I want to spend no more than £70

[TabithaTwitchEye]

MAXIMUM for DD's Christmas presents. She's just turned 3 this month and I spent far too much.

What sorts of things would a three year old girl like? I'm thinking volume over quality, to be honest. She's got a scooter, balance bike etc (both of which she hates!).

£70 is my real maximum. If I can get lots of things to unwrap for under £50 I'd be delighted.

Sticker books
Crayons
Other random craft stuff
Books
Duplo
Beads to thread
Plastic animals
Ikea play tent

Hell you could get a mountain of really good stuff for your budget!

Thank you! That list is really helpful!

Stupid question - where's best to buy cheap plastic animals, craft stuff etc? Most stuff I've seen (on Amazon to be fair) is about 10 quid a pop, which is too much

Look at 'the works'. They have loads of kids craft stuff at reasonable prices.

At that age, craft stuff would be a huge hit. With lots of glitter! Maybe some stamps and ink pads, or glittery paint (Poundland). And sequins.

How about food/other items you don't usually buy? Sparkly bath bombs, cereal selection pack all to herself, Frozen branded pasta shapes; things she might ask for in the general grocery shopping which you absolutely refuse to pay ridiculous amounts of money for have to say no to.

The Works is ace for craft stuff. It's so cheap. They have an online shop and there's often codes floating around for money off or free delivery.

For cheap craft stuff, agree with The Works, or else try Poundland/Home Bargains/B&M. Don't forget the glitter

They usually have nice books in as well, and Home Bargains/B&M might even have the groceries - B&M have a lot of American sweets/cereals in.

I love The Works for crafty stuff/books/cheap but resilient toys. Lots of bargains from there and they often do vouchers on their homepage for money off when you spend X amount.

Also, the Entertainer toy shop usually has some good bargains.

Duplo was a huge hit last year when DD was 3. If she doesn't already have a toy kitchen Ikea have brought out one for £25. DD and all her friends still play with theirs.

Aldi are stocking quite a lot of cheap presents for that sort of age plus 'present' socks / pants / pjs

Also try eBay for bigger things? In my experience, kids that age don't really know about 'new' and boxes etc. I've bought a ton of track and trains which I will just wrap up in a shoe box or similar. Great way to get way more for your money.

I've spent £75 each on my 2&3 year olds this year. They have 2 bigger presents each and then lots of little bits and pieces - colouring books, stickers, playdoh, pens, notebook, pants, bubble bath, annual, chocolate etc.

You can pick up some really good imagination play stuff for £20ish - eg a shop till and play food, play camping equipment, post office etc. Hours of fun at this age!

Indoor tent filled with balloons.

Place marking for ideas.

There are some lovely Christmas activity books in Lidl, can't remember if they were £1.99 or £1.49.

Bath toys?

Thank you! Brilliant. I'll try and find some time to get down to Aldi and Lidl. So hard when you work full time and don't drive.

One important thing I've learned from her birthday (literally a couple of weeks ago) is that that what I think is a good quality present etc, does not have the "wow" factor when unwrapping. We're really quite skint now, so it's all about not getting into debt but making sure that she enjoys the experience of unwrapping things on Christmas morning, if you know what I mean?

Fill a large box with balloons. My children loved it when they were young x

Poundland is your friend here (if you can get to one). They have some nice Christmassy DVDs and books in at the moment suitable for preschoolers. Plus their perennial great craft range (I really should have shares in them).
Wilko's also do decent affordable toys - a lot of baby doll accessories that are quite fun, if that's what she's in to?
Charity shops great for cheap children's books. Jigsaws and board games and stuff too. I got DD a box of My Little Pony fuzzy felt from one last weekend for 99p. It is, after myself and her father, probably the thing she would save in a fire.

I think that's all we've spent, we tried to get around 10 presents.
Dressing up outfits (good old EBay)
Playdoh tool kit (£10 on Smyth's)
Pop up pirate (£10 on Smyth's,)
A stuffed bing (£7.50 on Amazon)
A stuffed Sula (£7.50 on Amazon)
Kinetic sand set (£15 on Amazon)
Poundland jewelry
Poundland colouring books and pencils etc.
Peppa DVDs (£3 on Amazon)
Twirlywoos bath boat (£7 Amazon)

I think a 2.5 to will be happy with that.

Just as an aside:
Over the 2.5years we've probably spent over £1500 on toys and she spends zero time playing with them. But give her an old suce pan and wooden spoon, she plays for hours. Give her an empty bicuit tin, its a mountain and a drum and tool to reach what she shouldn't.
All those things that people said about kids playing with the empty box and not the toy are all true.

So unlike last year where we agonised for weeks over what to get her, a kitchen with light up hobs and sound effects etc which now gathers dust, this year we've got a few bits we hope she'll like.

Tiger is a good place for cheap gifts. Also, Cex is great for cheap dvds.

Home Bargains do some lovely dressing up stuff too. I have not looked recently, but I have managed to get some nice things on the Kiddicare website before now.

There was also another website mentioned on here, the other day. Hema - Some of there stuff looked nice - Not seen it in real life though.

Also, H&M and Primark, and sometimes even Matalan, do some nice bits. Elc do free click and collect, and they quite often have reductions.

There is a seller on Ebay, at the moment, selling some brand new Wow toy sets (admittedly the small ones, for £3.99 but they are on Buy One Get One Free). They could be good, if that your dd's sort of thing.

I daren't do a link because last time I tried to link something it went wrong!

Hope you enjoy getting all her presents together. I love getting my ds's presents.... It's the wrapping up I can't stand!

Some of their* stuff looked nice.

My dd3 has about £70 spent.
£25 wooden train
5 books for £5 at the works.
Stocking about £15, try and pick up bits for less than £2. Most shops like tesco have a pocket money section with the toys which is good for stocking fillers. My dd like cars and you can get hotwheels for £1.50.

One of the best cheap presents my DSs got was a Jenga (cheap imitation) set. They never really played it as jenga tbh but they loved the wooden blocks :) They used them to build parking bays for their cars, walls for their little characters to fight over, pens for the zoo and farm animals to live in, towers to be knocked over by superheroes etc etc.

They were massively into lego as well, but I think they truly had value from that jenga set that I think cost about £2 or £3!