Thanks Mum.

We had 2 prizes - 1 for best dressed and 1 for pass the parcel. Both cost less than $5. Pass the parcel was wrapped with recycled Christmas paper, birthday paper and brown paper from packages at work over the last couple of months. Much cheaper than using brand new wrapping paper like I used to.

For the gift I asked the grandparents and his father to all contribute so we could get him some of the bigger sets of lego. We all spent the same amount as usual but his presents were far better value for money and one of the sets he would never have gotten due to it's price. Hopefully all parties were happy with this deal and we will continue to do this for future birthdays.

So that was "6 on a budget". And even better than that was the fact my wee man told me at bedtime that that was the "bestist party ever". What more could a mummy want to hear at the end of a fantastic day?