Yes, that's possible. You can hold a party without breaking the bank, you just need to cut costs by holding the party at home, avoiding traditional meal times by having the party between 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. and only serving dessert. Bake your own cake or cupcakes instead of ordering a cake and purchasing pre-made treats. Actually, you can serve just homemade cupcakes and ice cream, for example, to cut down cost. Instead of sending invitations by post office, hand deliver the invitations or you can call and invite, just make sure that the parents write down the date and time.

If the party will have a specific theme, choose only the plates to match and have other items such as napkins and cups in solid colors. Since you are on a tight budget, consider skipping the party favors or plan an activity that can double as favors, for example, making masks or soap bubbles.

For decor, balloons are festive, fun and inexpensive. Stick to them. You can tie them in bunches, to the backs of chairs, to form flowers and the like. Also consider using things you have at home like stuffed animals, photos of your child...

For games, avoid having that ones that will need much material. Choose games using materials you already have at home as musical chairs, charades...

If you have the party after lunch and before dinner, you can have serve birthday cake and ice cream with simple beverages and no need for a full meal or snacks.

No shame in sticking to a budget and a simpler party means you can enjoy your childs fun at the first birthday without being too busy in the kitchen.

For starter's remember young children don't tend to eat much. So don't go out buying in loads of food that will just get wasted.

If you hold the party in between 'meal times' (2pm-4pm ish) then the children will have already eaten lunch so they shouldn't be too hungry, meaning you won't need to serve as much food.

You also don't need to have a really wide range of food. You don't need to have six different sandwich fillings to choose from or 4 different types of cakes. A couple of different choices is fine.

Make the birthday cake yourself instead of buying one (so much cheaper!) and instead of doing a buffet style dessert, just serve one. Either serve slices of the birthday cake as dessert, or just jelly and ice cream (a true party favourite!)

For games, do things such as musical statues, musical chairs, hide and seek etc. as these don't require any money being spent.

Hi,

My baby's first party is next month. Alot of things have came up so really going to be struggling for money the next month or two.

I have around 30 kids ages range from 0 - 10 to cater for (cold.buffet).

I have a budget of ￡50

What could I do? Make? Buy from?

Is this possible on such a tight budget?

I'm in the uk

Thanks