This past Sunday, my two daughters celebrated their 18th birthday! I can hardly believe it myself. They still seem so young to me. After all, when I was their age, I was much older.
Whether we like it or not, we all have birthdays. So why not celebrate as best as we can?!
Julia and Grace's birthday was a milestone birthday. You don't turn 18 very often. I like to make the "big day" an extra special one for each of our family members. I'll tell you all about it.
First of all, this isn't a zero-dollar budget birthday. We do have a healthy budget saved for each birthday. But that budget is in line with the rest of our expenditures.
I give my kids choices in how they'd like their birthday budget spent. Would they like to have a fun time with friends? Would they like to eat out in a restaurant? Would they like to do something fun with just the family?
The year that I let the kids paint on the family room wall, as the entertainment portion of their birthday party (as that was an inexpensive activity), the girls also chose to get take out burgers from McDonalds for all their friends that day.
Another year they chose to go to the Seattle Center Fun Forest and ride some rides (costs money), but also chose to have a nice family dinner at home.
For my son's birthday this past autumn, he chose to spend the budget on a ferry ride across the Sound, then an inexpensive lunch in a coffee house, for his birthday celebration.
So, you see, the budget is just big enough to provide either some entertainment that costs money OR a nice dinner out in a restaurant.
For the remainder of the day, I provide as many special moments as I can, without really spending much money.
The birthday breakfast
Breakfast in the dining room (we mostly eat breakfast in the kitchen or the family room), with the room decorated for the their day (these decorations will double as spring and Easter decor).
Blueberry pancakes, with real maple syrup, and scrambled eggs. The real maple syrup is a splurge for us. It's quite pricey in our area, so I buy it rarely. This time, it came out of the regular grocery budget. The blueberries are from the freezer, the last of summer's harvest from our garden.
Making breakfast special -- the family gathered at the dining room table. No extra cost.
The dining room decorations
This idea I shamelessly stole from The Prudent Homemaker. It was darling and I knew my daughters would love this. Brandy, from the Prudent Homemaker, had printed out some images of butterflies, cut them out and hung them from the light fixture. How very cute, right?! I could not get the color portion of our printer to work; so I broke down and bought some scrapbook butterfly stickers (but they were on sale).
I had some gold thread in my sewing box, which I used to suspend each butterfly from our chandelier arms. I hung the butterflies at different heights, to give the illusion of a flurry of butterflies overhead.
I plan on leaving the butterflies up throughout spring, then carefully, take them down and store with our spring decorations. Hopefully, I can get several years of use from these butterflies. We'll have to see how I can store them to avoid damage.
I have to admit, I hemmed and hawed in the store over whether to buy these, but ultimately it was Julia and Grace's choice if they wanted their budget spent this way, and so we did. The cost for a sheet of 16 butterfly stickers, with tax -- $3.94.
I bring whatever flowers I can find outside, into the house on birthdays. My son has a November birthday, so mostly for his birthday, I find evergreens and berry clusters. These bits from the landscape can make a nice table decoration on their own, that time of year.
For Julia and Grace's birthday this year, we have petite daffodils in bloom. A small vase of tiny daffodils helped add some cheer to the table. Some years the Camellia bush is in bloom, and I float several blossoms in a bowl of water. No cost for the flowers.
Decorating the dining room -- a lot of cheer, but not a lot of money!
The cake
I have always, except once, baked and decorated the birthday cakes myself. There was the one odd year, when both girls really, really wanted a store-bought cake. That was their choice, and we used part of the birthday budget to pay for that one cake. Every other year I have baked a cake from scratch (I think they taste better, and I can't have dairy, so baking it myself ensures that I can eat some, too). Some years I've done quite elaborate designs on top. Other years, I've tossed a whole lot of M & Ms on the cake, and called it decorated.
This year, I baked a yellow cake a few days early. I find it is easier on me, if I bake the cake layers a few days in advance, wrap in plastic and freeze, until I'm ready to frost. Then the day before their birthday, I get the layers out of the freezer, bring to room temp and frost. I stay sane for their birthday this way, instead of running around like a crazy woman trying to be the perfect birthday mom, with a million things on my to-do list.
The frosting is a simple vanilla buttercream. And I went with the butterfly motif. As you can see, my hand was shaky at times, and the cake is not perfect looking. But my daughters think it's wonderful and that's all that matters. Mostly, I just try to have fun with it, and not worry too much about it being just right. If you don't let it stress you out, cake decorating is really quite fun.
A very delicious birthday cake, using ingredients that I had in my kitchen -- no additional cost!
The birthday candles
We reuse our birthday candles, with one rule of exception. If it will only be our immediate family, we use the used candles. If anyone else will be present for the cake, then we use new candles. Here's my thinking on that. The members of our immediate family directly benefit from our many money-saving strategies. Guests, do not experience that benefit, and so we wish to provide our very best for our guests.
And the candles that are too short to reuse? Those are saved to make into fire starters for the charcoal grill.
I'd like to say that these are gently-used birthday candles. But you can see for yourself, that we get as much mileage out of a tiny candle as we can. But they are my favorite price -- free!
What about paper plates and paper napkins? Using what we have costs nothing. I like our regular dishes, and I have some fun cloth napkins in my large assortment to choose from. And in years that we have guests enjoying cake with us, it's always nicer to have a real plate on your lap than a flimsy paper one.
The gifts
We all like to compare what we're giving to our kids at varying ages. Even I do that. I asked my sister on the phone last week, what they gave their son when he turned 18. I think we just like to get a feel for what others think is "normal", and make sure that we're on track, given our own particular financial priorities.
Since this is a milestone birthday, We wanted to give our daughters one gift that marked the occasion. This gift is ear piercing. Neither daughter has pierced ears, so this is a first for both of them. To go with the piercing, I gave them earrings passed down to me, from my mother and grandmother.
And since we have made it a priority to save for their university educations (beginning September), the other gifts need to be practical ones. I had wanted each daughter to have a cheap, pre-paid cell phone for on-campus, so they can keep in touch with each other, and keep me informed of when they'd be coming home each day, as well as to have in case of an emergency.
So for their birthday, they were each given the least expensive pre-paid phone; but these phones won't be activated until they have real need to use them (which may be this summer, depending on where they land summer jobs, otherwise just before fall quarter begins).
And finally, the 3rd gift (we seem to give gifts in 3s whether for Christmas or birthdays). They are both realizing the value of knowing how to sew. One daughter saw another young girl wearing some fun fleece pants, while we were on vacation last month. I told her that she could easily make herself a pair, using my pj pants pattern. The other daughter likes to take thrift shop finds and embellish them. Last week she was adding lace trim to a simple dress to add some of her personality. So, we gave both of them a gift card to Jo-Ann Fabrics, to pay for a new project each.
For this frugal family, the gifts are not over the top, but tend towards the practical with a bit of fun thrown in -- and both girls were really thrilled with what they received.
Our son did something clever, as well. He gave them egift cards to ebay. On the envelope holding the printout with their egift card info, he wrote down some interesting facts about March 17: who died, what country was invaded, who was born, and who created something, on that day in history. Wikipedia has a list of historical events for every day of the year -- very interesting trivia.
The gift wrap
We reuse gift wrap, cutting off the shabby bits and pieces with tape on them. The wrapping paper in these photos was on my son's gift in November; and as it was, it was free in-store gift wrapping, so it didn't even cost us anything, then!
If gifts are large enough, I find that I have a big square in the center of the gift, with no wrinkles, tears or folds. A piece like this can be saved and used on gifts of smaller size.
If I am out of tape, I use glue-stick to seal the wrapping paper.
I like to use fabric ribbons. I buy them on spools at the fabric store, many yards for $1 -$2. The fabric ribbons can be ironed and reused numerous times. And they're handy to have around for craft and sewing projects, like making ribbon flowers to sew onto a young girls dress or top.
Wrap and ribbons -- no cost.
The birthday card
Let's face it, we all have a stash of boxed cards that need using up. I've been trying to use mine up for years. It could take many, many decades of birthdays to use them all!
I collect vintage print greeting cards. These two are from that collection, and now are our birthday cards to our two daughters.
If you think it sounds too cheap to reuse gift wrap and ribbons, or use a boxed greeting card for a birthday card, this is how I see it. The less I spend on the items that don't have lasting value, the more I can spend on the event and gifts that they will hold onto for a while.
Birthday cards from my collection -- no extra cost here.
The birthday dinner
Julia and Grace chose to have a nice dinner in a restaurant to celebrate the occasion. They had never eaten at Benihana before, and I suggested this as a unique restaurant experience.
Benihana is a Japanese steak house, with a dinner-show put on by the chef at the table. Half of the table is the grill, and the diners are seated around. The chef performs a few tricks with his knife and fork, as he's cooking everyone's meals. I don't often find great value in eating in restaurants. But Benihana was an exception to this, with entertainment as part of the meal.
We stayed well within our dinner budget. We looked over the menu online, while still at home, and made our selections taking the budget into account. We shared entrees and substituted a couple of appetizers for entrees as a way to keep costs down, and not have a ton of food wasted. As it was, my 2 daughters shared an entree and still couldn't finish it all.
We do tip very generously when we order this way. Our tips are based on what 5 of us might have spent, had we all ordered entrees. With tax and tip, we spent $86 for dinner.
Gas and parking
I do consider how much our transportation will cost. The gas was paid for from our regular monthly gas budget. This means that I will have to take care when planning my errands for the next couple of weeks, to ensure our gas money holds out for the month.
Parking in downtown Seattle is very expensive during regular work hours and on Saturdays. But on Sundays, street parking in downtown Seattle is free! It's limited to 2 hours, in most places, during the day, but after 5 PM, the limit is extended to 3 hours. Whenever a special occasion falls on a Sunday, we always consider downtown as a possible excursion venue, because of the free parking.
Gas, covered, and parking free!
The memories
Pictures, pictures, pictures! I like to print out at least a couple of the pictures right away, instead of just saving them all on the computer. Prints are nice to have. So often we never get around to looking at our digital photos.
We have a photo printer, paper and ink, so we can print out a couple of photos at home for free.
Extra fun things
A while back I signed them up for Baskin-Robbins Birthday Club. About 6 days before their birthday, they received an email coupon redeemable for a kid's scoop of ice cream, for free.
Other places I have signed up with include Sephora, Panera, Starbucks, Baskin-Robbins, Menchie's Frozen Yogurt, our local mall, and Payless Shoes, for their birthday programs. All of these businesses email or send coupons for free products or percentage off a purchase.
We spent money in 3 areas for this celebration: decorations (the butterfly stickers), the gifts, and the dinner out. No additional money was spent on the cake, candles, flowers, plates/napkins, gift wrap, cards, transportation/parking, photos, and one of the gifts to each of the girls (the earrings).
It's clear that one of our biggest expenses for this birthday celebration was the meal out. Most years we spend about half this amount if we're doing a restaurant meal for a birthday. Turning 18 is a big deal, so we spent on the high side.
We save on costs where we can, so that we can afford what we think will provide the most value to mark the occasion.
Julia and Grace's 18th birthday was a day to remember. We had a blast, but didn't break the bank in the process!
How have you celebrated family birthdays, especially milestone ones?
