What age do 'kids' start buying presents?

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DP has two very lovely nephews, both working full-time and both living at home so with some disposable income I guess. They are 22 and 24 and DP's DSis still sticks their names on her cards and presents, ie they don't buy their own.

Is this normal? I've been thinking about it since they each turned 20 or so but maybe I'm wrong. DP has always spent about £100 each on his nephews, they were the only kids in his family for a long time and he loves to spoil them rotten so I feel like a little token present from them to him would be nice now?

My lovely nieces and nephews who range from 12 to 19 have always 'bought' me presents chosen themselves courtesy of my DSis so maybe this is skewing my thinking as I feel a bit sorry for DP. Our DD, 7, chooses little presents for everyone in the fam too (she wants to get chocolates this year). I think it's important to teach kids to give as well as receive I guess.

I don't buy for my uncles and aunts. I never have. I do send my own card but wouldn't be suprised if my parents still put me on cards, I know my uncle and aunt put my cousins on theirs to me despite them being in their 40s and also sending their own cards.

Thinking about it, I have never sent uncle and aunt a birthday card but I do my GPs.

Uncle and aunt don't give gifts to me any more but do to my DC.

My DC now 9 sometimes choses something for one of her aunts but not the other uncle and aunt as she isn't close to them.

My neice and nephew are primary school age but I'm not expecting them to get me anything when older either.

I don’t think they do start, could your DH spend less on each family member, give a family present, ditch the gift exchange or suggest a secret Santa?

I wouldn’t expect nieces and nephews to ever buy presents for us, unless we had a very close relationship more as friends than typical aunt and uncle. Aside from parents and grandparents, I wouldn’t expect the younger generation to buy for the older. And even for parents/grandparents I would expect to spend more on the young ones than they do on us, even when they’re adults.

But I also wouldn’t expect to spend £100 each on them! And generally in our families, present buying stops for “kids” when they turn 18.

I think I was expected to for parents and sibling from about 14ish? Never any expectation to do so for grandparents or cousins or aunts and uncles etc.

Found it massively stressful and was delighted when we stopped all adult presents on my side. I don't want DC to ever feel obliged to come up with ideas for us and have that stress or waste their money. DH is much more normal about presents than me and wants to encourage them to take some money each and start picking their own things out for us and each other.

Exactly the same here…x

Varies wildly by family. We never did unless they were with us for Xmas (but equally I can think of two occasions where one aunt/uncle bought us Xmas presents if they weren’t staying and DDad was one of seven). I do now send cards.

First few years after I left home I bought for aunts and uncles as well as cousins like my now ex-partner did. Then my Mum's youngest sister and her husband had a baby (they had no children when I was growing up) and said not to buy for them so I only bought for my younger cousins until my own nieces and nephews came along and I bought for them instead of cousins.

This is all really helpful! I will leave DP’s lovely nephews alone lol.

I have two grown up nephews (my late brother’s kids) who have always bought me presents and as I said I always get presents from my younger nieces and nephews thanks to my DSis too. I’m realising I’m a very lucky aunty! We are a very close family though, maybe unusually so? We all holiday today etc, I hang out with nieces individually and so on. Maybe it’s that.

I’ve never bought any of my aunts and uncles a Christmas gift… they also stopped giving me gifts when I turned 18.

We stop buying for nieces and nephews at 21 unless they want to start reciprocating. As yours have full time jobs and have no interest in giving you a card or present it is fine to stop. I wouldn’t give them anything this year or any year going forward.

My dneice and dnephew buy for grannie, their parents and my 2 kids. Smaller gifts but from their own money. Both have part time/weekend jobs. They are 17 and 15.

Ugh my partner spends hundreds of pounds on his DN’s (late 30s) and now his D(great)N’s (<10 years) for birthdays and Christmas, and he’s just received a single birthday card from all of them, and not a single token gift in sight. There will be no Christmas gifts for him either. There never is. I said earlier that it’s starting to get a little silly. He feels stuck as it’s become expected now. They also don’t buy anything or send cards to me or our children either!. My advice to your DH would be to start to pull this back and reduce the value, then he doesn’t end up where my DH with great nephews and nieces to buy for, on top of the nephews!

It’s largely family dependent but personally I don’t think you should buy for aunts and uncles. Neither mine or my DH’s family buy for anyone other than parents, grandparent, siblings and young children. The gift giving list is never ending if you start with extended family. For a lot of people it becomes too expensive. I also think your DP is being overly generous but if he’s happy to continue that’s fair enough.