I spend thousands every year on gifts so my kids can go to birthday parties. How do I stop without feeling like a spoilsport?

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• For Love & Money is a weekly Business Insider column answering relationship and money questions.
• This week, a reader feels obligated to spend thousands a year on birthday party gifts.
• Our columnist says they can go to fewer parties — and give the kids cash.
• Got a question for our columnist? Write to For Love & Money using this Google form.

Dear For Love & Money,

I have four kids between the ages of four and 10, and we spend every weekend at a series of birthday parties. We have gone to zoo birthdays, skating rinks, trampoline parks, nature reserves, and people's backyards.

The food, when offered, is nearly always Costco pizza or hotdogs, but usually, it's just a cake the kids' parents bought from the supermarket. Meanwhile, the cost of entry is at least a $25 gift. This isn't bad for one party, but with four kids, it can get as high as $100 to $200 a weekend.

For my kids' birthday parties, it is very clear that our invitee's presence is the only present we want. I don't need 20 new pieces of junk introduced to our home four times a year anyway — where would we put it all? I don't understand why other parents would want it. I can't afford the financial burden of birthday party gifts, especially when my kids aren't even getting a nutritious meal!

But I also don't want my kids to miss out on the fun or be the reason some poor kid doesn't have any friends attend their birthday party. How do I save money without feeling like a spoilsport?

Sincerely,

Burned Out on Birthdays

Dear Burned Out,

As the mother of three elementary and middle school kids, I relate to your struggle. I am all for inviting every kid in class to birthday parties. I don't think anyone should feel left out, and I don't think 4th graders can handle the social power of picking and choosing who gets an invite and who doesn't. However, this popular rule also means my kids receive over a dozen birthday party invitations each school year.

This doesn't include the invitations they receive from cousins, church friends, neighbors, and best friends who moved schools or are in a different class this year. At $25 a pop, the simple joy of attending a buddy's birthday could cost us well into the thousands. And you have one kid more than me. You're not crazy for feeling like this is becoming a financial burden. However, I am here to tell you that you don't have to give up on sticking to a budget.

First, remember that just because your kids get invited to every birthday party doesn't mean you're obligated to take them. If your kids are anything like mine, how close they are to the birthday kid has little to do with whether they want to spend the afternoon bouncing their brains out at a trampoline park.

When asked, my kids' response to a party invite will always be yes. But mine isn't. As overwhelming as children's birthday parties can be financially, they're also quite a time drain. As my children get older, drop-off parties are thankfully becoming the norm, but I still have a second grader, and expecting anyone to babysit a bunch of 8-year-olds hopped up on Kool-Aid, cake, and laser tag feels unfair.

Instead, I limit my kids to only attending the parties of close friends, family members, kids I suspect may not have many friends, and, of course, the epic-level parties my kids beg me to attend. Overall, we attend five to ten parties a year for each kid — still a lot, but spread out over the course of a year, it's not too bad time-wise. The expense, however, still creeps up on us, so I also draw a boundary across that.

You wrote that the "cost of entry is a $25 gift." Is that true, though? I have never seen a birthday invitation party with a minimum gift price specified. As a mom, however, I am familiar with the unwritten rule you are referring to. I recently saw a meme on social media joking that kids' birthday parties are just parents passing around the same $25 over and over, and I had to laugh because it's true.

But you can opt out of feeling like you need to hit a certain dollar amount. We should stop looking at birthday parties as transactional. You mentioned the low-quality dinners typically provided at these events. I know I've complained a few times when the only food offered at parties scheduled during traditional meal times are chips and cupcakes. But in reality, they aren't obligated to feed our kids any more than we're obligated to bring a $25 present. There is no entry price because it's a free event, and you can't complain about a free event you chose to attend.

Here's my hack for keeping our birthday present budget small: Kids like money. It makes them feel grown up and powerful. Give them three $5 bills, and they'll feel flush with cash. Give them a $10 bill, and they won't think, "Really? Only $10, in this economy?"

They'll simply tally it up with all the cash they got from their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and their allowance and come up with that magic number that makes them feel like the richest kid in town. Meanwhile, their parents will be pleased not to have more junk headed toward their kid's already disastrous bedroom.

Another option is to shop for gifts at dollar stores like Five Below and Dollar Tree. You can easily assemble a decent craft kit for under $10 at those stores.

Remember, in many ways we really are just exchanging the same gift money with other parents over and over. So, what goes around will come around, and the families you show up for today will be the same families who make your kids' birthdays great tomorrow.

Rooting for you,

For Love & Money

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