Buying Christmas gifts for family and in laws is going to be unaffordable

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Aibu not to buy family and in laws gifts? I usually love picking out gifts but tbh have never got much in return anyway so surely this year is a good year to say no gifts? Even just a fiver each will be a lot of money we have not got. By family I mean my mother, stepfather and my siblings and similar on dh's side. We are the only ones with kids, our siblings do not have kids and we do not have any nieces and nephews.

I have been saving to buy our two Dc presents, they won't go without but we aren't going mad with their presents.

our mortgage has just been renewed and will be costing us £200 extra a month, energy bills and cost of food as we all know is crappy for everyone. I'm currently not working as DS has sen and has complex needs and he has been particularly struggling with severe anxiety for the last 12 months or so , I had to stop working as it wasn't working well between my own MH and my sons needs, I hit rock bottom myself. Dh earns just about enough to cover everything with not very much left at the end of the month. We do get some extra help such as DLA for DS and I get carers allowance.

car has just gone wrong and we've had to lay out for that, we have house repairs to find the money for etc etc - this morning we discovered we have a leak in the roof - wonderful. We have some serious mould issues.

buying gifts for family would potentially put us into financial hardship. Not sure how we are even going to afford the increase in mortgage.

it seems crap to buy family some tat they probably won't appreciate just for the sake of buying something, right? When I can't even afford a pair of shoes for myself.

our families aren't struggling as much as us. Our siblings are not struggling as living at home for free or earning enough to cover everything. In laws are mortgage free and have been on 5 foreign holidays this year.

Whereas we are just in a crappy situation right now.

if you were are relatives would you understand if we couldn't afford gifts?

Absolutely. Don't get into debt. But you need to tell them soon.

It’s fine as long as you tell them now before they start Christmas shopping. I wouldn’t care if my relatives didn’t/couldn’t ‘do’ Christmas, so I’m sure if they’re nice people they will understand.

Just tell them you are not buying any presents this year, as you cannot afford to buy for adults, who can buy what they like for themselves. The words you use to tell them are optional.

I have already spoke to my mum about it about 6 weeks and I'm not sure if she was listening because recently I mentioned Christmas gifts again and she looked at me blankly! 😭

will get dh to speak to his family!

Not at all unreasonable. Most adults don't need a load of stuff given to them. Let them know in advance and you can big up how much you are looking forward to getting together with them, as spending time with them is the most precious gift anyway (unless you can't stand being around them).

I think I'm going to do the same this year which is a disappointment as I actually like buying gifts for my extended family, but I know they don't need the "stuff" and I just can't afford it this year.

We are making gifts this year, as we absolutely can't afford the unnecessary expenditure.
the kids will be decorating them, for sentimental value.
I think sometimes that can be more appreciated than crap that people don't need.

YANBU - we are amending our Christmas shopping this year as well. We made family aware recently that we will be only buying presents for children in the family. They were understanding about it.

i have 4 Siblings and various in-laws, we changed to Secret Santa a few years back.. so you only buy for one person in the group, bad it’s a limited budget … some of the best gifts are things that people have made themselves for very little money

Absolutely not unreasonable and hopefully family should totally understand, some years are just harder.

If you aren't sure though, maybe think of ways to cut down much of the cost while still doing some gifts? My sil's family do a secret Santa so rather than buying for everyone, she just buys for whoever she draws and there's an agreed spend limit. My family have an agreed limit per couple. I also told dh's family we'd just send a few cards, so like 'from our family to yours' instead of getting loads of individual cards which saved quite a bit because there's so many of them! Last year instead of getting our nans the usual chocolate and soap, we printed off some photos and put them in a little book each and they both loved it as they'd not seen much of our Ds because of COVID etc.

But again, if you want to skip gifts this year, go for it. People should understand and Christmas will still be Christmas 🌲

Tell them now.

We've had a gifts for kids only in our family for years now. We still buy for parents and them for us, but never siblings. The awkward bit is the cut off age for buying for the children, and exchanging meaningless token gifts for teens - my teen ds is already making it clear that he has enough Linx Africa sets to last a life time!

Martin Lewis was saying today that people need to stop joining in the obsession of buying presents that people do not need. Best to buy for children only

YANBU, on one side this year we have agreed no gifts except small ones for the next generation, who happen to be young adults now but have much more need for things than the rest of us. On the other side, it's small presents only, slightly larger for the family that are hosting us for Christmas dinner and we've asked them not to get us anything in return or just something really small if they want everyone to have something under their tree.

It’s probably not best for childfree/childless couples buying presents and getting nothing in return though.

I'd say fine with the proviso that you should have told them earlier - lots of people have already done all their shopping. Also you can't then expect them to get you or your kids anything - seems obvious but a lot of people think "we aren't buying for adults" to still mean "but of course I still expect you to get something for my kids" which if you're the only childless adult is the worst of both worlds to be expected to buy for all your neices and nephews and get nothing yourself!

Obviously if they want to treat them that's lovely but shouldn't be expected by people who do the "let's only buy for kids!"

We have stopped buying gifts between adults.

I give my siblings a new bauble for their tree each year, (family tradition; all our trees are decorated with family stuff) and take a gift ‘for the household’ if we are invited for a meal. Something I know they like and actually eat / drink. E.g a pannetone, a box of after dinner truffles. But only if affordable.

Have a word, tell them not to buy for you. Quickly, before they start spending.

Your definitely not being unreasonable.

We stopped buying siblings and friends years ago. But make it known ASAP that it's not happening and not to buy anything.

As a sweetener you could suggest doing something together in spring.

To add mine and dh's siblings are a lot younger than us. We come from a similar family dynamic where Our mothers had us young and then re married when we were teens and had more children. We bought for our siblings as was younger but they are all adults now and they have never bought for us so we need to stop for them too now they all now adults. Only 1 of them has ever bought for dc too! We don't expect any gifts for Dc.

send out messages to everyone saying you are buying into the Martine Lewis prenup xmas and not doing xmas presents this year.

You could, if you want to still have some Santa fun suggest a £5 secret Santa, so everyone coming for dinner etc has a present

Secret Santa is a fab idea but it's not always the case we are all in one place at one time, we spend Christmas Day at home just us Dc and see family around the festive period 😊

It’s fine but let everyone know now and that you don’t expect anything for the children. It might be awkward though if everyone is meeting up for Christmas lunch and exchanging presents. Maybe you can time it so that you miss that part and do your own present exchange separately

It's more common than you realise and best to be honest about it.

I also think it will be fine, but you have left it a little late as some people may well have bought presents for you by now. Still though, most decent family would be understanding, perhaps you could get the children to make a card for them or something else crafty?

It's absolutely fine and ignore anyone who says otherwise. I stopped buying for family after DS was born. I get something small from him to his grandparents and auntie but that's all. In exchange I asked for no presents for myself.

We don't really do Christmas lunch with family and presents. We spend Christmas Day at home just the 4 of us and see family either before or after Christmas! We often don't see all our siblings at Christmas, a couple live at home, one is abroad and the other is going abroad for Christmas! 😊 we tend to just see our parents! I'm hoping parents will understand! Mil is quite an understanding person, mine not so much 😭