How much to spend for my 7 year olds birthday?

[Zombieof3]

Hi all,

Im just sort of querying what is a normal amount to spend for your 7 year olds birthday. We are not doing a birthday party this year, we’re going to ninja warrior and out for a meal afterwards.

I’ve added up the total in his basket to buy and I’m a bit shocked to see it £250, is this normal amount? I’ve always struggled to know what ‘normal’ amount is and I suppose that’s because it will vary for everyone but would you say £250 is excessive or is that cheap, I’m honestly a bit clueless!

Depends what it is really. A bike will cost more than a nerf gun for example.

Usually around £250 in presents
Party hire £350
Cake £100/150
Decorations £30

Is it stuff that will last a long time eg computer game, bike, scooter? In which case good quality stuff can be expensive but as they last long, can be reasonable when you consider cost per use.
It also depends on household income and if this is an expensive dice or normal year. Some Christmases/birthdays are expensive because they get a gift like a computer console which is a one off.

Whatever is affordable for you really. You probably have an idea though of the kind of things his friends have, not that it’s a competition but it can be a good sanity check. For that amount I would want there to be some kind of fairly big present, it would be a lot of money for tat.

For a party and presents it came to £250ish so it was about £100 on presents but my DD has so much already it actually wasn’t easy to think of things I wasn’t just buying for the sake of it

Surely it’s going to depend at least partly on what they want or have asked for? At that age they are unlikely (I would hope!) to be totting up what it cost.

At that age I would have spent about £30 on presents and about £20 on party food/party bag treats.

What you can comfortably afford. Just get them one good gift, no need to go overboard

Nobody can answer this, because everyone's income is different. If you only have £20 available to spend on your child, then £20 is absolutely the right amount.
But in principle, if it's lots of stuff they don't want or need, then it's excessive. One present is fine, given that they will also get gifts from friends and family, presumably.