£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 only have 1DC and one sibling with 3 kids gives her the equivalent of what I've spent on all of them added together and one sibling with 4 kids doesn't even give her the equivalent of what I've spent on one of their kids. One of my DH's siblings give her the equivalent of what we've spent on his 3 kids all together and another of his siblings spends on her what we've spent on each of their kids. So a mixed bag really.

So Family A receive £30 less of gifts.

But child A receives the equivalent of each of the children B. Why should child A get more spent on them just because they are an only child?
One DSIS always spends more on my only than I spend on each of her 3 and I just don’t get why. I spend equally on each Nephew/niece my sisters have. One has 3, one has 2 but all kids get the same spent on them or it’s unfair on the kids.

I'm one of four siblings that has had children - three have two each, the other has one.

We spend approximately the same amount on each child (and on my huband's nephew), and had friends who were included in the same system for years.

I'm pretty sure our budget is bigger than my siblings' (their suggestions are always for slightly cheaper things). Them's the breaks, really. It never occurred to me that I should buy something less for a child whose parents are less well-off.

Damn. husband's

I don't have any kids but have 7 nieces / nephews who I buy for every year - what would you do in my position. BTW I spend equally on them all or give them cash depending on their age.

I think it depends how much money the family has in the first place.

I just buy what I can afford and that's what I would expect back.

I think maybe if you're feeling resentful about how many children someone has that you have to buy for then you may need to make your present circle smaller.

“(awaits answers as requested, direct to example....”

What’s relevant to your “example” is that you’re overthinking and monetising this way too much.

Very odd, if you ask me.

Just buy the single child something that costs a bit more than they spend on yours. £10-£20 gives you more leeway to find something they might actually like / use anyway. Turning up with a £45 gift would be crass.

I have 3DC to my DB and DS's 2 and spend more on their children as I personally don't think it's fair for them to stump up for 3 birthday and Christmas presents. Obviously a mixed bag of opinions on this though!

we spend about £15 per child, regardless of how many in the family.

I find the idea that the family with one child gets £40 gifts really odd, it is like being punished for havign siblings!

I spend around £30-£40 on each niece/nephew regardless of how many are in each family unit. So one "family unit" might get £90 of gifts to my only ds's £30 in return.

That is fine with me as they are all my individual nieces/nephews, if their parents spent £90 on ds in return I would tell them to give their heads a wobble and it was not needed.

I dont buy per value. I buy depending on what they like/I find.

Why does it have to be such a specific amount ? What if the budget for example was £30 per child but you see something they would love that is normally £30 but its on offer for a week at £10 would you then go and spend another £20 ? I wouldn't.

just agree a budget for the gifts and stick to it. When the kids are older they will be well aware of one is getting much more than others. There are plenty decent things that can be purchased for a tenner and generally people waste far too much money on Christmas.
My only caveat to this is that if you have friends or family who are considerably more wealthy than you and they wish to buy your kids more expensive gifts then that is really up to them and if they are good friends they will understand why you stick to your budget.

The children didn’t choose whether or not they got siblings so why should they suffer/profit due to it?

In theory, this is fair, but in reality, it's not always achievable. Also, don't forget that a family with four children without too much of an age gap between them all will then have an extra four presents available to share between them throughout the year, assuming they aren't selfish, whereas an only child will only have one extra item available.

On the flip side, an only child will almost certainly have their own bedroom and their parents' full attention whereas the four children will probably have to share the former and undeniably the latter.

Giving a joint present for all the children can work if you choose well, but it's likely not something that the youngest or eldest of several children would have chosen. Say somebody has 5 kids aged 14, 11, 8, 5 & 2 - what single item is going to bring equal pleasure to the 14yo and the toddler?

Also, however fair you want to be, simple economics can be a factor where there are huge discrepancies. In our family, one couple have 3 children and the DW's only sibling has only one child, so in theory their family 'wins' there; however the DH's only sibling has 10 children. However much you might want to lavish gifts on your nieces and nephews, when there are 10 of them on one side, it's phenomenally expensive to do so. If they then set an affordable budget for the family with 10, based on there being 10 to buy for, does that mean that they then have to spend the same and no more on the child in the single-child family to make it all fair across the board?

There are no straightforward easy answers, I think.

That is fine with me as they are all my individual nieces/nephews,

I agree with this, I wouldn't be able to buy one niece something that was £30 and another one that was £60 simply because one has a sister.

I just work out how much I can afford altogether and then divide by the number of nieces.

For the presents I get back I just assume it's what they can afford.

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.

This is what I'm worried about. By reducing the current £25 per only child to £10 per child because I've suddenly got 3, I'm kind of forcing this low cost tat approach on everyone, and I don't think anyone wants that. But we can't stop the kids presents, and reducing to £20 per child still equates to a £60 spend on my 3, which I find unfair.

Having said that, the vast majority on here seem to think it is fair, so it's probably just me over worrying that we'll look like CF.

Do people actually discuss how much they're going to spend on each other's children??? Why are you giving this much thought to this?

I spend around £10-£15 on family children gifts. The number of children is not a factor I consider. Argos two for £15 or two for thirty is good for this. Or end of line sites, such as bargain max. Always price compare to see where is cheapest and try not to get tempted into buying something extra or just some sweets ontop.

£10 per child regardless of how many they have.

Surely you’d only look like cheeky fuckers if you asked them to spend that amount per child? Or complained if they spent less? It’s their choice to spend an amount they’re happy with.

You can get wooden toys Melissa and Doug or squirrel toys at Symths or a small nice gift like a smart pen for an older child for under £15. Books are an option, or craft stuff it doesn't need to be plastic tack.

I have three DC and my brother has one, and I think it's somewhere in between your two suggestions.

In other words, my niece gets a slightly nicer present than any one of my DC, to reflect the fact we only have to buy for one, but not three times as nice.

I can see this both ways OP- I am in this situation in that I have 3 god children- and in previous years, I have been by myself. So I was spending £60 averagely on them, in addition to presents for my Best friend and her husband and receiving a small present back myself. Best friend and I decided that we would do ' household gifts' so I would buy a family board game for them for example, or once I got them a chocolate hamper to share, another time I bought them a really gorgeous reusable advent wooden tree and they buy similar priced items for me. This works incredibly well - and the gifts are equal and from house to house if you see what I mean. Would something like that work?

We spend the same amount on each of three DNs on DH's side as they do on our one DS (i.e. we spend three times as much as they do). It's worse on my side - we spend a similar amount each on my dead brother's daughter and step-daughter, but his widow doesn't buy for DS as "he's not my blood, he means nothing to me".

DS gets loads from us and his granparents and all his other relatives though, so he's not hard done by.

But we can't stop the kids presents,

Why not? If you're prepared to discuss how much the spend is, why can't you say "lets just do proper presents for our own kids, we'll do little token ones and a family gift for each other's"?