How much will that first haircut trim down your budget?

How do you celebrate and how much do you spend?

My sister-in-law who does graphics made an invitation for us that we emailed and texted to some people. The same talented sister-in-law took pictures of my son a few weeks before — we didn’t have a professional photographer. We all wore what we had from that season. We didn’t serve a full meal — more of a buffet of small desserts. My sister made us a beautiful tzitzis cake and some relatives made other things.

–Dov and Leah Ackerman

We make a party at our house. For our first couple of boys, we printed photo invitations that were cute but quite expensive, so eventually we moved to paperless post. We don’t get special upsheren outfits, we just wear our nicest Shabbos outfits. My husband has an excellent camera so he takes the pictures, but I do splurge on one professional upsheren picture. I’ll look for deals for that.

–Leah Lowy

So far, we’ve had five upsherens and they were all different. For the first one, I went completely over the top, rented out a shul, created a slideshow, prepared fancy pekelach. My second one was a little less fancy, but also pretty extravagant — we even had relatives fly in from out of town for the event. Those two were over 15 years ago and I no longer remember exact costs.

Since then, I started having the upsherens at the local Chabad house or at home, and have scaled down a lot. No more slide show, much cheaper pekelach. I never really spent money on invitations — even for the first two, I think I just made phone calls. For the past three we sent out invitations on WhatsApp. We never bought outfits for an upsheren and never paid for a photographer. Food is probably about $150 to $200-ish.

–Chaya S.

I only have one son, and I went all out to make it special. The theme was circus. Invites were $225 ($2.25 each on Shutterfly; we sent out 100); his outfit was $85 (in hindsight, I should have splurged on something for myself as well); photographer – $125; shul rental – $250; pekelach (which included candy, chips, cotton candy and a drink) – $150; 25 custom cookies at $2.50/each – $62.50; 24 custom cupcakes – $70; two-tier custom cakes – $85. The total cost of the rest of food was almost $700. At the cheder the next day, it was immediate family only. I made honey cake and 22 pekelach — the cost was about $50, and another $100 for the photographer.

–Shayna

I have a party at home for all our friends, and take the boy to cheder where he gives out pekelach and honey cake, just regular, normal upsheren stuff. One son is more outgoing and could handle all the excitement on the same day; for my other son, I broke it up over a few days.

In total, I spend about $700 to $800. For invitations, I pay someone to create one digitally and then email or WhatsApp it to everyone. I bought or borrowed special outfits for all the kids. I was willing to hire a photographer for $200, but she ended up canceling and I used my phone to take pictures. The pictures actually turned out great — many people asked who I’d used for my photographer! We also gave out goodie bags.

 –Baily W.

Each upsheren was different, depending on the season and the kid. We generally printed out a nice picture of my son and made the invitation ourselves which we photocopied and mailed out to people. (That probably cost about $30 to $50, including stamps.) We don’t do special outfits. At the first two, a friend who was a professional photographer offered to take pictures for free.

For our first, we rented out a shul (I think about $200), bought a fancy cake (about $50), and the rest was regular party food (maybe $100). It was the first simchah that we really made as parents (our parents organized the brissim), and were excited to feel like real adults. We just did whatever we wanted. By the second one, I learned where to cut corners to save money but still made it cute.

As people offered to bake, I took them up on it. For one son, we held it at a local park and for our last ones we held it at our own house. Our goodie bags also got simpler — for my first son, it was something like $3 each of assorted nosh in 50 goodie bags. By my last one, it was closer to $50 for all the goodie bags.

–Rivky B.