One area that unfortunately gets overlooked when planning for a big party is creating a party budget. The best approach involves researching the costs for everything you plan to offer at the party, from food and drink to inflatables and music, as well as costs associated with the venue.
It’s an area where contacting professionals who offer event planning services and Tampa event rentals can make the process run much more smoothly. The first move is creating a party budget. The following tips can help you get a better idea of potential costs.
What Will You Offer At Your Party?
It’s impossible to start creating a party budget without determining the different areas where you expect to spend money, and then investigating the potential costs. The following are examples of typical party budget areas.
Rental Costs
Whether you’re planning a backyard birthday party, company party or festival, renting inflatable slides, carnival games and thrill rides is likely to be part of the celebration. This step requires contacting an entertainment rental company and learning about all the rental options.
Food and Drink
Do you plan to order out the food or cook it on your own (hopefully you have plenty of help if it’s option No. 2)? Check prices on catering services, which can make things much more convenient. This is an area where spending more can make the party much easier to manage.
Power Supply
Determine if you need to have an extra source of power for your power and the costs associated with it.
Decorations
This is another area where a professional company can help you, especially if you are throwing a large, themed party. If not, price what it will cost to purchase decorations material and handle it DIY style.
Venues
Unless you plan to have the party in the backyard, one of the biggest costs for an event is the venue rental. Make sure to look at plenty of options and find one that fits the closest to your budget.
Those areas will give you a good start. Remember to list separate categories for every area where you plan to spend. Depending on the size of your party, other areas could include a DJ, bar staff, and permits (such as for city and county parks).
Estimating Costs For Party Budget
Once you have a list of all the areas where you expect to spend, the next step in creating a party budget is to attach a cost to each area. While there are a variety of ways to create a budget, one involves the following steps.
Item description. Take the list of areas of spending you already created and break it down into specific items. For example, take drinks and break it down into the kind of drinks and the amount, such as four cases of water, 10 bottles of soda, etc. If you plan to hire catering for this, call companies to get prices.
Estimate the costs. Go through the detailed list of items and attach a price to each based on your research. Try to be as accurate as possible.
Track costs. Once you begin spending money on party budget items, track the costs to ensure you stay close to the estimate. If you overshoot your estimated budget in one area, make sure to cut back in another to keep the overall cost about the same.
These ideas can help you when creating a party budget. The more detail you can provide in each area, the better. It’s worth the effort because knowing ahead of time what things will cost removes any surprises along the way and gives you a framework to follow for spending on your party.
