The economy is making it hard for a lot of people right now but that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate birthdays in style. If you’re the designated party-thrower in your family, these tips will help keep expenses down, while still creating a party everyone will remember:

Get Creative When Planning the Party Theme

Why not try an unusual theme that would also be affordable for both your party guests and you? For a children’s party, you can ask all the guests to bring affordable gifts suitable to give to a regional animal rescue organization or family homeless shelter. If you call the organization’s manager, you can compile a list of low-cost items that can be included with the invitations you send to your guests. Instruct them to wrap the items as if they were regular birthday gifts and then everyone can go as a group to deliver them. This would not only be meaningful for everyone involved but it would also give children first-hand experience with how good it feels to give to others.

For adults, you can help your guests save money by having a recycling/re-gifting party. Most people have at least one gift in their closets that they’ve been given but don’t want, so let them wrap them up and give them again! Make sure to let them know who is coming to the party though, so people don’t bring gifts they got from someone who’ll be at the party! If you don’t want to risk hurt feelings, this idea also works well for items that people have bought new on impulse but never used. Make sure to provide a specific dollar limit for the recycled items, so that everyone can participate and go home with a gift.

Make Your Own Birthday Party Decorations and Invitations

The Web has an unbelievable selection of free birthday invitations for kids and adults. So why spend money on invitations from a stationary store when printing them at home is so easy and inexpensive? There are also a lot of free birthday clipart options online, which make ideal party decorations. If you can find large enough art, you can make banners or signs. If you can’t find the right kind of clipart, you have the option of decorating flower arrangements or plants with clip art cut-outs or making table place cards. If the guest of honor likes antique art, try printing and cutting out various vintage birthday cards and attaching them to a string that you drape around the room or the cake table. This is an easy way to get a vintage feel and make the party more festive! To enhance the shabby chic, vintage theme, you can get mix-and-match used plates and silverware at a thrift store instead of buying paper plates and plastic knives, forks and spoons.

The most important thing to remember when trying to save money on a birthday party is that you need to be creative. If you implement even the most low-cost ideas with style, no one will ever know you did it on the cheap!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 9th, 2009 at 5:31 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.