To ask you how much you think is reasonable to spend on Christmas presents

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Between my dh and I we have 9 nieces and nephews that we are close to. 5 siblings and their partners. 4 god children. Also both our parents are divorced so we also have 8 parents/step parent to buy for. We have 3 children that have stockings and presents too.

So in total we have 34 people to buy for.

I buy all the presents over 3-4 months to spread the cost, but the cost is huge.

I spend an average of 25 pounds on everyone other than my own children, which is 750 pounds. I spend about 250 on each of my own children. So 1500 on presents alone.

My dh is horrified and so am I. I can cut back but not to much under 1000.

Is anyone else in this position?

You have a very generous budget

£250 on one child is a heck of a lot to me. Our whole Christmas budget (food, drinks, presents for dc, nights out) will not even amount to this.

I have stopped buying Christmas gifts for god children and family. I now only buy them birthday presents. I refuse to spend what I do not have for fear of what their parents will think of me.

I suppose if you have the money you will spend it. I sincerely hope that one day we will be comfortable enough to justify spending the best part of £2k on Christmas.

i just think it's a bad example to show your children. Even if you can afford it, you'd be better off buying them a small gift and teaching them that spending thought, time and energy on people is more important. And investing the rest for their future. Or even giving it to people who haven't food and shelter at Christmas, let alone presents .

What do people buy that costs so much? Do you buy more than one present for your children? Do they actually use all the stuff that gets bought?

Genuine questions cos my flabber is ghasted.

£250 on each of your children sounds excessive, but looking at my own spreadsheet* it's easily done because kid stuff is just so expensive these days.

You could go down the route of not buying for the other adults in the family, or limiting it to £10 each.

If not, you could just buy throughout the year and spread the cost. It helps us!

*Shut up, I'm just very organised at Christmas planning!

I spend £250 on the kids, £25 for my mum & Nan and £10 on everyone else.
£250 x 6 = £1500
£25 x 2 = £50
£10 x 5 = £50
= £1600 aaarrrggghhh no wonder I'm so skint
Next year the kids are getting an orange!

I like to see a decent sized pile of stuff from santa for each of them on xmas morning. I don't tend to buy too much through the year as and when, just birthdays, easter and Christmas - so I do have a splurge. I doubt it works out to any more over a total year than those that don't spend as much at Christmas - its the distribution that's different that's all.

I spend about £25 on my nieces and nephews but will be cutting that down next time as I have a lot of them.£20 in my godchildren and about £40 each on my parents and grandparents.I dont buy adults other than them because we think kids are more important and some people have up to four kids so thats a lot compared to our one child and we just cant afford it anymore.We buy all the other grandparents a gift from our son for about £10 as they dont really bother about us sending gifts and love things from ds.It isnt really the price tag that I go off always,if a gift seems enough if is on offer i wont top up the money...

DH and I do:

£10 each on nephews, nieces, BILs, SILs, MIL, FIL and grandparents (2).

£10 on a secret Santa present for one member of my family. There are 7 of us and each person buys and receives one present.

£50 each on our two DC.

About £30 each for us.

There are also small presents (£5 tops) for key workers at nursery and aunts/uncles. So about £335 total for 25 people.

I am well stingy aren't I? :o

I suppose if you have the money you will spend it. - I disagree with this, my view is with hooch - surely you don't need to spend ££££££s to show your child the true meaning of Christmas? .

If we wanted to we could spend loads more but I just don't see the point, every year we get threads like this and then come January lots of people have got into debt and are really worried about their bills.

We started a pension plan for our DS when he was born - I think that is far more important than piles of presents under the tree.

I'm with you Ragwort, I put £50 aside every month for my child for university or for a deposit on a house or even for travelling if that's what she wants to use it for. Frankly, I cannot remember more than two or three presents I was given as a child. It seems mad to spend so much money on things that are neither needed or remembered. I guess I'm lucky that my child is not aquisitive in the least and can't think of anything she wants for Christmas apart from some new felt tips.

We have never done adults - grandparents excepted. I have 20 nieces and nephews buying for them was a pain and very unsatisfying - I had no idea what they had or what they wanted. I wanted to stop buying for nieces and nephews too - we always ended up with a pile of stuff the kids didn't look twice at - as a family we agreed on secret Santa....so now we buy for 8 around £15 each.

DPs are getting a wet room - imagine that will cost about £5k split 6 ways...maybe more, not sure when it'll be finished but it's their Xmas gift. We'll spend £600 on a gadget for dh - he'd be getting it anyway, so I made him wait. £200 on each dc and they'll spend around £200 on me, I'd imagine.

So maybe £2-3k

Since we all became adults, we only buy for children. Adults get a few edibles for fun. That's 10 children. we average about £20 each on nephews and nieces. If we couldn't afford that, we'd drop the amount to £10 or £5.
Christmas is about family and gatherings and fun, not the material value of the gifts. It's always been that way for us.
On my own children, I spent between £20 and £100, depending on our financial situation over the years.

We were but now we do a secret Santa and costs have been cut massively.

The nephews and nieces can go in a secret Santa draw - one draw for each side of the family. Each aunt-uncle can buy for one child.

All your siblings/partners can do a secret Santa. Include your parents in the draw.

All your DH's siblings/partners can do a secret Santa. Include his parents in the draw.

Buy for your family as normal.

We also save every month, about £180 for xmas and birthdays incl money for the kids birthday parties, anything extra we just see what we can afford at the time. I budget for everything so am no worse off dec/jan than any other time of year. I am probably a bit anal about it all though.

dh is one of 5 and they are all married,between them there are 13 children,his mum and stepdad,and then there is my mum,brother and stepdad,we have 5 kids between us and buy for each other.

thats erm......32 people not including us and the kids?

I dont set a budget or anything but i spend between 10 and 20 pound per person,more for my mum and stepdad and brother,and more for his mum.

We also have 4 sets of adult friends we buy for one who have a baby.I leave the men to dh but i spend between 20 and 30 on the womens pressies,usually something from Lush!

sorry forgot to say,it doesnt sound as if it bothers you much,if you can afford it and they buy presents for you then why not?I enjoy giving presents ,secret santas are a bit crap imo.