Ah, birthdays. The four times of the year I love and dread all at the same time. My babies are growing up and I love watching them grow and mature.

I dread the birthday shopping.

This last year, I started something new. Instead of a gift that could possibly end up in the giveaway box in a few years, I give them something they love.

That they can consume.

Without sharing with their siblings if they so desire.

I give them food as one of their gifts. Nothing fancy, but something I would not normally ever buy. Nothing that even remotely fits into the healthy, natural eating of our household, but they love and is their current favorite guilty pleasure.

The response to this has been very, very good! For Jordan’s birthday, she got a giant-sized box of Goldfish crackers. For Shali’s birthday, she got a 12-pack of Mountain Dew Code Red. (Yes, I am cringing.) They laughed, they consumed, and they loved it. It was a treat they would normally have to pay for with their own money, so they appreciated it even more.

The frugal upside is that it costs me between $4.00 and $7.00 for this gift. Pretty cheap in my opinion and it is not wasted in any way by them. My limit for birthdays is usually $75.00 per kid, but I try really hard to keep it under $50.00. Something I have learned to accept is that, as they get older, the amounts/costs sometimes change. I usually give four gifts for each birthday because I do not care to go overboard with the expectations of many gifts. But I try to find quality gifts that will appreciate in value over the years while getting the best deal.

With consumable gifts, I can easily budget for birthdays while giving them something they love and can giggle about. That, my friends, makes them worth it!

Thanks for reading,
Erica

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