Birthday and xmas present spending.

[creamcheeseandlox]

This is a issue that comes up year after year.
I have two dc 8&6. Sister in law on dh side has one dd 7yr. They live about 2.5hrs away so for dc presents we always do amazon order to their houses. We have a limit of £15 a child...BUT she seems to think that as she has one child and I have two I should either spend £25+ on her dd or I should bring the cost down of the gifts for my dc to equal £15 in total so £6-7 each inc postage which is quite hard to find on Amazon. We both choose gifts and send the link to each other.

This is more an issue at Christmas where we do a combined order so my dc get approx £25+ spent on them and get dd £15. Every year it comes up and I try and fight my corner by saying that why should I spend the same amount on her one child than both mine get spent on? It's such a trivial thing and I hate rowing over it but sis in law always makes it a big deal so get dd doesn't get a hard deal!! I'm already dreading it for this year. AIBU?

This is ridiculous on every level.

Get your things sent as gifts by Amazon so that they don't have the price all over them. Stop adding up how much anyone is spending/being spent on. Your kids don't know or care. Just choose presents according to what you can afford/choose to spend/what the kid will enjoy. And if SIL brings it up again, tell her that presents aren't about the money, and your children will be happy with whatever they receive.

We both choose gifts and send the link to each other.

Stop doing this.

I don't try to match the monetary value of presents depending on what the recipients spend on us. She's batshit.

I can't bear this attitude, we have the same thing with DH's family. He has more children than his brother, and his brother's wife insists on a split like this. Every year it comes up, and I hate being pushed into keeping a tally. People should buy what they can afford / want to give and it's as simple as that. If they only want to spend £5 on each child then fine, they're grateful for that. Last year we were more flush than we are now and DH wanted to treat his nephew for his birthday so went over the stipulated budget and sent a few really nice things, and BIL and SIL took part of the gift off him to put aside for Christmas, in case it meant they had to spend more on DH's children.

Needless to say I contribute to Christmas and birthday presents for their children, but my own children (DH's step-children) get nothing from BIL and SIL, because they're not REAL family. None of it seems to be in the spirit of giving, it's all just about keeping score and I'd rather not bother.

Honestly, they're like this about everything. Going out for a family dinner with them is a nightmare because they insist splitting things down to the last penny and it takes half the night to work it out, and buying group family gifts for parents is just as bad as they have to work out the percentage amount per family member (including children) that we have to contribute. It can take days.

If anyone even once started talking about the costs of the presents to me I would stop buying for them, never mind every time! It's so not the point of presents and it's also incredibly rude.

I have one and my brother has 5.
I earn more than him.
SIL is way more into presents than me.

We still manage to just get on with it.

You absolutely should not be picking up this shit just because your husband thinks it's OK to dump it on you

You have a DH problem as much as you have a SIL problem!

As to the the poster who said tell her to have another one then, it was her choice - fuck off. Not even funny as a joke. I'd love to have had another one is miscarriage and IVF hadnt said otherwise people don't always just "choose" it, OK?

Family in theory should spent the same in regardless if it's the grandparents buying their gdc as they are individuals but I'm aware that as I have three dc sil spends a lot for presents so I try to match what they spend, the same with my dbro and his wife they spend 10 pounds each on my threee at Christmas so il spent 30 on dniece however once they have their other dc that amount with cover the two.

I'm the mother of an only and my DSis has 2 DC. We have no agreed spending limit but I know from gift sizes she tries to spend a bit more on my DS. Sometimes it might be less than what my two gifts add up to, sometimes it might be more, but it's usually more than what I have spent individually on her DC. I might spend 30 in total and she might spend 20, I might spend 40 in total and she might spend 50, I might spend 50 in total and she might spend 40. My DS always ends up with a more expensive present than either of hers do. This is an unsaid thing between us, but I think it's fair. We've generally discussed what they might like before we make purchases, so we've a fair idea of what each other is spending. I've always been conscious of trying to be fair to her DC as I'm godmother to one and it wouldn't be fair to not get my godchild a bit extra, kids feel/talk about that kind of thing. I genuinely don't think it would be fair for there always to be an imbalance between the two families where we always spend more on her DC and they always spend less on ours. That being said, we don't add it up and I love my DNs and want them to have something nice from us at Christmas.

You just said it was a trivial thing so why not just do as she suggests? Where did the £15 limit come from? Are there more family members with DC? If so, what do they think?

My mother has 4 children and we each get a gift of money at Christmas, we all get the same. We buy gifts from her for our DC out of this money. One DB has 4 DC and one has none. Should I ask my mother for more money or tell her she should give my DB with no DC less? I wouldn't dream of it. Incidentally, he suggested she give him less himself, but she just said she has 4 children and they all get the same, end of.

My advice would be to tell sil to have another baby - possibly a bit extreme but it was her choice to only have one!

How about not being so offensive! Not everyone gets go choose.

@Kealzz you say you signed up just to post on this thread. Suggest in future you think before you post.

what's the point of sending each other the link? why not just buy something for your own children and say it's from them - then you can spend what you want on your children and if they want to be stingy it's their children who will lose out.

Otherwise just choose a present for their child yourself and don't tell them what it cost.

Alternatively stop doing the presents.

Personally I think it's fair to give roughly the same to each child. They are individual family members and not just someone's children. But it will also depend on whether enough money is available for this. I doubt it's the obvious how much something costs anyway - will the children even notice?

It's a tricky one, I have lots of siblings and I know we were expensive for our aunts and uncles growing up!
Maybe you could offer to give her the extra £30 or however much it is each year, so your girls don't miss out. --She might then realise how petty she is being--

I have 5 kids my brother has 1, he gives them 50 each birthday and xmas, when its my neices birthday i do roughly the same, sometimes more depending on what i want to give her.
My brother has no issues with it, he adores my kids and we r family, he often, if its gift card or cash will take them shopping to spend it and enjoys doing this.
If my brother went on to have 10 more kids i wouldnt hav an issue with it.

Ugh

What a horrid subject to have words about and not really in the spirit of Christmas.

And stop sending links to things.

Hope the dc aren't old enough to pick up on this.

Tell her to do what she wants. There should be no obligations on gifts. She can easily buy a book or something.
It's a very petty attitude though but better she does that than harbour resentment and ill feelings.

This is a very ugly way of looking at it.

My sister has four children...I spend about a tenner on each. Sometimes, she spends that on my two..other times she might spend less or more...as might I.

Leave it.

Surely it is about the perceived value and the care? I buy a lot from other shops who carry naice items at a fraction of the cost of the same from a Lewis, Debenhams, Marks type shop. I choose carefully and wrap beautifully. Stop using amazon and choose/post yourself. Then she cannot complain as she can't see the spend. Stroppy, entitled mare

If she's said she's not happy to spend that amount then that's your answer. She's asking you to identify gifts around the £7 mark for your kids.

Whether you think that's fair or not is besides the point. It's what she's said she wants to do. How much you spend is also up to you.

I buy gifts for the children of one friend. I make up an Amazon gift list for each of my children and try to ensure that there are items in there varying from £5 to £30 and it's up to them what they spend. I budget £20 each for their kids and that's what I spend. If there aren't items on their wish lists for the value I want to spend I either ask for more ideas or I buy a smaller gift and a gift card. I have 3 kids and they have 2.

When I had 3 kids and my brother only had 2 we stopped buying for each other's children by mutual agreement.

At what point do you stop buying for nieces and nephews though? On one side we stopped at preschool/primary school/not even born yet age, but on the other we are still buying in the mid/late 20s...

Not long had this convo with my sisters in laws, decision made that we pick an amount to be spent per child. doesn't matter if you have 1 or 3 or 9 kids. its done that way so that each child gets an equal amount spent on them. christmas for our families is about the children. so making sure they have the best time possible. why should they not all get equal just cos one family member has more children than another!

I don't really understand all the regimented "must spend exactly the same" thing. I buy things I know the person will love, that might be a £5 present it might be a £20 present.

We do £20 per child but it's beginning to become hard work as our kids have 13 first cousins. We normally get the same-ish back for our kids.

I'm on ML (with my 3rd) from Jan so I'm going to suggest a lower budget.

We only do birthdays. Xmas it's just a selection box for each kid.

No way could we afford £520 a year on gifts.

I would tell her to buy what she is willing to give, no more no less, and suggest you do the same. My DB rarely buys my kids presents but I still buy for my nephew, as I adore buying for him. It has nothing to do with the adults, but your family's relationship with your DN.

We have one child. Twin's and Stepdaughter on SIL side, twins, niece and great nephew on my side.

We spend £30 on each child and our sisters spend £30 on DS. My niece spends £20 on DS (her cousin) and £20 on her other two cousins.

If you agree an amount it should be for each individual child, not for all children on that household. My sister's don't always spend the full £30 on my DS whereas we spend the full £30.

We used to have a similar issue. Us - one dc. Bil & Sil1 with 3 dc, Bil & Sil2 with 2 dc.

So for years we bought presents for 5 kids and after ours was born we would get 2 back, one from each family. Ours was the youngest by eight years, and once all the others became adults it was decided by the other parents that the families weren't going to buy presents for one another's dc's any more.

Except they all forgot that our dc was still a child.