Why do you spend what you do at Christmas and is the downturn affecting what you're planning to spend on Christmas?

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello all, I'm going on Radio 4's You and Yours this am to discuss Christmas spending. Would be great to hear your thoughts on what you are planning to spend this Christmas, how you got to that decision and whether you feel it's too much/ about right/too little. And also whether and how the recession is making a difference to your Christmas plans and expectations? Thanks in advance.

About £50 per DC, £20 each for close family, £10 each for friends. Where possible I home make gifts as they are then unique, and look a lot more expensive than they are. The overall Christmas budget is about £300, which we can comfortably afford.
Christmas is not about getting into debt to buy everything people have ever wanted, it's about celebrating the birth of Jesus, and gift giving should bring pleasure to both receiver and giver, not cause debt or embarrassment.
Personally I would rather a small token gift that has been given with love and thought, than a stack of "this season's must haves"

I've spent £200 on ds ( usual amount) and the same on dss ( which is a bit more than usual as getting him an expensive item). £10-25 on nieces and nephew, £20 on my parents and not sure about dh ( depends how much we have left nearer to Xmas). This is the same as usual, although pre ds we might have gone skiing for Xmas.

I spend as much as we can possibly afford. This year we have saved one thousand pounds with the credit union for our Christmas budget. This will buy new clothes and shoes for 3 dcs plus presents. We may also buy large presents on interest free credit. This year DD needs a new laptop for school work so she will get that for Christmas and we will get credit to pay for it.

We make a big deal about Christmas as the rest of the year is very frugal. This may seem a lot to others but we haven't had a holiday in years. The dcs don't get things through the year, birthdays aside. They also don't get regular pocket money. For us Christmas is a big deal and we like to make it special.

Where we have cut back this year is with extended family. Only children will receive a small present.

We also will not be doing a big Christmas food shop. Just normal food shopping with a frozen turkey thrown in.

We have a £500 budget that has to cover a lot of extended family so will be bargain hunting on e bay and making what presents I can. DS will be 3 months so will only buy him a token as all the family will spoil him enough.

Within mine and dh's families we only buy for children and parents (so not for our siblings or their partners). Also, DH and I only ever buy small token presents for each other, like one book or DVD. We started that a few years ago when we were getting married as we needed every penny.
This year I have been very strict on budget. I used a Christmas gift app to store all my present info and calculate exactly what I've spent. I've also done my shopping early this year, partly to control my spending as if I'm last minute shopping I'm more likely to overspend, and partly because I'm 38 wks pregnant

We're another family affected by redundancy; I was made redundant a few weeks ago and am 23 weeks pregnant with DC3.

I bought the children's presents back in September (as I had suspicions about the security of my job). I spent roughly £500 between them both, which is about the same as normal. What I haven't done this year, however, is pick up extras as I've seen them. Relatives (other than our only nephew who isn't grown up, and our great nephew) will get wine and chocolates this year instead of gifts. DH and I will buy one another a token gift, probably around £20.

Had I not been pregnant, our usual alcohol purchases would have been greatly cut back, but we weren't planning to buy much this year anyway! I'll buy less in the way of of junk that will never be eaten naughty snacky things from M&S and just stick to what we need for Christmas dinner. We won't bother wil a Christmas cake, but I'll make some homemade mince pies.

My parents etc are buying is vouchers that we can use towards baby purchases this year, instead of the usual restaurant/hair salon/clothes shop vouchers which will be great.

The thing I am most grateful for this year is extra time to spend with my children. Our Christmas will be far less extravagant than previous years, but I'm so glad of the all the time I have to enjoy with my boys. I couldn't have bought that :)

How much to spend is the current debate in our house.

My DH's family spend a lot more than mine on Christmas and we're trying to work out what we're comfortable with - the biggest problem being that DH usually spends approx £60-80 each on his DM, DF and DB. I'm used to spending £30 each on my DM, DF and DSis. The thing is, he buys only those three gifts whereas I buy for about ten people so we even out at the same gift budget! I just feel guilty that we buy his family bigger gifts than we buy mine!

i have been concerned about how much christmas was going to cost me, but will just do the best i can. i have 4 children so cant afford to spend a lot on each, but they will be happy with whatever they get.

I will buy good food, but not to excess, and will make a lot myself. DH and I being older, we have no close family still living so present buying will not be massive; however even if it were we would spend only what we could afford. If there are interest free credit deals available on expensive items, they are worth having, but getting into debt is foolhardy.

I don't change Christmas decorations to a new colour scheme every year, and have an artificial tree that will keep going for many years to come, which saves money.

I usually spend about £60 on each of my elder two daughters (6,4) but the eldest is getting a DS this year so that has bumped it up. I buy throughout the year and put it away, I also doubled up my Tesco vouchers on toys, such a huge help. The baby will be 10 months at Christmas and she is getting about £30 spent on her. I don't buy any food apart from nice nibbles as we all go to my Mums for dinner and on boxing day and she's be mortally offended if we gave her any money.

I spent slightly more than my parents spent on us at Christmas as I sometimes felt they were a bit tight.

Poundland, B&M has been fab for us this year.

The recession is really affecting us. Each child will receive a stocking, with assorted bits sourced from Poundland or the like, plus a used DVD and a used book and one 'big' present. I bought the eldest's big present used from a mate, used Tesco Clubcard Xmas Exchange to get the middle one's present for £12 and the youngest's is from IKEA for about £20.

DH and I are buying each other a used DVD and Wii game.

Everyone else is getting handmade gifts.

We are absolutely skint.

Food? Tesco Clubcard Christmas Exchange means it will cost us about £20 in total.

For the first time I am actually budgetting out the petrol for the various visits and trips to family. Usually I just absorb that into my general monthly expenditure, but I know it will be of an amunt to have a real effect, and that we need to budget elsewhere accordingly.

I am planning and timing my hair cut and colour to avoid times of maximum expenditure in any one month - i.e getting it done out of this months salary so that Nov's salary can go towards Christmas.

The 'joky' element of DS's stocking / sack will be minimal - we generally spend £100-150 on his christmas presents - will probably be pegged to the £100 level this year. DP and I will probably give each other a book plus things we have wanted fr the family anyway - a new HD ready TV to replace our ancient TV (in the post Xmas sales) and a SatNav to prevent the arguments that arise from DP's mapreading - our contribution to peace on earth .

So, we're amongst the lucky ones, not brassic, have absolutely nothing to complain of, but are being far more consciously thrifty and not leaving ourselves too exposed (we hope) for when the fuel bills come in.

Were spending the same but r getting more practical presents and less tat. For example in stockings- toothbrushes, underwear socks and choc- so things I'd usually have to buy. Then big presents likes bikes etc.

We only buy for children and parents here. So that's nieces and nephews my parents and DH's Mum. Plus each other.our 3DDs and our son in law. Also this year our great nephew but won't be buying for his Mum (our niece). Only spend about £8 on nieces and nephews. Not sure how much will be spent on our DDs but no more than £100 each and that will include stocking stuff. We will be spending less on DD1 as she's married now. We are going out fir Christmas Dinner so will be spending quite a lot on that.

I always put practical gifts like toiletries and underwear in stockings. Also I'll probably put a jar of coffee and some printer paper in DD 2's stocking as she is at Uni and it'll we'll save her from buying her own.

Compared to previous years, we've cut right back. No more presents for older relatives, about £15 each on nieces and about £100 in total on DD, 22 months (inc clothes and party shoes).

Food cupboard usually full to bursting but this year will just buy normal food shop with a few extra goodies. Will get wine and beer from Aldi.

Prob won't do lots of family visiting due to cost of fuel.

We spend £100 tops on our one and only DC and £50 on each other, we aren't doing any adults this year except our mothers who have a £20 cap, the children, had a £15 limit, as there are 5 of them to do in our family.

I resorted to home made gifts this year too, more personal and cheap to make., places like pinterest have been great for ideas.

For our christmas dinner, we have booked a place for christmas eve, cheaper at £14 for two courses than buying it in, and our mothers are buying their own. Then it's just buffet type food for christmas day, much cheaper and less stressful.

Have definitely cut down on spending per gift per person. We don't spend huge amounts anyway as there a quite a few to buy for. DS gets a 'main present', a couple of books, DS game, pjs and then stocking fillers. We prefer to spend throughout the year on football etc. Turned down going to the pantomine with friends for the first time this year. Have saved the supermarket loyalty vouchers for food.

We haven't massively cut down on our budget as are both (thankfully) still employed. We save £20 a week throughout the year to be able to enjoy Christmas, and from this money I will buy presents and have a splurge on the supermarket shop, which will include all our drinks etc, as well as have a few meals out. We spend about £200 on each child, and have a lot of nieces/nephews etc to buy for so the money soon goes. I would never get in debt for Christmas, but do like to be able to treat people, so am happy to put some away just for this time of year.

I have decided to try and fight the consumerism this year and we won't be buying new decorations, we aren't sending cards and we will be keeping spending to a minimum. Our DD is coming up 2 and I have the advent calendar that I had when I was a little girl, filled with a gift every day. I'm keeping spending on that to a maximum of £10. I'm knitting a farm for her, that will be our gift to her. She doesn't really play with toys so there is no point in buying anything for her.
We will be giving a lot more handmade gifts this year. The only money we will be parting with is for DHs family and my parents.

We are hosting both mine and DH's families this year so I imagine I'll probably spend around £500 just in Waitrose assuming i can get a delivery spot

Will probably spend another £1000 (total) on presents for family.

However, major expenses are flights back to the UK and a holiday cottage for the Christmas/NY period (made my eyes bleed). However, that's what I'm really looking forward to - seeing our families and them seeing DS (15mo).

grown ups have a greed on no gifts or small token ones
children will have gifts but likely more controlled

otherwise spend will be similar, but we never spend that much over the season