To ask what you are buying your dc for christmas and how much do you spend per child?

[mrsshears]

My 2 are 5 and 14 and i'm spending £250 on the 14yr old and about £150 - £200 on the 5yr old.
I would normally spend less on the younger one but she is having a tv and dvd for her bedroom which i consider a bit of an investment as i'm hoping it will last a good few years.
I find with older dc its getting increasingly difficult to spend less as everything they want is so expensive,on dd's list is an ipod touch and some vans.
I'm really interested nosy to see what everyone else spends and what you will be buying

Wow, this thread is an eye opener. My DD is 3 and have a 5 month DS. I definitely won't spend more than £20 on the baby, if that. My daughter, I'm not sure but it won't run into the £000's, thats ridiculous.

Maybe it'll be different when she goes to school, but whats my business with what her friends get for christmas? Its not a competition I want to take part in.

Now if you're talking ££'s spent on christmas food, thats a discussion I would join.

Am i annoying you? Good. Randomly plonking threads in aibu because you are too lazy to put them in the right place annoys me. Guess we are even then.

Nothing from me unless I win the lottery between now and then!

I have already bought 2 DVD's (car boot) and a book on science experiments. so that £10 already. DS has lot's of playmobil/lego/ Hornby stuff already (large family) and this year money just isn't there.

I really am tempted to go to poundland with £20 and buy him 20 gifts (inc stocking) because everytime we go in there he loves all the things they have. I admit none of it will last but he has long standing toys and doesn't actually need anything else and doesn't really want anything else either.

Probably around £50 each, that's what it's averaged over the past 15 years. So far only one child has asked for anything,a "VTech kidi secret", not sure if they even sell them in the UK, it's 30 euro, so I'm happy to say yes as way under budget. The children get one main present, same for birthdays, they have already been indulged with 2 * DSIs this year for birthdays which were 130 euro.

Mine are 15 and 12.
Yesterday one just had £250 spent on him (ps3 and stuff) and last week the other just had a TNF jacket for £175 + outdoor t shirts.
We have said we were happy for them to have them things but for Christmas we wouldn't spend much on them as usual.

I am planning on about £125 each. This is considerably less than normal.

BOO I am thinking of doing the same thing.

The expensive stuff the DCs received last year wasn't received any differently from the tat.

The only exception was a buzz lightyear outfit my DD wanted. She went mad with joy when she opened that!

YABU to talk about Xmas in AIBU and not the Xmas topic, which is where we're moving this now.
Thanks
MN Towers

It says Christmas in the title, so if you don't want to read about Xmas then you simply don't click on it! Why waste energy going on the thread to complain about it?

Mwa ha ha ha!

I usually spend about £200 on DD (3), but this year it's looking like £250-275 because she's getting a dolls house and is in need of more games, art stuff, and educational bits. Dd2 is due in 2 weeks and spending about £50-75 on her.

Olivia- YABU not to change the title of threads you move from AIBU. Without the implied AIBU at the beginning, the title now just looks daft....

I have 4 dc, 10,9,6 and 4.
My guess is we will spend about £100 on each, and maybe a bit more for stockings. I try and get a lot second hand (but goos quality!) as I am really tight with cash, and hate spending money!

dd1 needs a new guitar, so she will get one. This will take us over £100 for her, as she will also get some Michael Morpurgo books, smellies, Beatles watch, this , few other bits. She deserves it hugely though, as she plays her guitar for atr least 2 hours a day.

ds1 - Star Wars Lego 3 smaller kits instead of one big one. Also books, Mancala, Star Wars ds game, stuff about sharks

dd2 - a chocoalate roulette game (her request - loads of chocolates, but one has LOADS of chilli in it!), new baby doll, Ramona Quimby books, fairy dress, necklaces (hopefully she will stop pinching mine) this don't know what else

ds2 - I have got him a second hand mini micro scooter, he will also get books, a game, Playmobil or Sylvanians - not sure really!

Rustybear

maryz can I just add my idea for DS xmas this year came from you talking about the 'bags of crap' you do for your teens.

his will be a 'bag of tat'

tabout the bags of crap please, sounds right up our street

wheres the xmas topic

dont say a word

I am shamefaced to say I have no idea what the actual spend comes to, but I know I have saved a lot. For example, DD1 at almost 12 is wanting designer clothes, Ive been buying from Brandalley since the summer, eg an Ed Hardy hoody that came through with a tag on it for £135 which I got for about £30. DD2's 3DS which I got when Argos had the free game and accessory pack with them and paid a grand total of £15 for. I still end up spending hundreds on them but I reckon what they get is also worth at least about 3 times what I paid.

Main present is three books so about £15.

Christmas eve she will get a pair of pyjamas which I am thinking of making so just the money for the material.

A stocking which will be about £10.

So about £30

Me neither sleepywombat

Roindajean - if you have to save for months ( and presumably go without stuff to do so) so your kids can wear overpriced tat designer clothes, why are you feeding that materialism?

My DD is 12 too. She wouldn't know or care what a designer hoodie was if it jumped up and slapped her in the face. And if she did, and I couldn't afford it I'd tell her to stop being so daft.
Buying £135 tops for kids is obscene, even if you did get it for less, especially if you can't afford it, which you obviously can't.

It's so alien to me, honestly, none of my kids are the least bit bothered by designer or Xboxes or stuff other people seem to spend a fortune on. They are normal kids with normal friends, BTW. I do wonder how much of this excessive materialism is fed and enabled by the parents?

Well we decided this year that they get the big stuff from family so we'd buy lots of little bits as stocking fillers.

So far they've got
4 DVD's to share (£10 total)
a bag of sweets each (probably another £10 total)
Then each:
a puzzle (99p)
a dinosaur egg that hatches (£3)
a pack of seeds to plant (25p)
a lego car & person (£4)
a painting book (99p)
a notebook (£3)
some pencils (99p)

I make that just over £23 each.

Then I'm hoping to finish making some dresses for them. So we haven't spent loads but they've got a lot of things iykwim. I'll probably add some bits like toothbrush/toothpaste, socks, hairclips if no-one else buys them any.

DS and DD will be 4 & 3.

They will have a pile each of their own stuff (Ds & game, Wii game, board games, clothes, dvds, foodie/baking things, bath stuff, fancy dress outfit, books, etc)
Their own main pressie each (one of those big talking horses for DS and a rocking horse for DD),
Then a joint main present (Kitchen with accessories)

Also getting first bikes from my dad, bits from my sis, neice, friends, and cash from inlaws.

No idea how much I have spent but I buy most things in sales through the year or second hand, so not alot compared to the presents they get. For example, DD's pink ds lite cost £1.50 from a charity shop, and DS is having my old white ds lite for free :)

We spend lots of time over december doing mock christmas days with family we wont see on the day, so about 5ish mini christmas dinners and all the festivities that go along with it. I LOVE christmas :)

dd1 £70
dd2 £50
I couldn't justify anything more to be honest, they're 7 and 3.

I would not buy designer clothes for my daughter although that is very easy for me to say. My daughter is secure in the knowledge that she will never really want for anything, she lives in a nice house in a nice village , she has money for horse riding and just about any hobby she wants to follow. She enjoys a very comfortable lifestyle and therefore she has nothing to prove and neither do we. I have found that the higher our income the less we have spent on Christmas presents and the less my dd wants. The only time I have ever felt the need to overspend at Christmas was when I was a single mother struggling on benefits. I used the catalogues to buy my dd a dream Christmas because the rest of her life was so shit. I notice with my dd's friends is that it seems to be the ones with the least money who get the new phones and the laptops or designer clothes and having been in that situation it is easier to understand than to judge.