Christmas Spend

[Rainie130]

Can I ask what is your total Christmas spend?
I'm expecting the total bill toaround 2.5k
5 kids, 2 & their partners, hubby, parents, brother & sisters, nieces and nephews, food decorations, cards and small teacher gifts.
Saved all year.

I've saved £1000 throughout the year and I will spend it all. That probably won't include the food though.

Presents for DD £500 max.
Presents for others £100.
Christmas events and parties £150.
Extra £50 on food and drink.

Around £1500
Only buy for immediate family, don't buy for nieces and nephews as there's 15 of them (selection box each)

Just over a £1000 this year.

Me, DD and my dad.

Includes all presents, food, activities and alcohol. I got brand new decorations last year so don't need anything like that for a good few years now.

This is the first year that DD has really understood Christmas so I have gone properly OTT on activities and the like.

€100-120 on gifts for DS.

DH and i do not exchange anything big, usually books and something free-time related (guitar thing for him, sewing shizz for me). We can buy what we want durung the year so do not bother at Christmas but i think it is important DS sees us exchange something.

We do not buy for others at xmas, but we do buy decent stuff for birthdays throughout the year, so not totally miserly. DS has a December birthday, nephew a January birthday, plus DH has 8 niblings - we just get a bit wiped out! We do go away for 3-4 days over DS' birthday (big holiday here).

We don't buy new decorations every year, apart from one new bauble/trinket for the tree. Usually bought during DS' birthday holiday - we love seeing them come out every year.

Christmas day is the 3 of us. We may entertain over the Xmas period and we'll do something big for new year with some other families. So entertainment probably another 100€.

There isn't panto here, or Santa Express or anything like that. There is a big Kings Parade on the evening of 5th January where the kings throw boiled sweets at kids from floats. For free.

Our Christmas is pretty pared back but we decorate, have an advent brunch booked next Sunday with a German friend (they go nuts about the 1st Sunday in advent, it is wonderful!). My family are spread out over the globe, DH's family are 'complicated', so it is the 3 of us plus friends for the Christmas period.

Wow that was long and pretty waffly
To answer your question, it looks like between 3-350€ all in for Christmas.

Can i put my tree up yet...?

Why are people buying teacher presents? Unnecessary and slightly ridiculous I think. Why not buy your GP one, and your local pharmacists, the person who delivers your shopping and the postie?

Yes you have a point @ajw88, it just seems a bit silly to me really, buying gifts for teachers for Christmas and then again when your child leaves their class etc, especially when some people can barely afford to buy for their own DC then they have to see other parents taking in gifts for a teacher!

My view probably isn't helped by the fact I've never liked any of my DS teachers enough to buy them a gift!

I save £100 per month for Christmas but the total spend is higher than £1200 as DH spends too and I will spend out of my monthly unallocated income as well.

Tbh, I can’t really cut it down. ‘Christmas’ entails a ton of extra shit not just presents but endless nights out, children’s school fairs, trips to cinema etc. It just is very expensive.

Next year I will up my savings amount. It isn’t ideal to have to save more for it but it is better than feeling anxious about the cost.

Groceries about £100 to £150 depending on what we are doing.

Presents,

DH £90 ish
DDs around £400 total

DH will buy his parents/siblings inexpensive things like chocolates.

No panto, school fair, teacher gifts, cinema trips here, thank fuck.

I have one work do which is a meal paid for by the company, usually a very good restaurant. And that's it.

I do not have the funds to spunk on one three-week period.

Around £500 on presents for my children, try and stick to £100 limit for gifts for 8 relatives, up to £200 on food, then a bit extra on outfits new decs if needed and trip out...that’s me splashing out wouldn’t know what to spend 1.2k on!

I should say that grocery bill covers more than just Christmas Day. Also, we don’t do nights out etc.

If I added up every little Christmas related thing, it probably would end up at over £1k.

I'm anal about most things, but I don't like to think about the cost of Christmas.

£250 on each adult son.
£100 split between mum, brother, his partner and nephew.
Normal weekly shop plus of around £50 plus about £50 on extras.
Another £50 approx on all the bits and pieces needed. Wrapping paper, gift tags, gift bags, chocolates, biscuits, sweets( I get all these from Wilko as the have a decent and reasonably priced selection)

My decorations, lights and tree I have had for years and I will get them out of the garage and reuse the.

So hopefully everything will be no more than £750.

About £1000 all in (food, gifts, decorations and extras). 2 dcs, me and DH. Quite a lot of family to buy for.

I have literally never even thought about adding it up.

A huge amount.
We host dinner for around 20 every year and both have large families, we buy for everyone. Both our parents have divorced and remarried so that’s 4 sets of in-laws aswell!
Plus we have a holiday straight after Christmas which kind of gets lumped in with the christmas spending.
I have only bought one thing so far

Up to £1500 which includes all gifts, meals out, food, wine and tree.

Nothing on decorations, we have lots.
About £200 on presents for DD.
About £100 on presents for others.
About £100 on food, over and above our normal food bill.

£400 in total. I usually spend a bit more than this, but I'm cutting back this year.

In Ireland and I think we really do overspend here.

4,000e we have budgeted for :
2 younger kids 650 ×2 = 1300
3 adult kids 250 × 3 = 750
Family and friends presents = 700
Food = 300e ( we don't drink so no alcohol and we host dinner for 11)
Each other 300×2 = 600
Tree and decorations = 150
Work xmas party and bits = 200

We both save 40e a week all year round for it.

DS £200, DH £150, others-all friends and family probably £300, DH will probably spend £200 on me
Nice food shop £200
I’d estimate £1000 altogether.

Probably £1000, maybe more. So far we have spent about £200 each on the kids, then about that oh each other. We haven't bought other presents yet but we will but have heavily cut back this year.

It's a bit like holidays spending...lots of posters will say they spend £5k in their family holiday, but the house home income is about £100k.

A percentage of income is more interesting to me. I calculate as a percentage of our household income our Christmas spend is 2%. We don't save for it at all.