to blow the Christmas present budget?

[pleasestoptalking]

I am a stay-at-home mum therefore have no income coming in. I have agreed a £70 per child Christmas present budget with my husband (who is working) which I have completely blown. I've managed to stay way under it for the 2 year old but for the older children it's gone way over - about double for one of them.

Have I done a bad thing or was this an unreasonable budget? I know £70 is a lot of money but toys / clothes are s*dding expensive.

theri - we do this every year we say "ok lets not spend more than £XXX o each other, and every year we get over excited buying things for each other and end up double it . I just love buying things I know he will like and he seems to enjoy shopping for me too! (we rarely buy treats during the year though).

Talk to DH and see what he thinks. It may be reasonable to budget for clothes separately but that is for you and DH to decide. I do think if you've agreed a budget it's only to fair to discuss it first before going over it.

I think you should separate out clothes from the Christmas present budget- surely you'd need to buy clothes anyway? We're one of those households where the child benefit is spent solely on things the children need such as clothes and shoes- we save for Christmas over the year using a different savings account.

YABU to think that the fact that you are a SAHM means that you have less say in how your families money is spent than your DH.

As for the amount you've spent or the blowing of the budget - if you cannot afford it and this means that your family will have to go without in other areas then YABU. If you can afford it easily and your husband will just be bad tempered about it then YANBU and you need to reorganise how you arrange your finances.

YABU simply because you made an agreement and then didn't stick to it. I suspect that you don't care because its Xmas and its the DCs, but that isn't the point.

My DH does this sort of thing and it drives me nuts even when it is something that doesn't hugely matter in the wider scheme of things. You are not a team player I'm afraid.

If you are very short of money then YABU and a bit irresponsible to go over the budget you agreed with your DH. If you are not short of money then it's fine.

What Trills said.

Er but if you redefine the clothes buying as coming from the kids clothes budget and it was stuff they needed anyway have you still gone over your agreed Christmas budget? (Father Christmas in our house always brings socks, gloves, pencilcases and new pyjamas, I can't think why...)

If you agreed a budget then you should agree on things which will take you over that

It doesn't really matter what budget you set. The fact is you made a joint decision to spend that amount and unless you have a subsequent discussion and agree to up the budget then you are IMO in the wrong to spend more

If OH had agreed with you to spend a particular amount on something and then doubled it without bothering to include you in the decision,would you think him reasonable?