I know there unreasonable but £30 is insane!

[FranksBank]

To spend on someone you don't really like. For Sectet Santa

I am very PT and have been asked to arrange this, with them saying 'we knew you wouldn't want to join in because you don't celebrate it' I do actually celebrate it but I'll gladly let them think I don't now!

Anyway, the budget the person asking me to arrange it has set is £30. They want me to send out the email asking people to opt in, and mention it's a £30 budget.

AIBU to actually ask what madness has embedded within her to think this is a fair amount?

I said 'Is that not very high?' And she said 'Sent it out after Halloween! They'll have time to save, won't they?' And she seemed very smug to announce this obvious information

It's a school. Nobody is rich.

This puts me in mind slightly of something that happened about 15 years ago, when DD was in her early teens. She joined an online group of fans who were into a particular 'thing' that she was into. There were 11 of them - including her -from all over the world. Only 1 other was in the UK. (The other 9 were in America, Canada, Europe, and Australia.)

They all made an arrangement to send gifts to the other 10 (for Christmas.) Just something small - like around a fiver's worth. Maybe a small piece of jewellery ... Or some kind of Christmas novelty gift.

DD bought 10 gifts costing about £5-7 each, and also made a bunch of friendship bracelets, (or rather I bought it all, as she had no money at 13-14 y.o.) So that was around £60. Plus a tenner for the friendship bracelet kit.

THEN it cost around another £35 for the postage for them all (because - as I said - 9 of them were overseas!) So around £100 altogether, 15 years ago! I was a bit pissed off about it, and said it's too much for people she has never met. She said 'but it's not much, only about £5-7 each!' I couldn't get it through to her that this was multiplied by 10, and then the postage on top was almost as much as the bloody gifts!

Then shocker! she got gifts back from just TWO of the girls. TWO! And they were, a bookmark, and a keyring. One of them was from the other girl in the UK, and the other one was from a girl in France. I was fuming that we had spent all this money, and lots of time carefully selecting the 10 gifts, and making the 10 friendship bracelets, and then wrapping them, and labelling them, and taking them to the post office. We queued for ages and spend around £100 altogether, and she got just 2 out of 10 back! Just a handmade cardboard bookmark, and a 99p keyring!

Never again. She was upset and angry herself, and never sent anything to any of them again. The 8 who sent fuck-all said they 'forgot' or 'didn't have time.' Bollocks. They spent 30 hours a week on the internet!

Much more fun to put a very low cost on secret Santa , makes people think! Make it a silly amount like £4.44. And say receipts ma be asked for.

£30 for secret santa is ridiculous. I wouldn't do that.

This is why setting the limit at a fiver or so is a lot fairer, less room for getting it wrong.

If she hasn’t specifically told you not to mention her by name I would still go ahead and do it. Either that or say that or if she’s unwilling to put her name to it then you don’t see why you should. Lead by example sort of thing. They’re not going to discipline you for it realistically that would be madness.

3 things here.

1. If she can tell you not to say that she told you to put £30 budget, you are equally entitled to make sure people know it wasn't your idea. Eg. you can say "I have been told that the budget is £30".
2. If she actually does tell you she doesn't want her name associated with the £30 budget, what does that tell you?! It tells you she knows full well it will be an unpopular decision, in which case why is she insisting on it for something that's supposed to be fun?
3. As someone else has said, she can't tell you not to if you get the email out before she manages to tell you not to.

Is the assumption you don't celebrate based on your race?!!

Some good ideas I'd go with-

Dawn has ask me to ........

And

Maximum budget is £30 but do spend under if you prefer.

If she hasn’t specified that you should not say that she suggested £30 then just go ahead and write it in the email - she hasn’t said you shouldn’t!

Alternatively if you have to run the email past her before sending then when the questions inevitably come back to you about it just respond “the budget was Dawn’s suggestion which I did query, best to direct any questions to her about the amount”.

Why did Dawn say ‘we knew you wouldn't want to join in because you don't celebrate it' when you do celebrate Christmas?

So is ours!

£30 is our family Secret Santa, we can all buy what we need and it's really just to have something to give/receive on Christmas Day. I certainly wouldn't want to spend it on someone I only work with!

I would put £10 and tell Dawn it was a typo.

People will opt in if they want to do it - no one will opt in and it’ll fall flat.
then you can put your smug face on !

£10 is enough.

Even better, donate the money to a local charity. So wasteful buying a load of pointless tat.

That's really high for a work secret Santa. It's only supposed to be a bit of fun, not expensive gifts. Our friends secret Santa is €15 and our family one is €40 (and that's the only adult you buy for in the family)

Any at work are usually €10.

She's the office manager? Not getting how that is so much 'higher' than PA to the Head that you can't just say no.

But if so- put her name to the budget, set up an Elfster then wash your hands of the whole thing.

This sounds brilliant, imagination and fun rather than a lot of money.

With the cost of living impacting many of our spending habits, it seems that Over 50% of Brits will be on a budget of £10 and under this year. An admirable quarter of us are willing to spend between £10 and £20 but only 12% would be willing to spend more than £20.

Secret Santa 2023: Cost of Living and UK Office Workers Confessions (instantprint.co.uk)

We also do a family SS, budget is €50 but that is to get the recipient something that they really want and wouldn't necessarily buy themselves.
It's great because you can get something decent while sticking to a budget, and also don't have to spend €10 on each person buying six different crappy presents.
For work colleagues I wouldn't like it to be more than a tenner, surely the idea is it's fun not a special Christmas present.

Eg. you can say "I have been told that the budget is £30".

I think this is the safest route to take. You'll not have mentioned her, and you'll have made it clear that it's not your idea.

Then send it out quickly before she can tell you not to put her name on it!

I hate secret santa - such a waste of money on landfill crap. With my neighbours we went out to dinner, each threw in a tenner and the one whose name was drawn out of the hat picked the charity it all went to. £100 to MS Research rather than £100 of tat no-one needed.

I do it with a small group of good friends - £10 limit. Not everyone has lots of family around so it's more of a deal for some people than others. And they're GOOD friends, not just work colleagues.

I loathe it at work - enforced jollity. I've pulled my own name out twice and not owned up (I work in a school) so just bought something I knew I'd like. £30 is madness and unnecessary.

To be fair they can't MAKE you spend £30, nothing is to stop you buying something for £5. Its 'within budget.

I found people always bloody ignored the rules anyway. I found in my experience women would always swap to their best or close friend and go way over (both in amount of stuff and price) and the men never put in any effort at all often spending under on a last minute £1 gift or not bringing anything at all.

Nothing as awkward as a part time than sitting like a spare part while the cliquey full time girls spends 20 minutes opening 10-15 presents each with cries of 'I know I shouldn't but I just couldn't choose only one'. Then right at the end being handed a unwrapped gift of a mini Toblerone by Dave while John looks at the person left empty handed and announces with surprise (despite watching it all for the last 45 minutes) 'oh, is that today, yeah I forgot'.

£30 is way too high for a works secret Santa

Way too much. I came up with a good idea for my parents this year that will cost £40 and am splitting it with my brothers!!

Only my children get more than that spent on them.