do you spend more on others now you have kids???

10 replies

catchertrain · 24/12/2011 20:47

I was just wondering as since we had dc (now 1), people have obviously started buying for him.

So whereas before we would give 2 presents to my brother and sil and bils and their wives and receive 2 we now get 3.

Our dc is the only gc (so far) on both sides.

So whereas before we gave to our siblings pretty much what we received in value now our dc gets presents as well. should we be spending more on sibling and inlaw presents to make up for this?? do other people do this?

We are not seeing them till after boxing day so there is still a bit of time to get something else though not sure if we should??

OP posts:

Kayano · 24/12/2011 20:52

We spend the same as we would but also buy a 'token' gift from the DC (in my family anyway) its not much - like a favourite uncle fridge magnet or something or a 'grandma and me book' etc etc

AgentZigzag · 24/12/2011 20:56

I had much less money before I had children, so I spend more for that reason.

But I thought the same as you the other day, since DD2 was born two years ago I've felt a bit guilty that I've increased the things people buy for 'us' (not that we expect anything).

I wouldn't buy them more because of it I don't feel THAT guilty because it shouldn't be about like for like.

CarefullyAirbrushedPotato · 24/12/2011 21:27

I wasn't rich before DD and am even less so now she's here. This year the only person getting a present is her, everyone else can go whistle,

skybluepearl · 24/12/2011 21:28

We don't in mine or DH's family. We give as we did before and had never really thought about doing anything else. The couples get 10 pounds spent on them and all the children, no matter how many siblings they have get about a fiver spent on them each. We have less money now I'm a SAHM and I tend to bargin shop all year round to afford xmas gifts for the many relatives we have.

CurlyBoy · 25/12/2011 02:10

We spend less, mainly because we have less. We also have less presents to buy. My Mum, for example, has stopped buying me and my wife presents and will only buy for our boy and therefore doesn't expect to buy for her or her partner. On the other hand we have new friends with children and have bought small token gifts for them. It's probably evened out a bit but mainly we made an effort to spend less across the board because we just don't have it...

BandOMothers · 25/12/2011 07:57

Once we had DC people in our family stopped buying for us...they began only buying for our DC...

BandOMothers · 25/12/2011 07:59

You could tell people....jus buy for the DC

Dustinthewind · 25/12/2011 08:07

We have 9 children in the extended family, so we buy presents for the children and a token gift for the adults, usually something edible.
It was decreed by the Grandmother/Matriarch as what should happen, and we all thought 'What a great idea!'

DizzyKipper · 25/12/2011 08:47

Me and OH don't have kids yet (14 weeks pregnant with the first) but we've already discussed how we'll be handling Christmas next year. Telling all of our family to buy for our child and not for us, as we won't be buying for them (will probably get them a small token gift each but nothing like what we used to). We'd just prefer for any gifts to go towards our kid rather than ourselves. We're also not going to have as much money and would rather be able to spend more on our child rather than try to buy for everyone (which would leave us being able to get our child 1 thing). Hopefully they'll understand. Once there are more kids in the family (SIL is also due) we'll be buying for the kids - we wouldn't leave them out.

HarrietJoHoHoHones · 25/12/2011 10:06

People only buy for kids in my family & I'm the only one with kids.3 of them so the kids give a tin of chocs or similar to the other households.

Flip