If you are planning a birthday in the Big Apple, then there is no question that you have a lot of opportunities to do a wide variety of big things. In the city that never sleeps, the sky is the limit in terms of what you can do to celebrate your New York City birthday. However, there comes a point in time in the midst of dreaming about your big night where you need to stop, take a deep breath, and decide what you can realistically spend on your birthday. This article will help you make some decisions regarding what that budget should be for your night of NYC magic and fun. (This is assuming that you are not a heiress or have not recently won the lottery, and actually have to do some budgeting. If you fall in either of those categories, you should not spend another moment worrying about the budget, and should instead start thinking about your new yacht, and whether you want to arrive by helicopter at your birthday party. However, if you are like most of us and celebrating on a budget, then read on.)
First and foremost, you need to decide what the maximum amount of money that you can spend is. For our clients, we often tell them that there are two ways to approach this. The first is to picture yourself holding a match and a pile of cash. Pretend that the pile of cash is all of the money that you have to spend on your birthday party, and then pretend that the match is the evening itself. Mentally light the match, and picture all of that cash going up in smoke. If it makes you feel stressed out, or you feel like you might need some of that money to meet other monthly obligations, it might be time to re-think the original amount of money that you were starting with in terms of your birthday budget.
The other possibility for clients is to decide in advance how much a huge memorable night of celebrating is worth to them. It is helpful to determine in advance if they are willing to scrimp and save for a few months before or after their NYC birthday celebration in order to ensure that they have an incredible night, or if they would they rather save a bit the night of and enjoy life more before and after the party.
Once you have a budget in mind, then you have to decide exactly how you want to spend it. Are you going to want a big dinner and a chill night afterwards? Or, would you prefer to put all of your budget into a night out at a lounge or club. If you choose to spend heavily at a bar or club, you will need to decide if you want bottles or any type of open bar service for you and your friends. When you are thinking about these things, do not forget to include the gratuity for the service in your calculations. It is easy to get a nice "deal", only to discover that you must pay gratutity and tax in addition to amazing deal that you got.
Last, but not least, you will want to decide if you want to provide any party gifts for your friends that come out. Saving a bit in advance can ensure that you have some nice party gifts to provide at the end of the evening if you choose to go this route.
If you keep all of these things in mind, you will be able to have a fabulous NYC birthday celebration that is affordable, fun, and memorable. One of the reasons that we operate our NYC birthday planning service is to help people gain a firm understanding in advance of the costs of having a New York birthday, and to help them plan accordingly (of course it helps the cause that our service is free!).
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