Diana: 0:06

You're listening to the Decluttered Mom Podcast. A podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene.

In 2017, I had my second daughter, and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings, and I have never looked back.

I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system, and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Decluttered Mom podcast. I hope the audio is okay on this one. My microphone is not working for whatever reason. I have no idea. It just decided not to work today.

So I am recording this just right on my phone. I haven't done that in a while for the podcast, so hopefully it's okay, but just kind of is what it is. We gotta roll with the punches sometimes with these things.

So today I wanted to talk about something that comes up throughout the year, but I think it feels heavier during the school year just because everybody is so busy, and that is birthday party gifts.

We get so many birthday— I mean, I have two kids and we get so many birthday party invitations. I can't imagine with more than two kids what that might look like.

We really try to go to every party that our kids are invited to, even if they are not like a close friend to one of my girls. The reason we do that is because I've just seen too many things where kids just don't have anyone show up to their birthday party, and that's just really sad. That's super, super sad.

I just don't ever want that to happen to any child. So if my kids get an invitation and we are available, we are going to that party. That can get, number one, time consuming, number two, expensive, and number three, it can also just take a lot of energy and mental energy because usually I am the one who is figuring out what the gift should be.

Actually, hold on, not anymore. Up until my kids were in like middle elementary, I was the one deciding what the gift would be for the most part. Now that they're at their current ages, they definitely want to have much more of a say in what the gift is because they obviously know the kids way better than I do, and they just want to be the one who chooses.

However, even though they're the ones choosing, I am the one purchasing the gift, making sure that if I have to go to the store to pick it up, I'm going to the store and picking it up. I do not wrap gifts anymore, that is another thing.

My girls are eight and eleven, they are fully capable of wrapping a gift, and so they are in charge of that now. They also are in charge of making a card for any gift that they give as well.

But again, when they were younger or when we go to like a younger kid's birthday party, like if we go to a family friend's and the kid is younger, I'm usually the one picking out the gift, picking up the gift, wrapping the gift, making sure that it's something that's age appropriate and all of those things.

I am sure you're nodding your head and can feel that too, right? So there's a couple things that have just been really helpful over the years that I've kind of picked up on to make this process a little bit easier. I wanted to share those with you.

Number one is to always have wrapping paper and/or gift bags. For us, we get so many gifts in gift bags when my kids have their birthdays that most of the time those gift bags are in really great shape and a lot of times people don't write on them.

We keep those in a bin. We have a gift wrap bin where I put both of the— we have two actually. One for birthdays and miscellaneous, and another one for Christmas. We put all those gift bags in the gift wrap container, and then we also put rolls of wrapping paper and ribbon in there.

So we put all those into the birthday one, and then a separate one holds all the Christmas stuff for gift wrapping. We have several different sizes. If we ever start to run low, like if one of the girls is wrapping, they'll tell me, "Mom, we only have like two more gift bags."

Sometimes I just take a look and refresh it when I go to the grocery store. Honestly, I don't even pick them out anymore, I just do grocery delivery and put in a request for a couple gift bags of different sizes, just to pick one, it doesn't matter.

We keep tape in there too because there's nothing more frustrating than sitting down, wrapping a gift, being late to the party, and realizing you don't have any tape. So we keep tape in there as well. I get one of those three-packs and toss it in there, and when we're using the last roll, I buy another three-pack and toss it in.

That's number one. It makes things easier because then you're not thinking about adding gift wrap every time you're doing a gift. If there's a very unique gift, like extra large or a weird shape, then you might have to break that rule and get some different gift wrap.

For 99% of the gifts that we give, it's not a problem.

Number two is having a gift bin. This is like one of those 30-gallon storage bins with a lid. Anytime I am shopping—well, not anytime—but if I notice something's on sale, like our grocery store has a toy section that’s kind of random, just one or two aisles by the milk.

When I grab milk, I'll take a peek through there because they clear out their toys so often. If there's a great deal, I will buy it and put it in the toy bin.

I buy for various ages, mostly younger kids, and sometimes my kids' ages, but mostly younger kids just for families' birthday parties. If there's squishmallows or stuffies, 100% I'm buying them because that's usually what my eight-year-old picks to give to a friend since her and her friends are obsessed with squishmallows.

I get those things on super sale and know we will give them to someone at some point, and I put them in that gift bin.

When more of my friends were having babies—most are done now, a few still are—when everyone was having babies, I had a separate gift bin for baby showers. Anytime I saw a certain type of swaddle blanket that we all loved, I would buy it on sale and put it in there, or noise machines or other helpful baby items.

Same with Amazon's big sale day, Prime Day, if I see something fitting that a kid would enjoy, I put it in there.

As you know, I focus a lot on experience gifts with my own kids, but we also give toys. I think it's okay to give kids toys, especially when it's not your own like a friend's child. We also do a lot of clothes and hair accessories.

Lastly, when my kids are invited to a birthday party, I also get journals, notebooks, craft supplies, fun pens, and markers if they are on sale because my girls and their friends love those.

Whenever my kids are invited to a party, they look through the bin to see if there's anything they want to give. If not, they can pick a new gift.

There’s no pressure to only use this bin because we only buy what fits in it. If it’s full, I’m done buying more toys or gift items. We give these away before buying anything else.

Once Christmas rolls around, the bin usually empties because it's helpful for nieces, nephews, and others. We also donate remaining items to toy drives during that season.

My kids can go through the bin and pick from there, but if there’s nothing that fits that friend, we order online or go to the store and figure it out.

Sometimes I’m still learning what their friends like at these ages and will slowly shift to buying more things on sale that fit their friends’ ages.

Honestly, I think they enjoy picking gifts themselves. They’re great gift givers, and I want to encourage that because being able to pick a gift a friend will love without a list is a great skill.

I want to encourage that whenever I can.

So again, this is a bit of a short episode, but I wanted to just go through this because we have, I think, three birthday parties next weekend. It’s very top of mind for me, and I thought it might be helpful for anyone listening.

Let me know in DMs on Instagram. You can follow me at thedeclutteredmom.

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