children and cash

[anmh]

Cash/voucher occasion gifts, how much is reasonable for a child under 12 from family and non family members (if that makes a difference).
If you received more than what you thought was reasonable, would you return it?

so what would you do if your child received more than that, so for example 50£?

Depends on who from, why etc.

£5-10
£20-30 from a grandparent

Who from? Family members give us that amount and more for DS, we say thank you, buy him a little something from it and put the rest in his bank account, or use it to buy a bigger item eg his new activity mat and send a picture of him using it saying 'thank you for my new play mat uncle Bob', so they know he's had something nice from it

I'd give £10 for an under 12, although I think we gave our nephew £20 & 2 presents, and niece £10 & presents as she had an extra present (I tried to keep the spend roughly the same as one was on my side, the other on DP's) and they were 5.

With ours when younger we had a deal with extended family we would exchange cash for gifts in advance of the birthday/Christmas.

Had they been given £50 direct we would have overseen spending or said spend some and save the rest. Money from savings books had overseen spending too.

We were not going to let them waste £50 on plastic tat that looked lovely in the box and had 5 mins play value.

Depends on the financial situation of the giver/if a precedent has been set already with family and friends/how close the person giving the money or voucher is to the child.

If mine received £50 as a gift, we’d likely have a chat about whether they wanted to spend or save, or a bit of both, then either go on a shopping trip or put it in the bank.

Why do you ask?

My nieces/nephew/godchildren are all young (bar one who is becoming a teen this year) and I give £20.
Best friends children get £10 but as they reach 16/17/18 it changes a bit. At 16 I give £16 worth of lottery scratch cards, at 17 it's whatever it costs for a single driving lesson, at 18 it was £25. When the eldest went to university he also got £50.

We received some money from extended family for our children's birthdays (collectively) and even though it is a combined gift it seems alot. I'm a little uncomfortable because there isn't an occasion I can see in the near future that we could reciprocate and I don't want to offend them by returning their gift!
Would it be odd to return some of the money?

yes, it would.

Accept it with thanks and forget about it.

I’ve had some very generous cash gifts over the years for me and my children and the givers would have been mortified if I had tried to return money.

extremely odd to return a gift. but if you want to "compensate" the giver somehow, maybe buy them a nice gift for their occasion.

As for the child - certainly have a discussion/encourage to save

You shouldn't give to receive. Hopefully your relatives know that.

Take the money as what it is, a gift.

Don't give it back. Don't look for an excuse to buy them a gift of similar value.

Say thank you and tell them how you will spend it. Get your child to write a card/letter if they're old enough. Or take a picture of them playing with/wearing/using/enjoying whatever you buy with the money.

Don't return it, they want your dc to have it. Get your dc to write/ draw a thank you note/card.
Unless you think it has been given for control issues in some way. In which case returning it would make more sense.

No, there isn't any other motive aside from being very generous, I guess I should accept my children are lucky!
We will be doing a nice thank you card, thank you for taking the time to offer your input.

In these circumstances where you weren't expecting it and they weren't reciprocating then remember they woild have only done this if they could afford it and wanted to.

Yes nice thank you cards are the order of the day and maybe spend some/save some.