Thanks Fluffy, but I'm not that organised - lots of things don't happen in our house!
SpecialK24 I'm not fab at excel but I can do basic formulae etc on it. So I built a spreadsheet with columns for :
everyone's names,
a basic budget amount,
ideas column,
a column for "have" (which is words early on to show what's been bought or made already, but as it gets closer, that changes to Y, W, S for yes, wrapped, sent - or whatever stage its' at yet - the actual present words are changed in the ideas column to what has been bought),
a "make" column,
a "yet to buy" column (both those 2 are words columns),
and then 4 columns of figures - yet to spend, spent, total, over/under budget.
The main formulae are:
the total column is adding yet to spend and spent columns together.
over/under column is taking total from budget column.
end of each column is totalled also, to show how much my overall budget is, how much I still expect to have to spend, how much I have already spent, overall actual totals and an over/under expected budget.
Every year, I just copy and paste the current page for next year, clear out all the actual presents and re-do the budgets, and start again. And adjust column widths (ideas is always wide, but I have it set up to print wide (landscape or whatever the tech term is...).
Underneath the main list, I have some ideas for craft projects that might be useful to consider. And some years if I am very organised, I log what's in my present box, that has no assigned person yet. But most years, I'm not that organised.
And it means I can make sure I don't forget the after school club driver who always gives the DCs sweets, or the particular person who has been really helpful one year, by just adding them in. Or give people the same thing 2 years running (I did that to at least 1 DSis at least once, and while DM loves Chanel No5, I prefer to not give that too frequently but try to find other things at least 3 out of 4 years, or too many years of golf or gardening stuff for DF).
But then I can easily delete a line when some people are no longer needing a present (like DD has left after school club, or an elderly DGranAunt has passed away).