£40 on one child Vs £10 on four children

[Courtney555]

I'm interested on people's opinions on buying Christmas gifts for children.

If, we could skip the "I don't give to receive, spirit of Christmas" and the "well I make the most amazing gifts for 50p a go" stuff and just go with the direct example, and your reasons behind your answer, that would be fab...

So. If family A has one child, and family B has four children, does:

Family A buy £10 gifts for each of the four children in Family B, and Family B reciprocate the £40, but as there is only one DC, it gets a much nicer £40 present?

Family A buy £10 gifts for each of the children in Family B and Family B reciprocate with £10 for the child in Family A. So Family A receive £30 less of gifts.

I see it both ways. What if Family A chose only to have one DC as that's all they could afford, but have to spend £40 on Family B (on the basis that a gift much under £10 per child, is barely worth the bother). But then why should Child A have a far superior gift than the 4 Child B's, shouldn't they all be treated fairly in that respect?

If we could also avoid the silly "well if Family A are that put out, they just need to have 3 more DC! Ahhh ha ha ha ha" that'd be grand

I'd go in favour of token presents to open, eg selection box, cheap book etc then family gift. eg board games.

£10 per child. All children should be treated the same irrespective of how many per child.

If I was having twins in the next 5 weeks I would definitely not expect someone to spend £25 on each of them for Xmas this year. In years to come £10/£15/£20 on each child would be fine. Kids don't care and adults should be adult and just spend whatever their budget allows. Unless you're related to the Radfords in which case I suggest a joint family board game.

Get them all pyjamas. Job done.

Our approach is with the aunts/uncles agree a figure per child say £10 and we spend that on each child. So we have 2 children, SIL has 1. We spend £10 she spends £20.

We discuss and agree this though and SIL is happy with this.

My BIL has 9 children, SIL 3, other SIL 2 and other SIL 1. If we spent £10 on each thats £150. We have 2 children so get far less in return than we pay out. It doesn’t really bother me as it’s about the children, not adults.

However we have said this year we just can’t afford to spend that sort of money on the nieces and nephews as I’m on mat leave and so we are just getting them all some chocolate and a book.

My sil had twins and we had no dc we spent around £30each child, when we had our first and what we thought would be our only dc sil spent about £30on ours too. I'd suggest just buy them whatever you want and let them decide what they buy

Money is very important to people who don't have any!
I didn’t say it wasn’t! Quite the reverse actually. Why would you expect to spend money you can’t afford just to get the same spend back. That’s madness!

Why would anyone expect someone who can’t afford it to give more than they can afford.
My point is that it’s sad to look at the ‘cost’ and weight up the financials as a cost/benefit analysis.
Christmas has seriously lost meaning if it’s reduced to a cost/benefit analysis.
Honestly would rather receive a token heartfelt gift than money spent in expectation of getting the same back.

I have 2 children, my DSis has 3.

We agreed a £30 budget but she said that she would spend £45 on each of my SC so that we had both spent £90 in total.

I refused and said that we agreed £30/child and if that meant it cost me more then that was fine. The fact that I have 2 and she has 3 is neither here nor there to me as long as each child has the same amount spent of them.

I’d probably say somewhere in the middle- so token gift of 7-£10 for each of the four children and a more generous present plus wine for the parents for the one child.

I agree with DontGo - I'd be more concerned with equity across cousins / friendship group rather than getting the same back as we gave.

Do you have a reason to suspect that this will be an issue? If not, I would keep giving in the way you have up till now, and if someone gives your kids tat, then maybe suggest a joint present or an outing instead.

I think the thing is, you're talking about Christmas presents for children who are individuals you know and love. It doesn't matter whose children they are, or whether they have siblings.
Fwiw, I have 3 children, but I didn't always. So for many years I was buying presents for children when I didn't have any of my own. These were family children, but also children of friends. They were quite nice presents because I could afford to spend in those days. Then I had my own children, and family would give £x per child, both mine and DH's families. Friends mostly stopped giving presents when DC1&2 were quite small, probably because their own families took up their disposable cash. Ds3 had far fewer presents as a child , because by the time he cancelling everyone we knew had children.
The point I'm making is that people budget according to their means, and you don't always give to receive.
Think about the overall number of presents you need to get.

I have an only child and most of my friends have 2+. So we just agreed not to bother with presents as I couldn't afford to spend £££s on multiple kids (and didn't have the inspiration about what to get them, either).

I think a family present like a box of chocolates or biscuits is best if you are on a limited budget or are limited on time to choose meaningful presents.

I think there are a couple of other possible ways to approach it:

Family A give a joint gift to the Family B children - a board game is a good example. These generally cost £30-40 and bring more than just the cost value of the gift (encourages fun family time etc.). Family B then spend £30 on the child from Family A.

Otherwise I'd find a middle ground. Family A maybe spending £15 each on the B children and the child from Family A receiving a £25 gift.

The thing I'd really want to avoid is the 3 family B children receiving low cost tat that will end up in landfill after a couple of plays.

I've never had this discussion with my brother. For 15 years I've been buying nice gifts for their 2 children when I was childless. I now have a toddler DD. They have been easily as generous to her as I was when their kids were young but I'm not totting it up! I'm now skint so for that reason only my budget for my niece and nephew has dropped to around £15 each where I used to spend £30-40.

Nobody keeps track of who has spent what on their children in our family, but I spend the same amount on each niece/nephew, regardless of which "immediate family" they are from.

Don't tend to get presents for friend's kids, but would do similar (spending less per child) if I did.

TBH, I think you are being unreasonable because you are looking at it entirely wrong.

I have a budget for Christmas presents, split it equally and spend approximately that much on each person I have to buy for. My siblings do the same. Our budgets are different due to differences in income - but I wouldn't dream of spending less on DSis2 because she doesn't have much money, and couldn't afford to match DSis1 because she has far more money than me. So our spends are totally different anyway, even before we get in to who has more kids.

I can't actually understand people who sit around at (or near) Christmas figuring out if their household receive the same value stuff as you buy. If that is how you see it, what is the point of buying gifts at all - why not just spend your own money on yourself? And surely you get into a difficult situation where you are prevented from buying nice gifts because your friends / family can't afford to spend the same, or you feel pressured in to spending more than you can afford.

I had 1 child so got given a gift of say 20 for my child, other family has 2 children they got 20 each, I now have 2 children they get given 20 each, I still give 20 each. So always been per child not per family.

In our case we set a budget that we all agreed on so no one feels pressured.

Yes it does mean that technically we spend more then the families with multiples as we have only one child, but that's just how it is.

Op you are thinking of your children as your possession and that is where you are going wrong I think. So, you think it's not fair for your siblings to have to spend more on your children and they don't get as much back for their child. Actually all of these children are individuals in their own right. So your siblings are buying for their nieces and nephews not your children (they just happen to be your children).

It's the same for childless aunts and uncles - they are buying for their nieces and nephews. It's not a reciprocal gift. The budget is set by how much you can afford and want to spend - not by what someone else is spending on your child. Does that make sense?

I really wouldn't worry about it. Buy a nice gift for your niece or nephew in line with what you want to spend and let other people decide what if anything they want to spend.

Depends what you can afford. My grandmother always gave per child, so if one if her sons has three kids they would get £30 but probably divided into a tenner per card, and if her other son had five kids they would get £50. If she cannot afford the £50 for the 5 kids, then she'd reduce it from £10 per kid and give £5 per nd do the same for the others, so every grandchild would get the same amount but every family might not.

Just spend what you like on their children, and tell them you don’t expect them to spend a reciprocal amount on yours. Then it’s up to them.

I wish this was the biggest problem in my life right now

Your first option is ridiculous.

Your budget is per person unless buying monopoly or similar for the family. Same as I buy my mum a present but I don’t buy my sister and her boyfriend a present between them because they happen to be coupled up.

I do think you're overthinking - I've never encountered a family run things to such a specific budget or be aware of exactly how much a gift cost (or how much each other will be expected to spend in advance).

I just buy gifts based on how much money I have to spare, but tbh would rarely buy more than a token (up to £25) gift for a child that wasn't mine, and if they have four children I would probably buy a joint present, but I don't really give much outside of immediate family. So I definitely wouldn't be going out of my way to spend more just to equal what they've spent on mine if I was the parent with 4 kids - if they don't want to spend £75 they can buy cheaper things or a joint present, it's not like I'd have asked for or expected something more expensive.

Going into it with less expectations, traditions and specifics would make things like this a lot easier to navigate.