I know there unreasonable but £30 is insane!

Suggest you all give £5 to a homeless charity instead.

£30 is more than I spend on my friends. And I like them!

I would say £5 or £10 is absolutely fine for a work secret Santa. Nobody would expect to receive anything particularly nice from a work ss anyway, would they? Chocolates, wine, candles, bath stuff, hand cream. They are the ss go-to gifts and none of them is £30!

The whole "must buy from a charity shop" rule is a bit daft if it's meant to be about being environmentally friendly because most charity shops sell new products designed specifically for their charity (like mugs, tea towels, badges, jigsaws, umbrellas etc) and will also have a selection of Christmas gifts that are specific to that charity - like tree decorations etc.
They will essentially have come from the same factories as the Christmas products sold in B+M or John Lewis or wherever!
Charity Shop doesn't always mean "secondhand".

in the past I did a secret Santa where you could only spend £5 and you HAD to spend it on something in a charity shop or something home made

A few years ago we thought about that for our Secret Santa but ended up making a charity donation to a charity near the office instead.

Both are much better options than buying plastic tat/joke presents that go straight into the bin or the local charity shop.

Bloody hell!! We have secret Santa at my school with a budget of £5.00! Not a chance in hell anyone would shell out £30!!

I've stopped taking part now though as I've cut down to 3 days and the draw is always on a Friday - which I don't work 👌🏻 Win for me 🤣

I've had TAs on my team who absolutely struggled to make ends meet. Any secret Santa was a nightmare for them. Even £5 was out of their comfort zone. Fortunately ours had a maximum of £5 with silly cheap things welcomed. So they could go to Poundland for their gifts.

A £30 suggested budget would have had then in tears.
At least OP 's school's is opt in, rather than everyone being expected to join in.

Us adults have decided not to be brainwashed anymore.
We've realised we can think for ourselves and aren't sheep.
We mutually don't buy as any adult can buy themselves anything at any time.
There's always one, dosent make sense there are now more and more people rejecting present buying at Xmas.
They've seen what a headache and a farce it is.
This thread and loads of others just proves it.

Further to my previous…

I think £30 is particularly awful because it’s the sort of amount of money that people will feel they ‘should’ be able to spare without difficulty. So people who are confident their finances will say no (because its bulls*) But people who don’t want to be perceived as struggling, but might be, will feel compelled to contribute.

I hate it.

We do £5 and it's got to be from a Charity shop!

£30 is MUCH too much to spend on tat for someone at work.

fwiw we are by most people’s standards very well off - it’s not even about affordability (although that should be much more mindfully considered) rather a total disconnect from what’s normal!

A meal with colleagues or a festive drink - sure. An amusing low cost joke present or pair of socks. Fine. A thoughtfully chosen £30
gift for Maureen from accounts who you’ve been randomly assigned? Bulls**# waste of time, effort, energy and money.

definitely make it very clear indeed that you are the messenger not the architect of this.

That is a cracking idea!

You could say "I've been asked to send out a Secret Santa email, here are the details for anyone interested, and they're set the budget at £30"

Wouldn't want my name on it either.

I think a tenner is generous for a Secret Santa. £30 is way too much.

Sod that. Tell them you are not doing it. I can't afford £30 around Xmas.

Honestly OP I wouldn’t die on this hill. Make the email as generic as you can and then tell the office gossip conversationally that you aren’t participating and didn’t organize it.

If anyone complains to directly just shrug and tell them you were asked to send the email but wasn’t a part of any of the details.

I’m in 2 and they’re both £5
Also, has to be regifted, charity or handmade.

£30 is crazy. We had a £5 budget last year but it was surprisingly difficult to get a gift specific for your giftee for £5. I would say “maximum of £10” leaves it open for people to spend less if they want.

Mad, £30 is a lot of money to spend for a Secret Santa especially on a teacher’s wage with children to buy for,
You cannot enforce that it has been spent unless they show the bill with price and date.for the article. Some will just look for articles reduced from £30 or regift as many do.

There's a reason she wants YOU to do it, @FranksBank .

The messenger is about to be shot.

Gosh, even the one we do amongst close friends is £20 and they are my besties

Has she told you not to say that?

But she hasn't told you not to say 'Dawn suggested a max budget of £30'. So I would defo word the email in that way

£30 is insanity - we regift something we don't want, and a colleague dresses as Santa and hands them out randomly. We then spend our Christmas lunch swapping them until everyone has something they want or can use. It's a lot of fun because there's 70 of us.

But HAS she specifically told you not to say that? If she hasn't just stick it in and don't mention it to her, if she has specifically say "don't say its come from me" just send it out as is and see how many people reply. Even if she can tell you not to write she can't tell you what to say so if anyone moans to you about it being too expensive just say "that is exactly what I told Dawn but she insisted! Mad isn't it!"

Otherwise who cares, everyone knows your job role is to send emails on behalf of others, I doubt anyone thinks its your idea to do the ss, and if they do just tell them it wasn't! If they don't want to do it they can tell Dawn themselves.

Will people want to participate with that budget?
We set a £5 budget, it had to be second hand / charity shop, and it was pot luck so you didn’t know who would get your gift.

Everyone wanted to join in but then we do actually like each other in my workplace.