to only spend £50 each on my kids this year?

[SmugColditz]

it never occured to me that I would be unreasonabl;e to do this, but an aquaintance of mine has said "Oh, X says she is only spending £50 each on her kios this year, I think that's really tight, don't you?"

And me being me, I told her I was only spending £50 each too (less on ds2, if I'm honest) because what the hell is the point of spending more than you can afford, and that she herself says her kids broke all their Christmas presents in 3 weeks.

And she looked horrified.

So, if you have a 'normal' or less than average income, how much are you spending on your kids, and AIBU?

no

Katie dd - how old are your children?
Can you afford £600? If you can and you feel your children appreciate their presents then it's your business.
My mum drilled into me that spending lots of money at xmas was materialistic and ostentatious, but she seems to have mellowed with age considering how much she now gets her grandchildren.

katie if you can afford it without regretting it then thats fair enough. Also think it partly depends on how old your kids are.
Mine are 5,will be 3 and nearly2 at christmas. They also have birthdays around christmas and for birthdays they get a bigger present from us so around £50 spent on each like this year dd1[whose birthday is the week before xmas] will be getting a dora vanity table[bought in may on sale at £29] and a pretend post office that was part of for £15 at argos the other part will be going to dd for her birthday as it is a sweet shop

My 3 are getting a "main" present each of £25 value plus stocking fillers and slippers, PJs, new outfit each. We have also spent money on panto tickets/trip to santas grotto (in anticipation of money rellies will give them) - so that will be another small gift and a very beautiful memory.

they will have loads to open and plenty over the next few days when family call too. They do not need 100s of £ worth of stuff.

they have to save up for anything extra they really want, but have to bank most of the money they are given.

I don't see any of this as being mean, just teaching them the value of stuff.

If I could have anything I wanted a new house and car would be great, but thats not real life.

Katiedd - it's possible if you frequent charity shops, buy things earlier in the year when they're in the sale, fill stockings with things from the pound shop and so on. Craft things go down well (keep them busy for ages), and are v cheap at Asda! At four and six, as mine are, they don't yet know the difference between new/second hand and expensive/cheap. Once DD starts school, I fear that may change, though!! (DS, fortunately, doesn't seem to notice what goes on outside his own whirring mind...).

My DCs will also be getting presents from friends and relatives (again, not expensive - but presents all the same!), so I doubt that they'll feel short-changed!

I do spend more than £50 but I buy throughout the year as all 3 dc have winter bithdays too so I have to be organised.

It gets harder as they get older. Dd1 is having a DS which costs more than enough but then I feel mean cos she only has one present.

I do go quite looney at xmas tbh, but then they have nothing else all year so I don't mind.

YANBU, £50 would buy alot of stuff if you looked in the right places. You spend what you can afford. It looks like I spend more than I do as I get alot in the sales or when there are offers and put it away. I think your friend is rather rude actually, as its nothing to do with how much you spend.

YANBU
£50 sounds plenty to me. We will probably spend about £30 on DD (who will be 18 months). Last year when she was 6 months we spent just £4.50! We could spend a lot more (well last year we could have done at any rate) but WHY? She had 4 toys from us (second hand but v good quality) and loved them all - result!

To be honest, I don't think it does get harder as they get older. Older children should be able to appreciate that they can't have everything and that sometimes parents can't or don't want to spend a huge amount of money. Sometimes not having everything also makes them appreciate and value the things they are given.

My 3 are aged 11-15, and our limit is still a maximum of £70-75 per child, including all stocking fillers etc. What they get varies a lot because each child is different, with different interests etc. So one child might get one main present and a few little things, while another might have a big pile of less costly gifts. But they are each happy with this, because what they get fits very very well with their personalities and wishes. And they understand that if they want anything that's out of our budget, they have to either save up for it themselves, or contribute to the cost of us buying it.

One of my children saved for 15 months for a computer, saving some of his pocket money every month and also having money from us and from a few relatives for one Christmas and two birthdays, so obviously not many presents during that time either. A long wait, but he really felt great once he could afford it!

They each make up a Christmas list for us and for any relatives who ask for ideas, and they are all good at coming up with a variety of items costing anything from a few pounds upwards, so there is always something for every budget.

Last year, one child 'only' got one main present from us, plus one book, a calendar (family tradition) and a couple of novelty things in his stocking. But he was thrilled with that because it was exactly what he wanted. His sister meanwhile had a dozen or so presents from us, because her list consisted mainly of things costing £5-10 each. And again, she was thrilled with what she got.

Presents don't have to cost a lot, as long as they are targeted really carefully and suit that child.

I think it does have a lot to do with age and spending loads on the under 5's is crazy.
Looking at what I've bought so far, they've each had a main present of around £100 and then 7 little things and that's mounted up really quickly.
Add to that their stocking fillers, chocolates, small etcher sketchers, socks, new tooth brushes etc it really adds up even if you start early.

DH & I have just been discussing this subject.We plan to spend about £25 each on the dd's and as I have picked up stuff in charity shops ect,it will go a long way.In fact,he has asked me if I can ask my parents not to buy the dd's so much as they really go to town.They probably don't spend a huge amount,it is just the sheer quantity of stuff & we only have a small house.

Smugcolditz,Boyes is great isn't it? I love it in there,een more than Wilkos!

I ai to hit the carboot on Sunday too.

This is all quite interesting! I can't really think of anything that my DCs would want/need that would cost £100. DD wants a grisly My Little Pony bride thingy, which is about £7.99; DS wants a stick of dynamite . He also wants a pipe organ, so I suppose that could take us into the thousands!

I liked ecoworrier's post, myself.

I hope that once my DCs are older, they will appreciate the fact that all our money is being spent on their super-duper education - but then again, methinks they might not see it that way for another, ooh, thirty years or so...

Furious - we are Wilko-lovers, too!!!

There's a particuarly horrid toy horse in there that DD wants, for a princely £4...

YANBU £50 sounds fine to me. We will propbably end up spending about £80 on our DD's but they are 21,18 and 16 and that incudes thier stocking presents.

Most definitely yanbu. We spend around £30 on birthdays and around the same on a main Xmas present. But then I do stockings with little bits in and they come in at about £20 I suppose.
My children do amazingly well for plastic crap at this 'most wonderful time of the year'. If we didn't bother AT ALL they would hardly notice.

I think £50 sounds perfectly reasonable. As other posters have said, you can only spend what you can afford, to get into debt for Christmas presents is madness, IMO. We are always on a very tight budget and have spent about £25 on DD's (aged 3) presents this year. We probably won't get anything for DS as he'll only be 8 months old and won't know any different. Both children will get lots from other relatives, no doubt.

I hope we won't ever feel we've got to spend loads on their presents, even when they're older. I hope they won't grow up to be materialistic. We'll be trying to instill the idea that Christmas is about spending time together, eating good food, having fun and playing games with a few nice little gifts as part of it all, not as the be-all-and-end-all.

Sadly, we won't be spending any money on a 'super-duper' education either, so I hope they'll make do with the local comp

Katie, I find it amazing that some people think children need or have to have a 'pile' of presents at Christmas. Does this not make them a bit greedy?

You see this what always makes me smile about these threads.
I asked a genuine question I don't know how people buy their children presents for £50 and in response I get asked if my children are being made greedy ???
The 6 year old is having a fairy castle and some fairies for her main present and that comes in at £100.
The little one will have a wooden dolls house that fits Barbie's etc again about £100.
The eldest wants a guitar and she'll have lessons too, so around the same hopefully unless she wants to become the next Jimmy Hendix.
They have a pillow case sized sack each and frankly I struggle to believe you can fill that with toys for £50.
We're all materialistic otherwise you wouldn't buy or want to buy anything at all.

Dottoressa,I fear that we already have that particular horrid toy horse.DD1 is horse mad and despite havng a suitcase full of garish horse/unicorn/pegasus combos {mainly car boot bargains},still feels that she needs more.

I see only one person answered dd's question. Which is mean of you.

NCT sales are not much good beyond the age of 4 though are they ?
Seriously I think some of you are in for a shock as the children grow older, not because we buy every piece of tat on the TV from October onwards but because bikes cost £80, rollerskates are £30, computer games are £30, even dolls can be £30.

I wasn't trying to be offensive about your children katie. It's just that you used the words 'pile'...I don't see why a child has to have a pile or indeed a sack full of presents. I would think it a shame if children came to expect loads of presents at Christmas/birthdays and would call that 'greed', but I'm sure not everyone sees it the same way. You don't HAVE to fill a pillow case with toys, surely? If you want to, then go for it but surely you can understand that others don't want to or can't.

FWIW, I would happily veto Christmas and birthday presents all together for everyone, for evermore but I'm in the minority in this in my family so I go with the consensus.