Feeling awkward about how much friend spends on our presents

[kennycat]

I have a very lovely friend who buys for
jt children and I buy for hers.
she is well off (we aren’t on the breadline either but I feel they have more perhaps). Problem is she spends a shed load on my children and I’m simply not prepared to spend that on hers.
The last two gifts she bought mine have been experiences. Great I thought. Then I googled them ans found one was £55 and one £65. We rarely spend that on our own children!!
I think I need to have a very frank discussion with her about it as it’s making me feel really awkward.
what would you all do? I don’t want it to turn into a co petition about how much we can spend in each other’s children. I spent waaaaay less on her children than she has but don’t want to feel bullied in to spending more than I fee is reasonable.

^ This.
You’ve set your own amounts that you are prepared to pay, accept that your friend also has. People may spend a lot less than you and be unable to keep up with your spending, it goes both ways.

@cigarettesNalcohol blossom isn’t a troll, been here ages. Blossom also apologised and it was accepted.

Would just say next time you see her that it's incredibly kind but you don't want to feel she has to spend too much given the current times etc.

I also don't spend more then £60 each on my kids at Christmas. We can afford to spend more but I find Christmas is way over the top and it can teach the wrong thing if they get everything on their list or a huge pile of gifts.
We give a stocking and 1 small present from Santa then 2 items from the santa list, a reading book, a colouring book and a puzzle.

That does sound excessive. But maybe they were int he sale. Can you just agree to not buy for each other next time? Maybe I'm a grinch but stuff like this just seems to add unnecessary stress to life. I try to buy as little as possible. Immediate family only.

I get being uncomfortable but does she seem like she expects you to spend similar on her kids?

I buy for my two oldest friends kids. I don't spend a fortune maybe £40 each and my friends get me a small gift in return. I have no children and definitely don't expect anything - I'd be happy with a card the kids wrote in.

I buy because I like to see the excitement from my friends kids when I give them their gift and it makes me feel good.

For anyone reading this (we are in a cost of living crisis so it’s a lot of people!) who can’t afford £65 don’t worry, you really don’t need to spend this much. Do the best you can and your children will be ok, not everyone can do or wants to do the hundreds of piles of expensive presents all perfectly wrapped in pictures for social media!

@VegeBurgers I agree. I can't really remember many if any of my childhood Christmas presents. What I can remember is the time spent together.

I think she will spend what she can afford.

I would think I spend more on my nieces and nephews and the friends children I buy for.
I find something I think they would like and I buy it (within reason) if that doesn’t fit my budget I don’t buy it or wait for it to go on sale. I haven’t once thought about what they have spent on my son.

it doesn’t need to be awkward. Spend what you can afford/want to and they will do the same.

I was going to say similar to the top part here.
My husband's aunt is like this. She will go shopping for gifts and buy pretty much the first thing that she likes for someone. Regardless of price. Because she doesn't need to worry about it but is short on time.
Whereas I, will have the gift idea, Google/trawl the shops for the best possible deal, search for cashback/vouchers and then decide whether the idea is doable withing a very set budget. Because I do have to think about money but have a bit of time to do this. If it's not doable in budget then I move on to a different idea.

She buys beautiful gifts every year but the costs of some of them have been a bit l😮and I did feel bad about what she was spending before realising how it worked for her.

We have a situation like this with DD's boyfriend's family.

We are financially comfortable but in our extended family the amount spent on presents is around the £30 per person mark (we spend about £150 each on our DC - it's just the extended family that stick to the £30 limit.)

We are not into spending lots of money on stuff generally and see Christmas more as a time to eat good food and spend time with family. My Dsis is married to a a very wealthy man and yet they are the same as us about Xmas and not spending huge amounts of money.

DD15 boyfriend's family are the opposite , not only are they incredibly wealthy but they are big spenders too. This is the first Xmas she has been with him and she came home last night with around £150 worth of gifts from her BF ( he doesn't have a job as only 15 so his mum has clearly paid for them ) His mum is apparently dropping gifts from her to DD off later today and referred to the boyfriend's £150 gifts as just something small to open now. We were horrified as all I bought her to give him was some £30 aftershave. I dread to think what is coming later.

DD is really grateful but also very embarrassed and told BF not to open his gift in front of her as she feels he will be disappointed.

I don't like to feel like we're being tight but I'm also not going to start spending hundreds of pounds on gifts for the boyfriend when I don't even spend that on my own kids.

Dear friend
You are a very lovely kind generous person and I appreciate what you have bought dc in the past. Im embarrassed how much you spend. Please can we agree a limit going forward . I would really appreciate it.