Kids birthday parties costing average parent over €5,000 - survey

Irish parents will spend more than €5,000 on children’s birthday parties and gifts by the time their offspring reach sixth class, an alarming new survey has claimed.

MummyPages.ie, has counted the costs of primary school children’s birthday parties and put the average spend at €5,460 over a ten year period from pre-school to sixth class.

It said children would most likely be invited to at least 12 birthday parties per year with an average spend of €15 each time on gifts which takes the cost for parents to a not too shabby €180 per year.

But the real cost comes with hosting a child’s party, and parents on average will not have much change out of €400 once the last of the candles are blown out.

The website compared the cost of hosting a child’s birthday party in the home with the cost of a party venue and found that home was dearer than away by almost 10 per cent.

The site put the average cost of party entertainment in the home at €126 with another €144 spent on party food.

A cake was estimated to cost €39, with party bags priced at €4 each. Party games were said to cost €43 while party decorations were given a price tag of €31 taking the total cost of a party at home to €387.

The average cost of hiring a commercial party venue was estimated to be €238 with party food costing €63. The birthday cake was again €39, and party bags €4 each, taking the total cost to €344.

The average number of children invited to the party of a child under 8 was 20,with the average number of children invited to children aged between eight and 12 said to be 11.

Parents who took part in the survey claimed they spent an average of six weeks planning a child’s party.

"The cost of both hosting and attending birthday parties can be a financial worry for parents of young primary school children where the trend is to invite the whole class, with friendships evolving and school policies dictating that nobody is left out,"said Laura Haugh of MummyPages.ie.

“Our advice is to be sensible,” she said. “A good idea is start a parent’s council in your child’s year or class so that the parents can club together and share birthday parties with their class mates who are all born in the same month.”