Christmas spending

[Justnosing]

Aibu to wonder how people decide on amounts to spend on each other for Xmas?

I know it obviously depends on income, and probably how much Christmas means to you, but from what I see on here people spend around £50-£100 on their children, and less on their partners. Whereas where I live it is quite the norm to spend £500-£800 on kids and around £500ish on partners (I’m talking ordinary families, not wealthy)

What happens if you meet someone who thinks £50 is a perfectly fine amount to spend on you but you’re used to receiving £1000 worth of gifts from your significant other?

is it an age thing? Area thing? Have you ever been in this situation where you’ve over gave? Or someone’s over gave to you?

my DP and I never used to set an amount when we first met 12 years ago, used to spend around 450-500 on each other but that amount seems to have crept up over the years. Where does it end? I think I’d like to set one for next year!

this is a light hearted general thread, not for mud slinging

@Tiltedandwilted I'm also in the south (London) in my family and social circle gifts to partners/family/friends are all token gifts.
Jewellery would be an anniversary gift and anything else we would just buy ourselves throughout the year as and when we wished.

My FIL would love this! Think you’ve sorted his birthday present for me. Thanks!

Thing is, for us we don't wait til Christmas for buying things. Both got new phones, new tv (and tumble dryer) in Nov/dec. Could have waited til Xmas and called it a gift, but got it when we wanted them.

We set a £100 budget for each other, DP went well and truly over 😒

Just DH and I, we have joint finances so buying for each other seems pointless, we don't need anything and both are quite minimalists.

This year I spent a total of £150, for a week of lovely Christmas food and favourite drinks.

Everyone is different!

I am just arranging an oven clean as my birthday present from my DH. Approximately £100.

We have bought presents for each other in the past but neither of us are
Particularly needy so this suits us.

Surely that is more of a joint gift? Or does your dh not use the oven?

I would normally clean the oven so I consider it a gift to me.

We’ve never set spending limits and money isn’t an issue, so DH and I have always just agreed to base gifting on what the other person genuinely wants/needs.

That doesn’t always result in equal spending (this year, for example, DH received a new phone and some sports clothing he’d requested) and I received a pair of trainers, loungewear and some perfume. Other years, I’ll receive far more in value from him than I spend and vice versa 🤷‍♀️

We apply the same principle with DS, but are careful to ensure we buy quality over quantity as we really don’t see the benefit in having a huge pile of presents under the tree for him and no time for him to appreciate the value (not in the monetary sense) of the gifts individually.

It's not insane. 150 quid buys fuck all these days, you can't get them an Xbox or Switch or a bike for that. Youd get a game and a book and a jumper.

It's not insane to actually get the people you love worthwhile presents that they actually like.

DH and I spend whatever we feel like on each other. One year might be 20 quid, the next could be a thousand euro. Because its not about money.

This is like when a sign starts with "POLITE NOTICE.." I think I'll be the judge of that. This is such a weird question. Everyone's budgets will be different depending on circumstances ?!! Personally I spend £15-20k on gifts but that's completely normal where we live.

I spent £800 on Dh and he spent around £450 on me this is a lot more than normal we decided to splurge this year on each other as we didn’t really do birthdays

For Dc’s main presents this year we spent £250 each and stockings £60/70 (I normally pick up bits in the sales during the year)

Food as been very expensive this year I’ve probably spent £300/400 and we didn’t host this year, my turkey alone was £45

I save £100 per month for Christmas and dh saves roughly the same.

have completely over spent but will have a skint ish Jan

I am going to start putting away a lot more each month…

I spend about £30 on close friends and about £10-15 on others. Don't have any family I buy for. To be honest, I'm more about finding something I think the recipient will really like, than sticking to a fixed amount.

Because its not about money.

But it is for some. £150 buys you a lot actually. It IS about expectations.

How many x boxes or switches do they need? It buys some decent trainers or a pair of AirPods. Isn’t that a decent gift?

I tend to handmake him some bits as I'm fairly crafty. And then just picking up on things said throughout the year/things I know about them. For instance a book from their favourite author, a travel mug with a theme he would really enjoy when he mentioned he wanted to be able to take hot drinks on walks.

In some ways it becomes quite fun thinking of things he would like for a smaller budget. But I don't actually think there is anything wrong with spending more if that's something you want to do.

In full transparency we spend more on birthdays as we plan a suprise full day out. E.g. London and then the theatre

In my experience it's usually thick people who can't afford it who spend hundreds on Christmas gifts. The sort who get themselves into debt and then plead poverty.

I've never really set a specific budget but generally spend between £50 and £100 on my partner, we set similar expectations. In the past we couldn't afford much at all so it would be strange to suddenly spend eg £300 on each other - it would potentially leave the other one feeling embarrassed.

For the dcs, we have spent more as they've got older as when little, they got so much from others that there was no need to spend much. Now, £50 wouldn't look like much at all. I don't know the exact amount we spend on them, but I'd say between £100 and £150 each, sometimes more.

Well having a shared opinion about money and how to spend it is fairly important in a relationship. My husband earned 20 times what i did, but he also had an ex and two other children so that meant four kids to buy for, plus he had two sets of parents and five siblings. The family members all got books (he lived spending the day in the bookshop picking just the right ones) but he spent on his kids.
We had what we needed, so we did limit spending on each other to £50. I couldn't afford to spend more anyway as I didn't want the money to come from our joint account. He did really treat me on my birthday though, and I couldn't ever match that!

I read once that the average family spend 3-5% of their annual income on Christmas. That’s for everything though - gifts, decorations, food, activities.
have a chat about what a reasonable budget is based on your own lifestyle.

I don’t get this? If you need a tumble dryer, you obviously buy a tumble dryer. Why does that then mean you can’t pick a nice gift out for each other? Or do you mean that you think people who buy each other gifts at Christmas don’t buy things when they need them but instead wait to gift them?

We spend about £200 on the DC for Christmas, DH spend about £100ish on each other, sometimes more sometimes less, this year I bought him a fancy pizza oven that cost £300 because I knew he’d love it, last year I got him some headphones that cost £100.
We have a decent joint income but we would never spend much more than that without discussing it with each other, spending £500/£600 or more is just madness to me.

Wowsers- where do you live?

Surely the only circles this would be normal in is footballers and wags?!

That percentage is interesting! I think we're underspending on this but maybe not by much.
3% of our net annual income would be about £3k (a bit less). I spent about £200/£250 per kid (4 of them, less for the littlest one though and all based on need but keeping it in a fair ball park). And about £120 on DH. I reckon he spent the same on me. So probably £1k for family gifts. Other various gifts for family take us another £500 approx and food etc maybe £300. Say £500 max with activities, decorations etc.

We don't like to spend loads on Christmas and birthdays but try to be fair. We do tend to buy what we need/want during the year if we can afford it and same, within reason, for the kids. It seems to work as the kids never really ask for much and seem pleased with anything really.