DH spent £300 on one gift, now I need to equalise it

Until they have been married for at least 10 years!

Sounds like your DD is appropriately switched on.

Hopefully her response will show him how utterly weird the purchase is.

I get that he liked the shirt and thought his golf buddy, who also happens to be his DDs partner would like it too, but it's just far too expensive a gift unless you have loads of cash and that's your normal gift budget for DC partners.

It's quite embarrassing of him to go so overboard.
My dd has some vintage football tops from Vinted that didn't cost a fortune though, will any of the others actually know how much it cost?

Thinking about it though, your husband probably won't be able to resist showing off when when he opens it.
"It's a special edition one! Look at the embroidery! I sourced it especially for you!" 😍

Come on, you cant get one person a £300 football shirt another one a Lynx Africa gift set. You don’t need to sit down to work it out to see that one is an expensive gift and the other isn’t.

Obviously people can spend their money on what they want, there’s loads of things people can do, but it’s going to cause problems if you spend much more on one person than another.

Quite a few according to this thread

Has he no friends of his own and his own age , so this guy is making an effort and he’s all over come with it or something? It’s very odd behaviour and really inappropriate.

Does he have a crush on him?!

OP, will your DS’s GFs know how much this shirt cost? I wouldn’t have a clue, and I don’t think you need to even it up financially. If you buy them both something nice, I think that would be fine. I don’t think it would show “favouritism” - I know what men can be like about shared interests with their DD’s BFs or SILs - I see it with my BIL, who would think nothing of buying something similar. But you don’t have to up the ante just because your DH has spent a frankly astonishing amount on your DD’s BF.

I think this could also be awkward if it is higher value than what his own parents give. Imagine him going to theirs and showing them this vintage shirt (and finding out it cost so much) and they only spent £100 on him and got your DD a token gift of around £20.
How long has she been with this boyfriend for?

Sorry but it’s weird.

If it’s a vintage shirt they’re not going to know how much it cost. I don’t think you need to match it in value.

Some people just pick the gift they think each person will most appreciate and don’t pay attention to the cost of each thing, rather than spending a specific amount on each person.

Is anyone else likely to know how much it cost? As in itself, it isn't a hugely extravagant present.

Apart from he's now told them, is this one of those things where you wouldn't necessarily know it had cost £300?? So nobody might actually be embarrassed or know he's spent more at all? It's still daft but if that's the case then I don't think you need to worry about all this matching value of the other gifts etc. PP said they know you can get a lot of vintage footy shirts for way less than £300 so would the bf defo have even known the value 🤷🏼‍♀️

Many years ago DSs girlfriends parents spent more on DS than he thought they would. He was mortified and spent most of Christmas trying to ‘top up’ their present. The awful thing was that DS split up with his girlfriend 6 weeks later and he didn’t feel that he should keep the present.
Now with his partner it is agreed that there is a maximum spend of £50.

I'm too late with this one if you've let the cat out the bag.
I wouldn't confess how much the shirt is and just stick with your usual budget for everyone else.
Vintage prices fluctuate wildly. Take the hit and keep quiet.

Do people really sit around comparing the cost of their gifts?

Your DH is besotted with the bf, how embarrassing! Is he showing off? It is really weird.

Would he spend that much on a mate's gift?

All the posters saying things don't have to be equal are obviously from very weird families. Of course things need to be pretty much equal. Spending £30 on one and £300 on another is a recipe for Christmas Day carnage, I don't care how thoughtful both gifts are.

OP, I think your DH is showing off and trying to ingratiate himself with this boy for whatever reason. It's juvenile. He's got some sort of man crush, the daft knob.

Ask your dh not to give this shirt to dd's bf for Christmas - otherwise it would spiral out of control, the expenditure I mean. Tell him he can give it to him some other time - birthday, etc. but not for Christmas. Give everyone the same very inexpensive gift - you are hosting the whole troupe of adults anyway, you will be greatly out of pocket!

Does your bloke know he's probably going to embarrass the boyfriend by such an extravagant gift?

Nailed it. He's going to mortify this poor lad. Tell him the family will be wondering if he has a secret crush on daughter's partner.

My point is if he wanted to get a vintage man u / arsenal shirt there are eleventy billion je could pick that arent so insanely priced.

How many £300 items of clothing do you and your dh have? (We have 2 total in the house, coats)

Its asking for trouble and sowing seeds of discontent to gift that at xmas.

That's kind of how I feel

If we all got thoughtful gifts, I wouldn't notice or care about financial disparity.. up to a point obviously, I'd be upset if my sister got a car and I got a box of chocolates.. Especially this kind of gift - I would have no idea of the cost of a football shirt.

It's just different gift giving attitudes I guess