Birthday Mom Types & Budgets

Is your idea of your kid's birthday party really a chance to guzzle wine with your friends or do you rent a pony for every kid that attends and send them all home with a Gucci gift bag? Most moms fall somewhere in between. We struggle to keep up with the Jones’ or to give our children all the experiences we didn’t have but only have the time, energy or budget to be “good enough.” I’m here to tell you that’s perfectly o.k. and should be what we strive for anyway.

Find your mom type and budget and make the best of it. After all, aren’t celebrations supposed to be fun for everyone? That includes you!!! 

Barely Keeping Your Shit Together Mom: Budget $50-$75

• Invitations: DIY or editable template – these only cost about $5-$7 on Etsy but if your subscription to computers for dummies is expired, this is not for you, go with the fill in kind found at any local party store.
• Cake: Bake Your Own – …when you throw that cake box into the cart, grab a box of ice cream cake cones to cook the cake in before you add the icing swirled on top to look like ice cream…Genius! It’s gonna take you time but only about $15.
• Balloons: bag of balloons on amazon is $8 but be sure to pad the room with cushions to break your fall when you pass out blowing them all up.
• Food: this is the point when you pull out the peanut butter, a cookie cutter, bread and sprinkles to make Fairy Bread sandwiches. Seriously, just make up names of things your kids like and you’re a hero.
• Game/Activity: Noodle Pickup - $5 for a box of spaghetti and a box of penne pasta. Each player has a hard spaghetti noddle in their mouth and has to pick up six penne noodles without hands. Sit back and laugh at, I mean with everyone. Click for more ideas from tinybeans.com.
• What to wear: make sure your child is wearing clothes that aren’t from their dirty clothes hamper, winning! 

The Balancing Act Circus Mom: Budget $75-$150

• Invitations: Themed fill in the blank invitations: for $20, you can save yourself the urge to throw your printer out the window by buying preprinted fill in the blanks at any local party store. You may want to decide if your child’s writing is more legible than yours before completing this task.
• Cake: Have you ever heard of Costco, Sam’s or even Publix? For $20-$25 you can feed all the minions with a half sheet cake. You can buy a premade one if you are slipping into the first mom category or you can order a custom one. Your options on flavors and design may be limited but other than the picture of you trying to blow out your candles at your 5^th birthday party, do you remember what the cake looked or tasted like or do you simply remember that you at least had a cake?
• Balloons: save your breath because for $20-$30, you can get a dozen helium balloons (they actually float like real balloons should). Tie them down before you let go and have to show your face in the party store for round two.
• Food: Keep the bar low, just like the budget. $30-$40 tops. Do your research on Pinterest for food that goes with your party theme. Turn corn dogs into buzzing bees with a little food dye, get clear shot glasses and fill them with hummus, carrots and celery and call them living gardens. Click here for ideas but you may have to get creative on food names. 
• Game/Activity:  Remember all those amazon boxes you’ve been meaning to take to the recycle center? Make a maze through your house that the kids have to crawl through to get to the food. Use them as a nerf gun target or draw characters on a box for a photo station. I’m sure you can think of something. More ideas for old boxes, click here.
• What to wear: Etsy=$18 for a custom matching themed shirt with name and age. Most shops will take around 10 days to get it to your doorstep so plan ahead…just a little.

 Slightly Over The Top Mom: Budget $150-$350

• Invitations: $40-$50 for 20. If you plan ahead, you can hand deliver most of these to save on postage and save yourself the agony of snail mail. Beyond the personalization, most colors, quantities and even icons can be customized.
• Cake: $65-$100 but well worth the extra grease. Find a local baker and splurge. Tell them your theme, your flavor choice, how many people you need to feed and I’m almost certain their will look and taste 1000 times better than yours. Our go to is The Bearded Baker. 
• Balloons: $50-$150 I know but hear me out. Try to buy your own balloon garland off etsy for $40 and spend the next few hours or even days cursing me for not telling you to find your own @BalloonBabeTN who charges $12/foot for a garland that perfectly matches your theme, can be moved around and will last for almost a month. Make it part of your photo spot.
• Food: Don’t go catering a sit down dinner, keep it cool, budget $50. Print some signs and lavish up your serving table and remember these kids live off of goldfish and mac n cheese. Have something savory, something healthy and something sweet and everyone will live.
• Game/Activity: $25 pinata plus $10 for candy. A pinata has never done nobody wrong but please for all that is holy, let the littlest go first and make the Louisville slugger go last.
• What to wear: It’s family dress up time. $50-$60 for mom and dad to join in on the costumed fun. Need some ideas?

Too Much Time on Her Hands Mom: Budget $350+

Who are you kidding? These moms are striving for perfection and that’s just not realistic for us “good enough moms” so take it down a notch will ya?

Nesting Project is a one stop life event design and print company specializing in DTG (direct to garment printing), embroidery and boutique invitations and paper products. To learn more, click here to browse.  

• Game Show Birthday Shirt click here
• Target Practice Birthday Invite click here
• All Nesting Project birthday invitations click here