To ask how much you would willingly pay for your work's Christmas Party?

[Hohohonooo]

I'm not going because of the cost.

Ours is £70 per person, which is for a 3 course meal and all inclusive beer and wine. AIBU to think that's way too much?! For context, I earn £25000 per year, which is fairly typical for my workplace.

How much would you be willing to spend?

I’m not going to mine because it would be £40 for ticket then need to buy drinks on top plus nearly £20 in taxis.

22k salary here. Posh ones in the office always choose where we go. This years meal is £30 per head. Half hour from home and after a week at work woth them all. I do love and get on with most of my colleagues but will be almost 34wks pregnant so have made my excuses.

Plus cba making small talk all the way home with boss. The relief when i cancelled was immense!

Ours is £15 for the meal and order your own drinks.
I m not going as I see these people enough during term time and they will be way more annoying drunk!
I would rather go to my local with dc. Five minutes walk.
Also I have a really restricted diet which means I wouldn't be eating the food!

Interesting to see some of you spend £10 or less on drinks. How much do you drink? I am by no means a very heavy drinker but £10 wouldn only cover at most 2 alcoholic drinks or (possibly) 3 soft drinks.

SweeneyTodd Where I live you'd get 3 x 175ml gasses of wine for £10 and yes, that would be plenty for me, for a night out. (Two would be more likely) Even in my youth I was never one to neck 10 units over an evening.

I always look forward to the works xmas party, & for the last two years have organised it.

This years costs £37.50 which is more than I would have liked.

It’s usually closer to £35 which is the amount the company contributes. So everyone’s had to pay £2.50. It includes food & entertainment only, no drinks. It’s to a place we’ve been twice before & have always had a good time.

£70 is only far too expensive & I would have to decline. Although being the organiser, I wouldn’t have booked it in the first place!

Literally never heard of having to stump up cash for a Christmas party...how grim and miserly ugh

We are going somewhere differnet this year and having a buffet but I've just checked the hotel where we usually go and Christmas Dinner and Disco is £25 Sun-Thurs (£30 Fri/Sat). That doesn't include drinks. It is a cash bar but we always put some bottles of wine on the tables so that would be a maximum of £35 per person for a 3 course meal and a couple of glasses of wine.

Seems dear. Ours is free. You get to bring someone too.

3 course meal, cocktail reception, band etc.

Basically OP the non drinkers/moderate drinkers are subsidising everyone elses all inclusive beer and wine. Without a disco the price for food would be £20.50 in the week.

I've never paid. Ever. Is it now the norm to be asked to pay?

Ours is £30 for a three course meal at a decent restaurant nearby, that is just by and for our department though.

Occasionally when the company is doing well they have had a 3 course meal at a hotel with band etc. which has been free to attend for employees and about a £25 charge for partners to attend.

I would never pay (or go) to the official work xmas party, it was for a large corporate head office of 2000+ people, crammed into a crappy nightclub with very expensive 'cocktail' bar.

On the other hand, I did go for a xmas meals with a group of people from across work with whom I had a friendship. It was not official and we all just paid into a kitty once we've agreed on a location. If there were any 'managers' involved, they would invariably contribute more, like pick up the wine part of the bill.

£70 is extortionate. I wouldn’t be going. If I spent £70 on a night out it would be with friends/ family. Not work colleagues.

Ours is free, we have to pay £12 to reserve our place then we get it back for drinks vouchers

I’ve been invited to a Christmas lunch next week. Forty pounds would be my personal limit. We get two free bottles of wine as a gift. My office picks up the tab for us.

I work for the NHS, so we always have to pay for ourselves, but no-one would ever go if it was £70, drinks or no drinks!

Ours this year is £36 each for a 3 course meal and dancing, which is the most we've ever paid, and that's already getting on the pricey side for most people.

Ours is £25 for three course meal and no drinks. We have to pay ourselves and boss comes but never even buys a round of drinks

My work night out is £50 for 3 courses and only 1 bottle of wine per table. I'd also need to pay taxis, baby sitter etc and I'm not particularly close to anyone I work with as work individually expect a team meeting every 2 weeks. I politely declined as I'd much rather spend the money treating my DS than spending time with people I barely know.

It's not about your income though is it, it's about your outgoing. I wouldn't spend £70 on a works do because that should be funded by the firm. I know it's public sector and that's how it is.

£70 is a lot to spend with friends let alone a works do.

It is a bit steep but I would pay that as I do enjoy a festive dinner dance - great memories to be made (assuming you do like the people you work with - as probably not worth it if you don’t). I don’t think I have ever worked anywhere that have totally funded Christmas parties, but now I’m in the public sector and we get nothing and people are a bit too decimated to arrange anything ourselves - which is a bit sad.

Several years of being a sahm and then a student, I’ve only ever had one! Public sector, it was £30 for a 3 course meal and entertainment. This year I’m at a footie mums do instead 🤣

Even HMRC think it's reasonable for an employer to spend up to £150 a year on an 'annual event' without it being a taxable benefit.

Essentially whether you pay or the company pay it's coming out of money that the company could have paid you as salary. However, if you pay you will pay out of taxed income.

£25 plus drinks. Have paid a bit more when it was a "venue" with entertainment thrown in

Zero!!!! Who pays to attend a works party????