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Just have an at home pizza party sleep over.
buy some chips, drinks, soda, and ice cream/cake,
pinata if they’re into it.
Get a few new games for the kids to play, and if its warm out, pick up a slip n slide [unless you have a pool!] and let the fun begin!
Have a drawing contest, a blindfolded “Guess the smell” contest [go pick out some weird smelling items, and let the kids go crazy]
have prizes for the winners. [usually a goody bag filled with cheap stuff from target or the party store will do it, or even a football or soccer ball]
then have some rented movies and popcorn for the kids to watch and do at night!
those were always my favorite parties!
**tips**
Buy the liter soda bottles, not cans. They’re waay cheaper, and usually on sale!
Rent anything you can. Rent games, and rent movies.
Little Ceasers has a $5 pizza deal. Dominos usually has sales.
When i was little, my mother had a “make your own pizza” thing. It was alot of fun.
We all had mini pizzas made for ourselves, and it was pretty cheap.
$4.00 For bread flour, a few bucks for eggs, some baking soda, and packet of pepperoni.
The cheese was the most expensive part!
She bought veggies at a local farmers market[AND WERE IN LA!!! she was the head thrify mom!! and we never noticed a difference!] and she probably only spent 25 bucks all together to feed us all. Thats waaay cheaper than ordering from a pizza place.
pinata is 15 bucks plus candy
For the “guess the smell game”
You need
*blindfold
*brown paper bags
* random smelly items
ideas
dried seaweed
vanilla extract
curry powder
pepper
dirty socks[lol this was always funny]
grape juice
lemons
hair spray
random other things around the house. Let the kids rummage through your spice cabinet!
have a few things out at a time so the last boy to go wont know what everything is. [make sure you have at least 3 different things for each child]
whoever gets the most right gets a prize
[football or soccer ball costs 6 bucks?]
lay out a bunch of blankets at nightime and pop some popcorn, put on a movie, and let them stay up as late as they want!
Additional items
*popcorn* 4 bucks
*plastic cups* 5 bucks
napkins *3 bucks*
icecream *8 bucks*
You can do everything above for under 100 dollars. Id say thats pretty good for a 6 or 7 kid birthday party!

I’d say a sleepover is a great idea. If he loves the Wii and his friends do, too, then just let them play the games that he already has. Maybe have a championship game for the top scorers.
For refreshments, most boys like brownies and chocolate chip cookies. You could have a birthday brownies or a birthday cookies.
Make your own sundaes. Vanilla ice cream. Chocolate Syrup, sprinkles, M & M’s, nuts, cherries, etc. They will have fun doing this.
Since we’re close to Halloween, you could go with a Halloween theme. Rent some scary movies. Maybe buy each boy a pumpkin to carve (or decorate with paint, fabric, etc, if you are more comfortable with that–grocery store is cheaper than a pumpkin farm). Have Halloween themed food (freeze spider rings or gummy worms) in ice trays for spooky ice cubes. Worms (slice hot dogs in long strips and boil in water and they’ll curl up and look like worms). Mummy Dogs (hot dog wrapped with breadstick dough and bake and then put eyes on with mustard). Caramel Apples (you can make these ahead of time or let the boys dip them-roll in nuts or decorate with M&M’s or candy corn). Drink hot cocoa with a floating eyeball (large marshmallow with Choc Chip inserted in the middle). Cupcakes or brownies decorated with Halloween decorations. Potato Bugs (tater tots inserted onto raw spahetti noodle and bake per directions-use catsup for the eyes. Wal-Mart has gummy eyeballs, worms, and spiders. There’s also a severed foot or hand in the candy aisle that’s gummy w/ some sort of hard candy in the middle-gross but good for 9 year old boys.
Pizza. Make your own, you can buy the crusts premade, use canned biscuits or make your own crusts and a wide variety of toppings. Or, Pizza Hut has the $5 Pizza Mia (a medium) but you have to buy at least 3 to get them for $5 each. They would be less mess and could be cheaper.
Do you have a yard? If so, a camp out. Pitch some tents, have the boys bring sleeping bags. Build a fire in a fire pit (if you have one). Roast hot dogs and make smores. Play horse shoes or ring toss or both. Hold sack races (you can use old pillow cases-can buy from Salvation Army for cheap). Buy some glow sticks or cheap flashlights for the kids to play with outside to tell ghost stories or play ghosts in the graveyard.

Hate to break it to you, but simple and free are opposites. If you want to save money, than it takes a bit more effort (packages cost money because of the convenience factor)
How about a “gammer” party? Have everyone come dressed as their favorite game character (a Mario costume can be as simple as a pair of overalls, a clean plunger, and a fake paper mustache)
Put out the Wii and other bored games (ask parents or friends to loan some if you don’t have many) and the Wii becomes a tournament and the other board games, entertainment.
A cake is real easy! bake a 9×11 rectangular cake and decorate it as a game controller: you could go classic Nintendo w/ two red buttons and a + sign; you could do X-box type by simply carving out some of the cake to get the handle-bar effect; or cut it in half to make a long, Wii controller (use white chocolate chips to make the buttons)
For a group game go to the dollar store and buy a small gift box and one or two white/ light colored shower curtain liner. Make these into a die and game board (dots in a circle are fine). You and your son can come up with lots of trivia questions, each kid becomes their own game piece. Roll the die and if they answer the question right, they move up a space(spaces).