Cheap Birthday Party..and other notes...

Well, we celebrate my daughter's birthday party.
How much would you spend on a party for a 9 year old? We are having 11 people including our family.

Here is what we are doing.

Pizza, on sale 6 for $10.00. Used a $10.00 Mastercard gift card from Swagbucks to pay for those.

Soda, Generic (2 liter bottles), and chips from Walmart about $5.00
Salsa, Free made from garden
Home made birthday cake, Free cake mix after double coupon. Cake mix from my stockpile. I bought at Logli's a while ago. Also making cupcakes from the other box of cake mix. That box was cheap too.
Chocolate Ice Cream from Target deal, so it was super cheap. I have a candle that is a "9", so we will use that.

We have paper plates that were free from Kmart deal. Paper cups, free from Kmart deal. Napkins (found brand new at a clothing exchange, they had boxes of them so we took a few packs), Plastic forks and spoons, free from Menards deal. We wash and reuse. Birthday table cloth that my mom will bring.

Streamers are from a free box at a rummage sale I found over the summer. We also have a bag of balloons that we 10 cents on clearance at Walmart from a LONG time ago. We use 2 or 3 for each birthday until the bag runs out.

Her birthday gift is where I spent the most. I found a the Leapster Diji on clearance for $29.99 ( Originally $59.99) at our Walmart back in early summer. I had the $10.00 off coupon, so I got it for $19.99. Over the summer, I kept hunting until I found games for it cheap. I got games on Ebay, clearance at Walmart and through the Ebates deal on Leapster.com  Altogether, my daughter will be getting 5 games for her birthday ($40.00) and the Diji. So total spent $60.00. I also have 2 games put away for christmas.

That is it! I could have gone cheaper, if I would have bought cheaper gifts. But, I am thrilled to keep this birthday party inexpensive.  One things that helped was buying through out the year and not waiting until the last minute to buy things. This helps spead out the spending, so you aren't whipping out your plastic at the last moment.

Do you have any low cost birthday party ideas? Please post them in the comment section!

Also, how is everyone doing on their christmas planning? I am almost done. I found some great deals this week through my school book order!!! It seems scholastic is now allowing parents to go online and order directly from their website. I was able to order $19.00 worth of items from the clearance section ( all christmas gifts) and have them count towards my teachers school order. That way, the teacher gets to pick an extra free book for her classroom and I get to save lots of money on my order. I ordered 10 things for $19.00. Including a math game, a book with a friendship necklace, some toy for my son, etc. So, if your son or daughter has a teacher who has set this up for the Scholastic book club, it's a great way to get some clearance deals, help the classroom and buy educational things for christmas. ( on a side note, the teacher does know I bought christmas gifts, make sure your teacher doesn't send them home with the kids!!)


Also, there is that $5.00 off My Little Pony Coupon (see my coupon bar on the right side of my blog) when you spend $20.00. I know my Walmart and several other Walmarts had some Pony items on clearance. My store has the ponies in the clearance section, not in the toy section, so keep  your eyes open for gifts there!

My christmas gift list is small this year. I am buying for very few people. With that said, I am almost done. I have 6 boxes of items in the basement filled with gifts. Each gift has a post it note on it that matches my list. So I know that I have bought for each person on my list. :)

Other than that, I got my Shoppershotline reward this week, another $25.00 on my debit card. :) And I got my last $10.00 Mastercard from Swag Bucks. Swagbucks doesn't have the Mastercards anymore, so we will have to wait and see what is next for them!  I am also half way to a reward on Report Port, so I will use that to buy more Christmas gifts. ( if you don't know what Rewardsport is, click on the "reward yourself" ad on the right hand side of the page and find out! It's quick and easy!).

I am keeping it frugal. I have already put aside HALF of the total amount I need for my Oral Surgery at the end of the month. I am hoping to have it all. I don't want to put that much on a credit card when we are so close to being debt free.  I will post how I am doing with that. I have pet sitted, sold some items and paid less then budgetted on the credit card to put money aside for this surgery. OH FUN...NOT!!! :)

I hope everyone has a frugal, safe and fun weekened!!!