So when I first became a parent, I have to admit that I was one of ‘those’ mums who went all out for the birthday parties! It was the total novelty of putting together this big bash I had dreamt up on Pinterest, all totally for me because of course a one year old really doesn’t care!
For Annabelle’s first birthday we spent way too much money on a kids sized remote control Range Rover, which was NOT age appropriate, took up so much space in the house and upon realisation it was a totally over the top dust collector, we sold it on eBay – WHAT A WASTE!
So as you can guess, very quickly the novelty of kids parties and OTT gifts wore off! And I was soon just throwing together two Woolworths cakes and a couple of balloons and calling it a day, because boy do parties get time consuming and expensive (I remember why I didn’t have a wedding now) and in all honesty kids don’t need it!
But still, a lot of my girlfriends, or “fairy godmothers” as we like to call them, don’t have kids. So come birthday or Christmas time they are all about spoiling the girls. But every time they ask me “what should we get them” I always say “nothing” because they honestly have EVERYTHING and 90% of that stuff they don’t even use or play with and it takes up space in the house – but of course they always get them something.
So I was pretty excited when I heard of a new app that was released just this week called Purposit. An app that allows parents to create a gift registry for their child, and invites friends and family to put their money toward bigger and more meaningful items rather than spend money things for the sake of it, that I can guarantee will never get touched.
I love the idea of being able to put money towards things like holidays, education or even long term savings for the important things when they’re older. Even something like a zoo membership or movie tickets, experiences rather than ‘things’ are so much more valuable.
Just a few years ago, we bought our first house. It was a huge deal for us as we had saved and saved our bums off for our deposit. But even then we still needed the help of our parents to get us over the line! We were extremely lucky that my husband parents had put away a small amount of money into a share portfolio that was only to be used for a home deposit.
Breaking into the housing market was extremely hard then, it scares me to think what it is going to be like for our girls in a few decades time, so creating something like this for our girls is high on my priority list.
I honestly would prefer it if people listened to me and didn’t feel they had to give gifts because I truly believe kids are way too spoilt these days and don’t need 100 presents. But if friends and family do want to give something then putting in a small amount via an app like Purposit is a brilliant idea so it’s going to something meaningful.
Leaving the parties to just be about having fun, catching up with friends and letting kids be kids!
Wanna check it out? You can download Purposit via the app store here.
*This has been a sponsored collaboration with Purposit, but we do not endorse or work with and product or brand we do not use and fully believe in or use!