Birthdays on the Cheap

Since we are trying to get out of debt, we planned on spending a much smaller amount on gifts and parties during our family birthday season. We stopped doing big birthday parties this year, because it was a ton of stress to get it all together and then the cost of the actual party was far more than we wanted to spend three times a year. We decided to do only immediate family birthday parties after the first birthday, with just cake and ice cream.
This year, instead of buying a cake at the store, we made a birthday cake at home for our four year old. He loves Veggie Tales, so we made a Larry and Bob cake. It certainly wasn't a beautiful cake, but it only cost us about $4 instead of $12-15 like we would normally spend for much less cake. It did take a lot more effort than just buying one at the store, but the money saved and the specialness of the Larry cake made just for my little one made it worth the time spent. He loved it even more because it resembled (I use that word loosely!) Larry the Cucumber.