Today was Gus' birthday.
How do I save green for birthdays?
We buy our presents far in advance. I bought 2 toys at Target this past summer when they were clearancing them out. I spent a total of $20 on a Matchbox set and a Fisher Price Imaginext set.
We bake our own cakes. I made his Cookie Monster cake for less than $10 which included buying a new pan and a couple of icing tips, which I will re-use.
How do I try to be greener on birthdays?
We don't have big elaborate parties. I used to throw these with lots of party favors, kids, decorations, and we always ended up with a garbage full of trash, a kid couple of crying kids (usually ours), a lot less cash, and party favors that eventually ended up in the trash as well. Now we keep birthday's with our immediate family and maybe 1 friend for the birthday boy and we do a fun activity like swimming or bowling. We let the birthday kid pick.
We limit our present budget to $20, this keeps a lot of toy packaging from coming into our house and going into the landfill.We wrap our presents with reusable or recycled wrapping, I have a big cloth bag that I reuse over and over in our house for larger presents, and I save and use the comics from the Sunday papers to wrap all birthday presents.
We bake our own cake, no big boxes from the bakery.
Small steps but moving in the right direction of being greener.
