Have you gone into debt for Christmas?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

Just wondering if it’s normal and just to be expected, or if some people actively try to tailor things to suit their budget like me.

I can’t believe what some family members have spent. I know know their rough household income so can only assume they may have spent on their overdraft or credit card. Obviously entirely up to them if they do, but I get the feeling that they see my “spending within my means” without going into debt as stingy.

Nope.
We've regifted a few things and spent about £150 in total on presents. Then bought food but there's still loads left. We went to Lidl and Aldi for most things.
I got loads of DS's presents second hand last year bit we moved countries and I'm not quite set up here, yet. We've also just bought a new house so are trying to save for all the stuff that will need doing (and it's a lot).

We didn't spend anything on anyone apart from our dc. We spend £125 on them altogether but that figure includes a 50quid voucher from Amazon and a 20quid asda voucher.

We didn't have any guests so only catered for ourselves and only bought our usual weekly shopping plus a bit extra. We didn't go anywhere so haven't spent anything on petrol.

We saw a free Santa in town rather than one of those where you shell out a tenner each kid plus more per adult for lunch with Santa.

We don't buy new decorations or crap like Xmas table cloths and Xmas PJs or Xmas eve boxes etc anyway so haven't felt guilty for not being able to carry on with those traditions.

All in all, Xmas has cost us less than £200 but, because we're in debt anyway, our mere existence puts us more into the shit every day.

No. My only debt is the mortgage.

For Christmas we budgeted carefully and had a spreadsheet and everything.

We've never got into debt for Christmas. Nowadays we have a large income and substantial savings so don't need to budget but even e.g. as a student I was able to save a bit every month so was able to use that for more expensive months like December.

Nope, we spent last year getting out of debt (not Christmas related) and are in no hurry to get so muddled up again.

No debt for this Christmas, I did probably spend more than I intended but my goal was to clear a credit/debt I had by 2019 and did so this month by emptying my savings. New year no debt and hopefully a decent savings pot by next Christmas.

Last year I was skint and struggled for a few months full of anxiety on how to get out of it and didn't want a repeat.

I our flights on my credit card for the added protection but that was all, I paid it off straight away.

There is so much financial pressure at Christmas time, we’re far from wealthy but I refuse to get in to debt purely to buy gifts.

Put*

I will be starting my Christmas planning for next year, next week. Every time I go food shopping, I buy a gift voucher a couple of pounds here, fiver there and it soon mounts up.

If you can afford to do it, it's a great way to save up without really noticing

No. I don't think Christmas is important enough to be worth getting into debt for.

No I tend to buy little stocking fillers like chocolate and soaps but the most I would ever spend on a main present is £50 on expensive perfume.

People can see it as frugal but it's only one day. It's not worth getting into debt then having stress in the new year.

No, but January will be tight. Christmas cost £400 odd all in, and I'm struggling today to find places to tidy it all. I imagine the people who spend ££££ either have very high wages, or must have debt.