Entire Birthday Party for Under $50 (2026)
A full, itemised birthday party for 10 kids, including food, decorations, games and party bags, for under $50.
Sounds impossible right?
This post came about after a conversation I had with a friend in which we were lamenting the ridiculous cost of kids’ birthday parties. Of course, I somehow took this as a personal challenge to see if I could come up with the cheapest possible party. One that could still be classified as a party, not just a playdate!
Full disclosure, this is a bare bones party for up to 10 primary school aged kids, no paid entertainers or fancy decorations, but it’s got all the basic elements you need for a simple kids birthday party. Even if your budget stretches a little more than $50, this is a great place to start. Instead of having to decide what to cut back on, you can choose where you want to spend more money.
If you have tweens or teens, this party may or may not work for them. If you think they might want something a bit more grown up, see my post Budget Movie Night Party for Under $50. However, I also have written about Party Games for Older Kids if you’d still prefer a more traditional party.
Location
This will have to be a self-hosted party. If you are lucky enough to have reliably decent weather, then a park with a playground is always your best bet. However, I live in Melbourne and there is basically no time of year where the weather is that reliable, so for us, it’s always at home. Even my summer baby had an at-home birthday party last year, which turned out to be the right move when it ended up being a very sunny, 38°C day.
Time
Avoid lunch, and stick to morning or afternoon tea so there is no expectation of providing a main meal. Cake and a few snacks is more than enough.
For younger kids, mornings are often preferred, as they tend to tire out or become more ratty towards the end of the day and a big sugar hit right before dinner isn’t always appreciated. For kids mid to late primary school age, afternoon tea usually works better as I find a lot of kids have extra curricular activities that run mid-morning to afternoon. Although, this may be the case for younger kids too, but typically the younger kids’ activities are earlier in the day.
I would stick to 1.5 hours, enough to feel like a proper party, without encroaching into “I’m still hungry” territory. In terms of timeslots, 10 to 11:30am or 2 to 3:30pm are great options as they are both clearly not lunch. I’ve been to birthday parties that finish at 12:30pm or start at 1pm and both of those are a little ambiguous to me.
Let everyone know
Email or text or WhatsApp your invitations. This saves printing or buying paper invites, ensures the invites actually get received by the parent(s) (and not left at the bottom of a school bag) and also allows you to discreetly invite a smaller circle of friends, rather than the whole class.
I would recommend specifying the “Drop off” and “Pickup” times if you would prefer parents don’t stay. This makes it clear you’re not expecting them to hang around, but be prepared that there might be some who need or want to stay. Encouraging all parents to stay sometimes adds pressure (and cost) to feed them as well. This budget doesn’t include food for parents.
Don’t forget to ask for dietary requirements, and if there are any, I usually run the planned menu past the parents prior to the party just in case.
What’s the plan?
Here is a basic party plan you can start with, based on a 1.5 hour party:
- First 15 min, Arrivals: All the hi’s and bye’s, showing kids where the toilet is and where to leave presents. If you have shy or nervous kids, they might enjoy being given the job of putting presents on the present table. Otherwise, balloons all over the floor generally makes for a great ice breaker and kids will love playing with them while they’re waiting for the party to start.
- 30 to 45 min, Games: The number of games and duration of each can vary hugely depending on the age, numbers and concentration level of the kids. I would recommend having 6 games ready and another 2 backup games up your sleeve just in case.
- 20 min, Food & Cake: Sing happy birthday, hand out the plates and kids can dig in.
- Final 10 to 25 min, Free play & pick ups: For the younger kids, I include more free play (and reduce time spent on structured games). I find at the end of the party, they are nicely warmed up and on a sugar high and have a great time just running around playing with each other and our toys. For the older kids, we spend more time on games and at the end they tend to sit around the table chatting for the last 10 to 15 minutes until the parents arrive. Don’t forget to hand out the party bags as guests leave.
Food
For this budget party we are serving either morning tea or afternoon tea. There is one item of hot food, classic party snacks (think chips and jelly) and cordial or water to drink. No, this is not a healthy party (healthy parties are unfortunately, expensive!).
The majority of the snacks are naturally gluten, dairy and nut free, so kids with allergies should have a decent selection to choose from, but, always check with parents of kids with allergies just in case, never assume, especially when it comes to “may contain traces of”. Some kids can tolerate this and some can’t. For more ideas, see my Allergy Friendly Party Food for Kids list.
If a parent offers to pack safe food for their child, take them up on this offer. They might not need it, but this way you can relax knowing they won’t go hungry.
The “cake” I recommend is a donut cake, a pack of 12 cinnamon donuts is $3.50 from both big supermarkets and can be stacked and arranged on a plate. No cooking, refrigeration, decorating or cutting required. It is perfect for time poor and budget conscious parents. A dairy free alternative for $4, is the lamington fingers. It’s an 18pk, so you can make a decent looking tower with them. Coles also offer a pink version for $4.
If you want a regular cake, without making one yourself, then you’ll be looking at around $8 for a budget supermarket mud or sponge cake, or 9pk of mini cupcakes.
Budget alert: If allergies are an issue, you can make an allergy friendly chocolate cake for just over $8 (but with an initial outlay of around $26.50 if you don’t have any of the ingredients already in your pantry). This isn’t included in the total below as the initial outlay would push us way over the $50 and this budget is all inclusive, but if you already have some or all of the ingredients in your pantry, it’s a great option. See my post Budget Friendly, Allergy Friendly, Chocolate Birthday Cake for the variations and price breakdowns.
Games
There is no “main” activity in this budget party, so lots of party games is the big event. If the kids are younger and getting bored of structured games, finish up early and start the food. They can have more free play later.
There are lots of games you can play without much on hand. Check out Kids’ Party Games Using Household Items for ideas, or use my free Party Tools to play games with nothing but your phone (think charades or musical statues).
For prizes you can choose either a pack of 4 toys ($2.50), tally scores as you go and hand out the prizes at the end. This works better for older kids. Or, for the younger crowd, buy a pack of lollipops ($3), so you have lots of prizes and can dole them out every game.
A lot of the games on this site have variations (for complexity and equipment) as well as different ways to decide the “winner”.
I have three, very different kids and have personal experience with sensitive kids, kids who hate any or all attention, kids who love attention and kids with neurodiversity. So where possible, I have tried to ensure there are multiple ways to play the same game to suit different personalities.
Party bags (a.k.a lolly bags, party favours, loot bags)
The best budget option, is of course, to give a piece of cake, cupcake, or in this case, a donut, in lieu of a party bag. However, while I did try to suggest this to my own kids, they never came around to the idea and we always ended up doing a party bag or favour of some sort.
So, the cheapest party bag option I could find, is a classic lolly bag: cellophane bags from Kmart filled with a selection of (unwrapped) lollies. You can get away with 3 bags of 110g spread over 10 party bags, just. If your birthday child can go without their own party bag, you can bulk the rest up a tiny bit more.
Kids might want more than what’s in there, but parents will be grateful it’s not filled to the brim.
Finally, the shopping list!
The list below includes everything you need, including plates, cups, candles etc. If you have leftovers from a previous party, or enough crockery of your own, bonus, you can save even more money. But, if this is your first time hosting a party and you’re starting from scratch, then you’re covered.
One of my pet peeves is a price list that assumes you have the basics already and doesn’t factor them into the overall cost.
So, without further ado, I present the $50 kids budget birthday party. For this, you will need to go to two shops: Kmart and a major supermarket. These are Melbourne prices, accurate as at July 2026. Prices are fairly consistent across Australia, especially in the bigger cities, but you may see small differences depending on where you are. The supermarket items apply to both Coles and Woolies, so either one is fine. If you are lucky enough to have an Aldi or Costco close by, you may be able to get it even cheaper.
I used online shopping prices, which are sometimes a bit more expensive than in-store, and stuck with the current standard RRP. Everything listed is the cheapest, generic, homebrand option I could find. Note, you can often buy a branded item on sale for a similar price to the generic version I’ve listed.
Food & drinks (afternoon or morning tea): $21.10
| Item | Cost | Shop |
|---|---|---|
| Jelly crystals, 2 x 85g (2 different flavours) | $2.60 | Supermarket |
| Potato chips, 2 x 175g | $4.00 | Supermarket |
| Microwave popcorn, 2 x 100g | $1.90 | Supermarket |
| Wedges, 1 x 750g (or 1kg chips for a GF option) | $3.50 | Supermarket |
| Wafer biscuits, 2 packs | $1.60 | Supermarket |
| Cordial, 1L | $3.50 | Supermarket |
| Cake (lamington fingers, 18pk) | $4.00 | Supermarket |
| Subtotal | $21.10 |
Notes:
- Jelly: get two different flavours for a “rainbow” look, just allow enough time for them to set one after the other.
- Popcorn: swap for popping kernels ($1.75) if you’d rather DIY it.
- Wedges: swap for 1kg of chips ($3.15) for a GF option.
- Cordial: Diet Rite was the cheapest brand when I checked, or go for a 2L juice bottle ($2.70), though that can be hard to stretch across 10 kids.
- Cake: swap the lamington fingers for the $3.50 donut cake and this comes down to $20.60.
Servingware & decorations: $12.45
| Item | Cost | Shop |
|---|---|---|
| Candles | $1.50 | Kmart |
| Disposable tablecloth | $2.50 | Kmart |
| Balloons, 15pk (1 per kid, plus 4 to hang up and a spare for a game) | $1.00 | Kmart |
| Plates, 20pk (small side plates, save half a pack for a game) | $1.50 | Supermarket |
| Serviettes, 100pk | $0.95 | Supermarket |
| Paper cups, 2 x 18pk (for drinks and jelly) | $2.00 | Kmart |
| Wooden spoons, 10pk (for jelly) | $1.00 | Kmart |
| Bunting | $2.00 | Kmart |
| Subtotal | $12.45 |
Notes:
- Candles: a single “number” candle is $1 instead of the $1.50 pack of regular candles.
- Plates: Kmart sells a 12pk for $1, if you don’t plan to use the extra for a game.
Games: $4.00
| Item | Cost | Shop |
|---|---|---|
| Pens, 10pk (for use in games if you don’t have enough already) | $1.00 | Kmart |
| Prizes (pack of lollipops, or a 4pk of toys for $2.50) | $3.00 | Kmart |
| Subtotal | $4.00 |
Party bags: $4.00
| Item | Cost | Shop |
|---|---|---|
| Cellophane bags with ties, 25pk | $1.00 | Kmart |
| Lollies, 3 x 110g | $3.00 | Kmart |
| Subtotal | $4.00 |
Extras (in case you don’t already have some): $4.25
| Item | Cost | Shop |
|---|---|---|
| Blu-tack (generic brand) | $1.75 | Kmart |
| Lighter (cheaper than matches & slightly cheaper at Woolies) | $2.50 | Supermarket |
| Subtotal | $4.25 |
Grand total
$45.80 for the lamington cake option, or $45.30 for the donut cake option.
Swap in a store-bought regular cake, or the allergy-friendly chocolate cake, and you’re looking at around $49.95.
What’s not included?
Ok, I did say it included everything, but to be pedantic, it doesn’t include:
- A phone, which you will need in order to send invites and play some games.
- Water, for the jelly and cordial. Important to know beforehand if you’re going to take the cordial to a park with no access to water.
- Serving plates or bowls, for the chips, popcorn, lollies, and “cake”.
A lot of the food can just be left in the packets, so the plate is really only needed for the “cake”, and you’ll probably have at least one disposable plate left over from the 20pk included.
I also haven’t included feeding the parents, but you can buy an extra pack of wafer bikkies, a pack of tea bags, and a 1L carton of long-life milk for under $4 if you need. Amazingly, if you’re using the donuts or the lamingtons as the cake, this still comes to just under $50.
So, there you have it, a complete party for under $50! I’m sure most of you will already have leftover candles, matches and probably even enough spoons for everyone, so you’re unlikely to have to buy everything on this list.