How much do you spend at Christmas - even being careful it seems like a horrendous amount?!

[Anitee]

Just present wise I just totted it all up, both from big families and brought each of our siblings families a gift rather than individual presents at around £25 per family X 6 = 150, both sets of parents the same = £50, plus grandparents = £50. Spent £70ish on each of our boys = £140 (£40 of that has been on the bits on a present we've made from scratch as well to try and save money!), stockings £30 each = £60 and I spent £50 on DH. £500 gone and we still have 8 to cook for and feed on christmas day - easily anouther £100+. I thought I was being careful and quite modest in comparison to others I know but even now it seems a huge amount. How has Christmas become so expensive?!

Can you ask your visitors to contribute to parts of the meal? Someone brings the starters, another the pudding etc while you provide the main course? This might help ease the financial burden of hosting Christmas dinner.

Possibly do a secret Santa in future for all of the adults in the family? That way you could cut it down to £20 and only be buying for one person, everyone gets a gift. We stopped family gifts a few years back because of money worries and everyone loves secret Santa.

I make everything myself because I'm broke.
Wooden Christmas shadow box ornaments for 5 in law couples and an in law nan = £10 for sheet of plywood (and paints but already have those).

Stitched home made Christmas tree ornaments from scraps of fabric

Clay 'family' set of Christmas tree ornaments (roll out air dry clay, stamp out with ginger bread man cookie cutters, in numbers and sizes appropriate to family, put hole in top. Thread ribbon through, paint, write names and birth dates on back. Lovely and personalised.) = £2.99 for clay

Sewn dresses for baby's stocking. She chose the fabric herself
Her new books 5 for £5 at the works
Toys off eBay
Nieces and nephews had toys bought with tesco vouchers & nectar points saved over the year.

We spend £10-£15 on all nieces / nephews each and then any adult over 18 on my side we do a sort of secret santa we all pick one person at random spend £30 on ...
then his side we spend £10 each on his brothers/sister and we buy his mum and dad a little something (bout £10 each) and we spent £100 on each other , so in total about £400 and about £60 on food (I'm heavily pregnant so I'm only cooking for two and may just end up with a mc Donald on Christmas Day if I'm in labour )
I found Christmas is as expensive as you make it ...
we did the secret santa thing this year as my side is massive so we spent like £500 last year on adults alone , it saved so much and saved so much stress as I didn't have to buy loads of differents presets XX

I can't afford Christmas, so a £10 limit on gifts for my DDs (both adults)

A simple roast chicken for lunch- ingredients cost £10/11

Maybe another few pounds on juice for the day

That 's it, no luxuries or anything else

So a total cost of under £40

Probably £500 each on 2 dc plus clothes another £150-200 each and then 10 nieces and nephews £10-15 each, parents go mad if we buy them anything but we always do.

Big food shop for Christmas comes to around £150-200.
The cost is sickening.

Me and dp just buying each other one gift- perfume for me and aftershave for him.

Can't wait for it to be over!

When you have large extended families a Secret Santa scheme for each side really cuts down on the money and the hassle. I know it's too late for this Christmas but maybe something to think about for next year?

we still have 8 to cook for and feed on christmas day - easily anouther £100+.

If a guest asks if you need them to bring anything (which all should but probably only some will) don't do that polite thing where you say no, tell them 'yes, it would be great if you could bring starter/pudding/wine'

I don't buy for adults...that's the only way I can manage OP. I buy a token gift for two best mates but my sisters and I just don't go there. It's silly to break the bank in that way.

Approx £1800 but we have 7dc and 21 adult and child relatives not indludi g dh and myself. Plus grotto, Boxing Day meal out Xmas food , beauty and toy advent calendars.
The dc only have a budget of £150 for presents and my nearly two year old I have spend much less.
We also buy no alcohol expect three or four mini bottles of brosecvo and three bottles of beer.
Somehow it adds up.

In my family my mum is one of four and each of them have between two and five children ... spending used to get out of hand and all the siblings have different income levels so to make it fairer the rule in our family became that everyone buys for their own nuclear family and everyone chips in a bit to get one big present for our grandparents.

My mum usually hosts Christmas lunch for our nuclear family and my grandparents and then the rest of the family come round for a buffet style tea in the evening (mainly bc my mum is the oldest sibling, is obsessed with christmas and organizing, and most importantly has the bigest house to host from) so even though there's no adult present swapping, people usually bring my mum a little something by way of thanks and/or something for everyone to share - tin of sweets, extra booze, board game to keep the kids entertained etc

Spending nothing this year as we are broke. Only me and dp so xmas day will just be an ordinary day. Next year will be better we hope :)

Finances very tight for the next few months so will be doing Xmas on a budget of £200 with no presents bought yet. We usually hit the £1000 mark.

I've always hated Xmas - so much hysteria and waste which is always such an anti- climax on the day. So, for the first time ever, I have an excuse not to go over the top without looking like a killjoy.

Adult dc have been warned there will be no large cash gifts this year, with only one small gift instead of a whole pile of them. To be fair, they don't seem bothered. Will spend only £5 each on gifts for about 6 friends and family instead of £20 and about £20 on my DH. I'm buying bits and pieces for Xmas dinner gradually with what I can squeeze out of the regular food budget.

DH does like plenty of alcohol in the house over the festive period so he will find it hard to cut this back but needs must. I've suggested no more than £50 on alcohol which I think is loads considering I don't drink and the DC are only occasional drinkers. Where he comes from, not having the cupboards stacked with alcohol for Xmas and New Year is unheard of so I'm prepared for some tense moments. I'm thinking £5 bottles of Prosecco out of Aldi rather than £30 bottles of champagne and Aldi whisky rather than his usual £50 Glenfiddich.

There will only be 5 of us for dinner on the day. A couple of friends might drop by on Xmas Eve and we'll visit family Boxing Day, so I think we'll be fine.

Almost looking forward to the challenge.

I spend around £500 on presents and about £100 on food
I sell things on eBay to pay for most of this (£360 so far) and start shopping early so spread the cost

Well I think you have quite a large family - with 6 sets of siblings, plus dc old enough to have £70 spent on them whilst at the same time having grandparents.
One way is to have a secret santa, or to ask if everyone can have a £10 limit on presents, or not to buy for the adults (or maybe just a token £2 or £3 gift).

We've always tended to give our dc things they will need during the year anyway, so, although they get it at Christmas, it's things they need (think, things for their hobbies, clothes, etc) so it's not really 'extra' spending when you think of it that way.

£100 seems a lot for one day's food. I mean, no problem if you've got it, but if things are a bit tight at the moment you could cut back a bit there, and/ or ask the guests to bring the starter / pudding / wine / whatever.

Lidl is your friend. Also baking is great.. Made gingerbread today with lidl 45p plain flour ( huge bag) left over golden syrup etc. will also make a huge supply of pastry with forementioned 45 p flour.

The works is also your friend for dirt cheap but great gifts. Ask behind the till and they may present you with a 20% off voucher.
Alternatives to Turkey: gammon, chicken, duck, nut roast, lamb, roast veg parcels... All much cheaper than Turkey.

Also lidl award winning Christmas pudding- £3.

Don't get Xmas cake, pudding and biscuits etc. just choose 1.

All much tastier than turkey too.

We don't buy gifts for anyone except our dc and each other. On those gifts we have probably spent roughly £300-350 plus a tenner for wrapping paper. I made some Christmas cards on the computer and printed them off on photo paper so all I needed to buy for them was some Tesco value envelopes. Again, we only send to close relatives and the kids in our dc's classes.

We are going to my mum's for Xmas dinner (in fact, I lied about the gifts thing; we're giving my mam a bottle of wine that dh won at work) so the only food we're buying is for a special boxing day meal at home and are using our clubcard vouchers to pay for the bulk of that.

We have 2 fake trees and are refusing all the decs from last year but I have bought a few fancy things for the house - a couple of tree skirts, a couple of fake candles and some new lights for around the fireplace, all of which came to about £20. They're all battery operated so I've had to go and buy my body weight in batteries (our house has next to no plug sockets).

We're not going to any parties or anything so don't need to buy any special clothes or pay for drinks and transport.

New Year's Eve will just be little family party at home. We already have the booze (dh gets loads from work and we bought a load from some of the food festivals we visited this year) so will just go to Iceland and buy some of their party platters.

All in all, we've probably spent/will have spent about £400-450. It is a lot of money to spend in just one month and we would somehow feel guilty if we didn't get the dc as many presents, probably because this idea of a wonderful Christmas has been rammed down our throats by the media and we feel like we're letting our dc down if we don't. I hate that and wish I could change it.

DD and I are going to my friend's for Christmas (at the other end of the country) and she's kindly supplying all the food so we have no food cost.

I'll buy my mum a present (£10) and my friend a gift (£20). DD will have about £70 spent on her = £100.

All my nieces and nephews are adults, I haven't bought my brothers presents since we left home (a mere 30 years ago).

I would ask for guests to contribute to puddings, booze, condiments, salad and snacks (chocolate, nuts etc). Whenever we've done the big family Christmas at one of my brother's, the hosts have always done the meat and veg, whilst everyone else has bought something else for the meal.

I'm a frugal fanny: I don't fork out all at once, I spend all year collecting presents and adding to the pile charity shops in the new year are a particularly rich seam . This year I've £30 put aside for the food. I probably won't go much above that. My biggest expense is the tree - £50 or thereabouts.

we have a £20 limit on adults in the family ( way less for my parents as they don't want stuff - they are getting a things like a photo calender and homemade cookies). between £10 and £20 per child makes £150 in presents 8 adults, 2 children. food will be a small goose, potatoes, parsnips, beans, homemade christmas cake with custard and some sausages for the kids. should be under £100.

christmas ornaments get used again every years, so does the (artificial) tree.

We used to be like this. Then someone suggested having a secret santa for each side of the family. Each person also has a wish list so the money is well spent.

We have 6 in my immediate family, so draw 6 names out if the hat for my side of the family and also DH's. We spend £20 per person. So my side of the family costs £120. DH's side of the family the same.

When I think about presents for everyone, cards, stamps, extra food and alcohol, its probably getting on for 1k.