Christmas spending

• spent

I don’t have a budget for gifts for immediate family- yearly costs depends on their ages and what they need / want. I’ve always spend my much less than I could afford. It’s only stuff! What on earth would you spend £1k on at Christmas?

What do you buy for so much money OP?

Good grief my family is way below par here!! Spending on partner is maybe £100 ish depending on if there's something he wants. We're not big on "things" but he's also not big on buying clothes so often gets socks, pants etc as well as a token gift. We do like gig tickets or a meal out if we can, but childcare is often an issue so unfortunately overnights are often out of the question.
Kids, I started out thinking £100 when we first became parents, but that's not realistic if someone wants a bike. I'd say £200-250 tops though. I have no idea how people fund these lavish gifts! I don't think my kids are hard done by though and if I was spending £500+ I don't know what I'd get them apart from bug Lego sets

This year and last year we decided to just give the kids. 13, 9 and 19 and they probably had around £600 each. We didn't do presents as we've been saving for our forever home but we did spend more than usual on birthdays. Now we have our house, I was inclined to go back to buying Xmas presents for OH but we've decided we quite like just focusing on kids. Both sides of our families do secret sa ta so far easier and cheaper.

I have 6 children, 3 young and 3 older grown up with jobs. They all get the same. Way too much for how many children I have and I’m not working at the moment. I don’t get any benefits before anyone asks, until I go back to work after Christmas when my youngest starts nursery I’m living off 25 years of constant work and constant savings. Probably spend 350 each roughly more probably but I loose count. Same of my husband but he’s annoyed me this year so maybe he won’t get as much 😂

DP and I do exactly the same @WhatLikeItsHard. I highly recommend it

After our first year together we agreed that we both value experiences over stuff (hate the angst/stress of coming up with thoughtful, meaningful gifts all the time).

We take his young adult DC to the theatre + dinner in London as our Christmas gifts to them and each other, and we go on weekends away and/or lovely meals out for our birthdays and anniversary. Fortunately these are all spaced out quite evenly through the year! 😆

DH and I have never bought each other Christmas gifts.

we spend £300 each on the kids. I don’t buy anyone else gifts.

That percentage is interesting! I think we're underspending on this but maybe not by much.
3% of our net annual income would be about £3k (a bit less). I spent about £200/£250 per kid (4 of them, less for the littlest one though and all based on need but keeping it in a fair ball park). And about £120 on DH. I reckon he spent the same on me. So probably £1k for family gifts. Other various gifts for family take us another £500 approx and food etc maybe £300. Say £500 max with activities, decorations etc.

We don't like to spend loads on Christmas and birthdays but try to be fair. We do tend to buy what we need/want during the year if we can afford it and same, within reason, for the kids. It seems to work as the kids never really ask for much and seem pleased with anything really.

Surely the only circles this would be normal in is footballers and wags?!

Wowsers- where do you live?

We spend about £200 on the DC for Christmas, DH spend about £100ish on each other, sometimes more sometimes less, this year I bought him a fancy pizza oven that cost £300 because I knew he’d love it, last year I got him some headphones that cost £100.
We have a decent joint income but we would never spend much more than that without discussing it with each other, spending £500/£600 or more is just madness to me.

I don’t get this? If you need a tumble dryer, you obviously buy a tumble dryer. Why does that then mean you can’t pick a nice gift out for each other? Or do you mean that you think people who buy each other gifts at Christmas don’t buy things when they need them but instead wait to gift them?

I read once that the average family spend 3-5% of their annual income on Christmas. That’s for everything though - gifts, decorations, food, activities.
have a chat about what a reasonable budget is based on your own lifestyle.

Well having a shared opinion about money and how to spend it is fairly important in a relationship. My husband earned 20 times what i did, but he also had an ex and two other children so that meant four kids to buy for, plus he had two sets of parents and five siblings. The family members all got books (he lived spending the day in the bookshop picking just the right ones) but he spent on his kids.
We had what we needed, so we did limit spending on each other to £50. I couldn't afford to spend more anyway as I didn't want the money to come from our joint account. He did really treat me on my birthday though, and I couldn't ever match that!

I've never really set a specific budget but generally spend between £50 and £100 on my partner, we set similar expectations. In the past we couldn't afford much at all so it would be strange to suddenly spend eg £300 on each other - it would potentially leave the other one feeling embarrassed.

For the dcs, we have spent more as they've got older as when little, they got so much from others that there was no need to spend much. Now, £50 wouldn't look like much at all. I don't know the exact amount we spend on them, but I'd say between £100 and £150 each, sometimes more.

In my experience it's usually thick people who can't afford it who spend hundreds on Christmas gifts. The sort who get themselves into debt and then plead poverty.

I tend to handmake him some bits as I'm fairly crafty. And then just picking up on things said throughout the year/things I know about them. For instance a book from their favourite author, a travel mug with a theme he would really enjoy when he mentioned he wanted to be able to take hot drinks on walks.

In some ways it becomes quite fun thinking of things he would like for a smaller budget. But I don't actually think there is anything wrong with spending more if that's something you want to do.

In full transparency we spend more on birthdays as we plan a suprise full day out. E.g. London and then the theatre

How many x boxes or switches do they need? It buys some decent trainers or a pair of AirPods. Isn’t that a decent gift?

Because its not about money.

But it is for some. £150 buys you a lot actually. It IS about expectations.

I spend about £30 on close friends and about £10-15 on others. Don't have any family I buy for. To be honest, I'm more about finding something I think the recipient will really like, than sticking to a fixed amount.

I spent £800 on Dh and he spent around £450 on me this is a lot more than normal we decided to splurge this year on each other as we didn’t really do birthdays

For Dc’s main presents this year we spent £250 each and stockings £60/70 (I normally pick up bits in the sales during the year)

Food as been very expensive this year I’ve probably spent £300/400 and we didn’t host this year, my turkey alone was £45

I save £100 per month for Christmas and dh saves roughly the same.

have completely over spent but will have a skint ish Jan

I am going to start putting away a lot more each month…

This is like when a sign starts with "POLITE NOTICE.." I think I'll be the judge of that. This is such a weird question. Everyone's budgets will be different depending on circumstances ?!! Personally I spend £15-20k on gifts but that's completely normal where we live.

It's not insane. 150 quid buys fuck all these days, you can't get them an Xbox or Switch or a bike for that. Youd get a game and a book and a jumper.

It's not insane to actually get the people you love worthwhile presents that they actually like.

DH and I spend whatever we feel like on each other. One year might be 20 quid, the next could be a thousand euro. Because its not about money.

We’ve never set spending limits and money isn’t an issue, so DH and I have always just agreed to base gifting on what the other person genuinely wants/needs.

That doesn’t always result in equal spending (this year, for example, DH received a new phone and some sports clothing he’d requested) and I received a pair of trainers, loungewear and some perfume. Other years, I’ll receive far more in value from him than I spend and vice versa 🤷‍♀️

We apply the same principle with DS, but are careful to ensure we buy quality over quantity as we really don’t see the benefit in having a huge pile of presents under the tree for him and no time for him to appreciate the value (not in the monetary sense) of the gifts individually.