re: Parents: how much did/do you budget for your toddler's birthday parties?

Waste that much for a party he won’t remember?

That ain’t for him. It’s for your wife to post pictures on social media.

I think it depends on the child. I remember spending about $300 when my oldest was a toddler. But we had a ton of family from both sides over and some friends of ours with kids the same age. I cooked burgers and dogs for about 40 people and we had beer/wine and plenty of liquor. Cake was about $35 of that, the rest was food and drinks. Not a ton of decorations since we just hung out in the yard. We have a smaller bouncy house my mother in law bought that we still use 10 years later.

The younger ones are boys and they don’t really care. Just invite some friends and neighbors over to play, blow out some candles and eat cake.

Bouncy houses are awesome baw!

When my kids turned 3, my list was as follows.

-$60 for decorations from Hobby Lobby or Dollar Tree
-$60 for Hot Dogs, Buns, Chips, Condiments
-$200 for a water slide
-$100 for beer
-$40 for cake

Those kids loved the parties.

Buy a cake and let them play outside. They don't care about anything else.

I don't really believe in going all-out for a birthday party until the kid is old enough to appreciate and remember it.

Anything before that, cake/ice cream and pizza.

Depends where you live. In NYC, I dropped easily a grand on those parties. Now, in the burbs, I get a bounce house and pizza.

You should be grateful your wife puts together a budget to review with you. It may be a bit high, but she’s at least putting in the effort to show you what she’s planning.

We’ve always spent anywhere from $600-$1000 easily. Stupid but it is what it is.

Sadly, this is not unheard of.

The Normandy invasion probably had less planning than tue average toddler birthday party in some quarters