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Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

How much have you spend on Christmas presents so far?

106 replies

Confused2015xxx · 16/11/2015 15:15

I've got most of my Christmas presents in and spent around £500 where my friend spent £3000.
What's the normal?
Maybe I spend too little.
£500 is a lot of money for me but my friend was like .is that all.

OP posts:
MsJamieFraser · 18/11/2015 07:28

Haven't even started yet... ds1 would like an xbox one, with 3 games, and skinny tracksuits,, ds2 would like nothing... so far we are looking at a wii u or a kettler go kart..

Normally we spend around the £1500-£2000 mark

cantgonofurther · 18/11/2015 10:02

£60- clothes from primark and books,art supplies from the works.
Used £60 in Amazon vochure on presents too

Coco7841 · 18/11/2015 10:40

Roughly 1000. 2 DC, my DH and 15 family members

elf2 · 18/11/2015 19:07

Spent £300 so far and the vast majority of that is on DS. We seriously scaled back on Christmas a few years ago and as a result enjoy it much more. This was due to clutter, mess, stress rather than money.

I've stopped exchanging gifts with friends at Christmas (but we make more of an effort with birthdays), and we don't buy for each others children either. No family adults apart from parents.

So we now only buy for DS, MIL, FIL, my dad and give a token gift to nieces and nephews (think small selection box +£10 - in contrast we spend £30+ on their birthdays). DH and I usually don't exchange gifts but I think we might start again next year.

In total we will probably spent about £500-600.

I think that is a reasonable amount to spend. We are pretty comfortable financially (we will simply save a bit less in Nov/Dec to pay for it rather than saving for it) but I don't think we have ever spent much more than that on Christmas. Only having one child helps a lot though!

I think as long as your friend isn't obligating people to spend more than they want to by reciprocating expensive gifts, and she can fully afford it, than each to their own. I would say your spending is more in-line with most families though.

I guess it also depends on how you think about things too...DH bought himself an ipad pro at the weekend - I think it was £700. I bought myself some make up and new clothes in the same trip (this was pretty unusual - we are generally fairly thrifty!). We could've swapped shopping bags, wrapped them up and gave them to each other for Christmas and added £850 to our Christmas budget and declared we exchange gifts (despite the joint bank account). I know MIL and FIL would've done that!

Likewise we gave FIL £350 for something he really wanted to do with one of his hobbies, but couldn't justify financially, a couple of months back. No way would be call something that expensive a Christmas present though or even a birthday present. It had to be a one off 'because we love you and knew you really, really want it!' gift.

ItsaTenfromDen · 18/11/2015 19:15

No idea. I've got a list of everything bought and the cost. Will add it all up when I've finished shopping

I don't have a budget but do try to get things when they're on offer to bring the cost down as much as possible

Flossieflower01 · 18/11/2015 19:23

About £400 so far, got another £800 ish still to get (but that includes two laptops so should be fairly quick to buy).

HowAboutCleveland · 28/09/2017 14:31

Normally around £600 that includes all presents and Christmas lunch and alcohol though

Knittedbreasts · 28/09/2017 14:38

What is the name of this Christmas present app?

Ohwell14 · 28/09/2017 15:11

Just bought my first two Christmas items on amazon. With a grand total of £16. But I know dss will really like them

NoWordForFluffy · 28/09/2017 17:07

Can we please stop bumping old threads?!

MyDcAreMarvel · 28/09/2017 17:10

Knitted it's manage Christmas.

Ohwell14 · 28/09/2017 17:12

Lol Jesus didn't realise it was that old Blush

fuckingroundabout · 28/09/2017 18:23

Birthdays are within the vicinity of Christmas so 2 children for both Christmas and birthdays I have just spent £750 and am finished

Lovemusic33 · 28/09/2017 20:03

I have spent nothing Grin
I don't have a budget at the moment, will spend what I can afford, hopefully less than £500.

Gammeldragz · 28/09/2017 21:21

So far... £130 on 3 children. I have got half the stocking stuff, pyjamas for all three and main presents for all three DCs and a book each.
Still need a few more smaller gifts to get for the older two.

Family gifts I haven't got yet, apart from DSis, £7 on books.
Family are 18 in total and I budget £10-15 (usually closer to £10) for each. Hoping to give DH back responsibility for buying for at least some of his family...
Haven't bought DH anything yet, aiming to spend around £50.
So total spent is likely to be around £400-500 once my gift from DH is added.

Badders08 · 28/09/2017 21:22

Up to now ive spent £600
Not much more to get - maybe £150? Worth

christmasunicorn · 28/09/2017 21:23

Budget is £100 per dc (5), £100 on dh, £15 per adult family (7) and £20 on dneice, so total budget is £725.

So far BlushI have spent £456 on just the dc well over budget. Nevermind they will have an amazing day

BBTHREE76 · 28/09/2017 21:51

I am a bit odd in that I also add in all birthdays to my Xmas app (as I am o so organised for Xmas but forget birthdays completely). Its currently at £1427. I think this is sort of on track as I aimed for £1500 and only really have to get DS this years black ops game to get now. Though I will get the twitch Wink

MuddlingThroughLife · 29/09/2017 08:20

£731 so far.

Made a good start on our three kids, dh done unless I see any cheap novelty stocking type things and bought a few things for other family members. 🎗

MuddlingThroughLife · 29/09/2017 08:21

I also use a gift list app. Got all the gifts listed and prices so I can keep an eye! 🎗

ConfusionIsNothingNew · 02/10/2017 14:19

I’ve been using the Santa’s Bag app for DS (3). His budget was £200 and I’ve spent £205 so that’s him done.

I’ve nearly £200 squirrelled away for DSD (19) so she just gets that in cash.

Still to buy for DB and his fiancée, my parents and in laws but they will just be small bits and bobs.

Oh and DH!

wendz86 · 02/10/2017 14:57

I'll probably spend around £400 in total including my children. Have spent about £25 so far on two sylvanian sets for dd2.

BiddyPop · 03/10/2017 09:09

Actual money is roughly €235.

I expect to spend another €700 or so, absolute max, including DH, DD's birthday present, and things like new pjs for the family and the advent calendar fall within that budget too. And I have over 50 to but for altogether.

I will probably actually spend less than €400 more in reality - especially if I can make crafting time instead.

Justdontknow4321 · 03/10/2017 09:21

Spent approx £1700 so far. Not finished at all... still need to spend approx £300 on kids still

That does include a trip to Disneyland Paris returning on xmas eve which is the kids main present and they will get £100 each to spend in the shops there as well.

Dalphidol · 03/10/2017 09:26

0 Grin I have a lot of birthday in sept/oct.

I usually have started by now but dc are spending the day at exs this year for the first time ever so it will be considerably less than I normally do.