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Milestone Birthday Party Ideas

It is a time for celebrating birthdays. Are you soon going to be having a Milestone birthday (50, 60, 70, 80) and worried about your next birthday party? Don't be every birthday is the perfect opportunity to celebrate your life. You are alive and that means you should mark that event with your friends and your family. Your birthday should be one that brings together friends and family to a wonderful celebration of your life while you are here to enjoy the celebration.  I am confident that a few of the ideas here may get your creativity up and running and help you design a great idea for your own birthday party or plan a big surprise for someone you love.

What about having a birthday party that is a roast. I  see roasts on television. They are sacrilegious and sometimes very funny. A warning a birthday roast will only work if you have friends and family who can do this well. If you are the subject of a roast, you should have a sense of humour and not be easily offended; if you are planning for a friend, you should make sure they are not easily offended. Make sure everyone knows the theme of the roast beforehand and a good idea is to have a list of those who will go first to set the stage. If you want a night of laughs this is one way to celebrate your life and the friends you have. By the end of the roast, you may lose some friends but who wants friends that don't have a good sense of humour.

Another idea is to have a PowerPoint or slideshow, to show various events throughout the guest of honour’s life. By doing this you pay tribute to someone that has meant a great deal to you while they are here to see what they mean to you. When you are developing this idea, think about having a red carpet for the star to enter on and allow friends and family to pay their tributes to the guest of honour by talking about the good things they have done. This idea is a lot more sentimental than a roast but will mean a lot to the person you are honouring.

What about an Old West or Gold Rush theme? This theme would be fun to organize and people would have fun when they attend. Having a room dressed up as a Wild West saloon and everyone could come dressed in their favourite western gear. Facebook and Youtube, Instagram will be filled with delighted partygoers whooping it up and doing their best square dance impersonations. Good food and many western style drinks will keep the guests and the guest of honour happy and full of western cheer. 

Of course, there is always the Grim Reaper "over the hill" birthday theme. Be creative and use your knowledge of the guest of honour to make your theme party different from all the others. Use your knowledge of the birthday man or women to create the perfect celebration of life for them. An idea might be to make this birthday an out of this world experience and use a supernatural theme. 

Your sense of creativity and playfulness can help make any milestone birthday memorable. Remember nothing is too excessive, as long as you know the nature of the guest of honour. Milestone parties, like a 50th, 60th, or 70th doesn’t mean the birthday man or women is not long for this world and life. At any stage, we should celebrate and honour those we care about.

A great party can be fun, show creativity and a sense of caring al it takes is some thoughtful planning and a good group of friends and family to make it happen. If you needed some for inspiration I hope the thoughts mentioned point you in the correct direction, if not solve your planning woes.

A Pirate themed Birthday Party

I love the Jimmy Buffett, his music is fun, and joyous, while at the same time sometimes thought-provoking. My brother just turned 70 and I thought, he should have a pirate party, not a pity party. Pirates come in all ages, shapes, and sizes there is little better than a Jimmy Buffett themed birthday party for fun and play. Since, in my mind, 70 is now the new 40, Jimmy Buffett’s song, A Pirate looks at 40 is a great idea to build a theme party around.

Jimmy Buffett has built a style through his songs and with the steadfast support of his followers. His tunes are not limited to one style and do not appeal to one particular group. His appeal is almost unlimited, which makes this a great idea for a birthday party that is open to all ages and a favourite for celebrating any age from 4 to 80.

For a successful and fun-filled party, blenders are a necessity. The next question you must think or fret about is food. Some excellent ideas for a Pirate themed gathering could be boiled shrimp, build your own cheeseburgers’ (in paradise of course), finger foods and fixings, and fruitcake. They would surely help build the theme. If you are in serious need of motivation for food ideas look at the ideas at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Café.

If the weather is kind, a backyard party is a good idea. Finish with Tikki lights, pirate flags, flowers, coconuts, and any other tropical ideas that catch your thoughts, there is no limit to your creativity. Be sure to decorate the tables you set up with the fabulous foods, and have a Tikki bar for serving your pirate drinks. Rum should be the hard liquor of choice. You should also offer and serve non-alcoholic drinks making them available for adults who are driving. The idea is to make your party food fun, and filled with play with and keep it appropriate for a Pirate or Jimmy Buffett theme.

You can’t have a Margaritaville or Pirate party without the sounds of the tropics, blaring out across your speakers. Do not limit the music to just Jimmy Buffett, other great sounds that will complement the theme of the night include the Beach Boys, Bob Marley, and Bobby McFerrin. Sse your creativity and go with your feelings. My own favourite would be to showcase Jimmy Buffett but that doesn’t work for everyone, especially my brother.

As the host, your responsibility is to make sure that everyone makes it home safely if you are serving alcohol. You might want to have a contest such as the loudest “Hawaiian shirt” or best "pirate outfit", for extra fun. Your goal is to make sure your guests have a great time. One way to achieve this is to have a karaoke machine. Just think that your guests, may stream the party live on Facebook or other streaming service and the phone recordings could be used for future reference and a recording of the revelry may be the next hit on Youtube. Being a pirate is a dream that many of us had in our youth and we all have dreams escape every day. I thought this would be a wonderful idea for my brothers birthday party that would make his day a little more special.

When the next event is being planned you are searching for an excellent theme to add to your inventory, consider the idea of adding a pirate or Margaritaville theme to your plans. No matter the age of the pirate in your circle, I think this idea could create a setting for a truly festive celebration. Just keep the saltshaker in view and the celebration should go off without a hitch. Unfortunately, my brother tore his hamstring a week before his party and we were unable to have this particular celebration, maybe next year.

Seniors and debt

When you are retired and living on a fixed income, debt can literally creep up on you and before you comprehend your situation you could be thousands of dollars in debt. These debts could be credit card debts, a line of debt, an unforeseen disease which increased your amount of medical bills or other unforeseen circumstances in life that we could not control. 

There are people who love to spend money entirely too much, only they do not have the cash, so they charge they're purchases assuming they can carry the debt by paying off the minimum amount each month. The problem is that an unforeseen circumstance may increase their debt or decrease their income and when that happens debt completely take over their life.

When you are thinking of making some sort of purchase and you know you may not be able to afford the item, be careful. Think do I really need this or do I just want it? Understanding the difference between a want and a need is a good starting point for controlling your spending. 

One of the best course of action to reducing your debt is to cut up most of your credit cards and start on a system to pay off the debt. Set a goal for yourself as the first step. There are many ideas on how to best reduce debt, but the one I like is the Snowball Method.
Here's how it works The following is from the Credit Counselling Service of Canada:
Use any extra money you can come up with to pay off your credit card with the smallest balance first (ignore the interest rates and just focus on the card with the smallest balance). Paying off this card will give you a quick win and a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment use the snowball method to pay off and pay down credit card debt.

Don't pocket the minimum monthly payment that you used to pay every month on your smallest credit card. Instead, start paying down your next smallest credit card balance with that money. Of course, throw all the extra money you can at this debt to get it paid off as quickly as possible, but the key here is to free up money as you pay off your smallest credit card balances first. The monthly payments you free up will help you pay down the next larger credit card even faster. By doing this, you're essentially creating a snowball effect.


Repeat the process of focusing on paying off your next smallest credit card balance using the money freed up from the smaller cards you paid off earlier. With the snowballing monthly payment this method creates, your debts will get paid down faster and faster as you go, and you'll get more and more motivated as you pay off one card after another.

Once the debt is paid down Stay away from having too many credit cards and become more educated about finances and problems with debt. So, to all you grandparents and parents reading this blog post, speak to your grandchildren and children about the value of not spending money that you do not have and talk to them about the problems that can come from too much debt. 

The earlier that you can relieve or reduce your debt, the better off you are going to be in every aspect of your life. Nobody is going to fix your money difficulty, it is all in your hands. Nobody is safe from getting into in debt even if you are taught young about the risks and dangers of debt. Controlling your spending is hard, but is a needed life skill now that you have retired and are living on a fixed income.