How much do you honestly spend on Christmas each year?

[MrsTxx]

As a family of 3 I’d say we spend around £300 on DS including clothes
Around £200 on eachother each
£200 on food (we host the family) and nice bits
£100 on alcohol
£400 on gifts for family (large family both sides)
So about £1200 in total, which we save up for throughout the year.
Interested in other peoples budgets and how they spend at Christmas

I try to budget about £250 each for my dc, but as they've got older it's got easier to spend more on less, so I've given up on a budget and spend what I like on things they ask for.

They also have a birthday a week after xmas and don't get much throughout the year so they do get spoilt
I also only buy for children, two nieces and my cousins 4 dc so all in with food probably about £2000

I save 1200 throughout the year, and sometimes go over, sometimes under.

£400 dh/my presents
£300 DTs presents
£250 parents presents
£250 food

Any extra spending is out of December pay packet, so we spend instead of saving that month. It only really gets expensive if we go away for New Years which thanks to covid last year didn’t happen, and I don’t see it happening this year either.

Like @IveGotASongThatllGetOnYNerves it depends on the situation. A few years ago we were struggling financially, the bulk for our DCs was charity shop or marketplace bought. The DCs didn’t know any better and thought everything was amazing. In total for 3 DCs presents we spent about £250, that included Our Generation Playsets & several dolls, heeleys, bike plus lots of other little bits from home bargains & other cheap shops.

As I normally shop throughout the year the cost is spread. Unfortunately we have a lot of family birthdays in Oct/nov/December that we have to buy for, its one of the reasons I like to get Christmas done early to manage the cost. We use to have a total of 13 birthdays to buy for on top of Christmas, we’ve now cut it back to 4 birthdays we buy for plus Christmas.

DH and I very rarely buy gifts for ourselves, this includes birthdays and anniversaries, if we do it’s something practical that would be part of our normal shopping. Although we are definitely treating ourselves this year. We are loving the idea of making our own stockings and treating ourselves to things we want rather than need. I’ve probably spent about £150 on myself already.

Our worse year I worked out we spent about £3000 that was just for 2 DCs gifts (2 & 4) As I was buying throughout the year I wasn’t keeping track of what I was spending, everything was new and I went a bit crazy spoiling them. That didn’t include Santa visits and pantos or other family gifts, it was also when we were buying everyone birthday and Christmas gifts, I honestly don’t want to know what we spent that year, I don’t think I’d ever get over it.

Although I shop throughout the year and I’m a very good bargain hunter, I do wonder sometimes if I spend more than if I just put x amount aside and did one big shop. I’m trying to keep a record this year, so far I’ve spent £110 that includes, zamfam nighties, underwear, grinch cushions, some stationary & poppits x 3, a HP quill pen set, plus FILs presents. I’ve also ordered some HP Lego for £40 from Aliexpress to see if it’s any good, if it is I may buy more from here for Christmas rather than the real stuff.

Oldest DC has asked for a Nintendo switch & poppits
Middle a HP invisibility cloak and makeup
Youngest, everything in the Smyths catalogue 🤦‍♀️

I don’t think about food & drink as we buy that whether it’s Christmas or not.

Oh I spend way too much it’s the only time I splash out though 😂

Presents

My kids at Xmas will be 9, 14 and 1
9 will get around 1000
14 will get around 1000
1 year old around 400
Food about 350
Days out this year we are going away so around 1200
Family and friends gifts around 700

@2021isnottheyear will you spend 1k on the 9 yr old for the next 5 yrs. What do you buy? I genuinely struggle to find stuff I think my dc would actually want.

Around 2k and that's for gifts, food, new decorations, things for Christmas eve boxes, alcohol etc

Last year I spent £800 on presents and £200 on food.
DD had £300 in presents. Me and DH don't exchange gifts if we want something we'll buy it ourselves.
It's a lot but we can afford it. In years we've earn't less we've spent less. My one rule is nothing goes on credit.

I feel like a miser but I dont have many to buy for.
Kids are adults and get whatever they ask for, usually around £40 but if they wanted something more expensive then I'd be happy with up to about £500 each.
Parents long gone, no siblings, no nephews or nieces. DP I spend about a hundred on a good bottle of whisky and whatever tshirt/special coffee/item he keeps mentioning.
I spend more time and money and effort on colleagues presents than anyone else. I have a bloody notebook that I go home and write down absolutely anything they may have mentioned that day that I could turn into a present somehow.
I did get a big boost last Christmas when one text me that I had really put some thought into what I had got them. Made my year.

Oh I forgot to add food.
Best guess about 200 for 3 or 4 people including alcohol. I'm not a big drinker, DP is almost always on call and cant drink. My adult children are not big drinkers. I like good food but not excessive amounts.

@imamule

When I look back on my childhood the things I remember least are the presents. I remember the decor (my mum & I go mad for this), the food, the family getting together, the magic eg Santa etc. That's what I hope to recreate for my dc.

A perfect example of how we are all different because Im the exact opposit lol.

My mam did the room FULL of gifts, it was utterly magical and such a breathtaking spectical to walk into your own house done up like those magical toy shops from old films with everything set out to play with.

I do the same for my kids... nothing is 'expensive' though, the most memorable gifts where always the cheapest which where always 'most fun' dispite mumsnet labelling anything like that 'tat' (but kids LOVE 'tat').

We have a tiny family (all together my EXTENDED family tree is just 14 people made up of 3 family units/branches - me, DH and the kids make up 5 of that 14 lol) and we live the furthest away so no big family get togethers (wasnt as a child either) its just us.

The food, well theres no point getting loads of food for 2 adults and 3 kids, we spend £20 and theres alway enough for twice as many people and half goes to waste - I see no point spending £200 when £20 results in waste - the food is similar to sunday dinner.

Decor is meh to me, a tree is a tree there all the same really and thats the 'main' part. Everyone here talks of making decor as a child but in real life I dont know anyone that did outside of the stuff you made at school... everyone had the SAME 80s decore (foil banners, glitter snowflake baubles and plastic iceicles etc...).

I guess Santa is part of the magic but we never had 'santa' gifts etc... as a child although we saw films with santa in so the concept was there. Santa gifts is something I added in for my children though.

When I look back on my childhood the things I remember least are the presents. I remember the decor (my mum & I go mad for this), the food, the family getting together, the magic eg Santa etc. That's what I hope to recreate for my dc.

Thing is it's not exactly cheap to do all this either!

It varies per year.

Whether I’m hosting or not, how many I’m hosting for etc.

It varies every year with present spending on DC, too. It depends on what they want.

I’d say, on average, around £200-300 per child.

Also, I spend around £100 on myself I’m a single parent and have been/will be for years (not interested in a relationship). I wrap them and label them from DCs

[quote lollipoprainbow]@MrsTxx why did you start this thread and why are you so interested in what others spend at Christmas you've said yourself you're 'loaded' just curious ?! [/quote]
People are just curious how others live.

People often say on here 'my kid only gets a lump of coal, think about how sad the poor children will be knowing your kids go an Ipad for xmas' etc... (ok over exagerated lol) but in reality we have NO idea what others do and spend until we read threads like these.

I had no idea gifts from 'santa' or 'stockings' where really a thing until reading mums net... as a kid a stocking just held fruit and nuts so it was mind blowing to see that some people spend £50-ish on a stocking and it includes things like clothing etc... (how does that even fit?).

Its fun to see that some people sneak into their kids bedroom to leave gifts on the foot of the bed (braver than me) or that some people dont open gifts until after dinner (how do they have that patience especially with little kids?) or that some people buy gifts for their post man (I like him, hes a real nice man but Im not even sure how that would work lol) and so on.

I would say around the £1k mark (family of 4 but large families on both sides.)

£100 on the DC each, so £200 total
£150 on each other
£350 on presents for wider family, both sets of parentse, nieces and nephews etc
£200 on food
£100 on other stuff.... decorations, visiting Father Christmas etc.

To be honest £1k feels like a lot although we don't go into debt and I think the DC will get more expensive as they get older.

We really don't have a set budget and we are probably not in the normal range of spending for MN.

We've just got the one DD so tend to spend more on her. Around 1 to 2k depending on her needs (technology, sports equipment etc.) can be as little as €400.

Neither of us live in our home country so we fly in our families for Christmas (pre Covid and hopefully this year) and rent a large ski lodge. We pay for ski passes and lessons for those who need them. It can vary from 10 to 16 people. We cover all of the food for the 10 days.

DH and I spend around €1500 each on gifts for each other.

We don't buy gifts for anyone besides DD and we don't send Christmas cards. The holiday is our gift I suppose.

I'm not really sure, like others on here my budget varies year on year.
I remember one year when dd would have been 2 we had moved into our first flat but couldn't afford decorations or anything, so my mum gave me her £35 clubcard voucher which I doubled up to buy a tree, lights, decorations and a few treats. Dd helped choose them and we had to balance the tree in her buggy and walked back her toddling along next to me pointing at the christmas lights.

We don't really drink (a choice we made, neither me or DH ever drink around the children), don't buy much extra for food probably an extra £100 over the Christmas period including chocolates for stocking etc.

Days out are free ones or we get offers, so maybe around £150 to include extra eating out/work do.

Presents are something I go crazy for, I buy throughout the year and I treat my girls alot. But they don't get anything all year. So others may buy a magazine or toy from a gift shop or give pocket money. We don't. Eg the other day I bought them a few fidget toys out of the blue, they were both so excited and couldn't believe that I did that, it was a really big deal to them. Probably spent about £20 on shein. We are going to buy less stuff and give them experiences with a corresponding gift for days out the following year. So usually gifts are about £450 each, we are aiming for less than £200 each inc stockings.

Other people £30 each x 6. Family kids gifts £10 x 3. DH £50. Dd has made noises about buying for her friends so we will order some bits on shein and give her a £10 budget to get them a pin badge each, split some stickers and some sweets from poundland. We do mean santa game that costs me £20ish.

Food for food bank £30, present for child in need £20.

Extra bits like decorations i limit myself to each of us choosing 1 new one each year so around £15.

We stay at a holiday cottage, which bumps it up, but excluding that probably £1000?
Don't spend more than you can afford. The only person who will remember how generous you were is your bank manager.
I'm trying to wriggle out of buying for now working 20 something neices and nephews who still live with parents. The complication is they have younger school ages siblings. What does everyone else do in that family dynamic?

Including days out with dc, socialising through the month of December and gifts, we probably spend @ €3,000.

@Saidtoomuch I’ve always been clear that I stop buying for DNs after they reach 18. Bit late for you obviously but in your situation (and assuming you’re reluctant to just stop) I’d switch to token gifts for the adults DNs eg box of chocolates, Costa gift card, bottle of wine sort of thing.

@WhatsMyNameGonnaBeNow so that its more of a "now you are a grown up" token gift. Good idea, thank you.

[quote Saidtoomuch]@WhatsMyNameGonnaBeNow so that its more of a "now you are a grown up" token gift. Good idea, thank you.[/quote]
Yes definitely - just token gifts so they get the picture! Do any of them read? You can get selections of thrillers, popular novels etc. discounted on 3 for £5 offers at The Works - a book and a card are a nice token gift for a twentysomething; or as others have said, some inexpensive wine or chocs.

Another good idea, thanks @irresistibleoverwhelm

About £2k but we also include a trip to the panto, meals out (I love our Christmas Eve meal out), special Christmas themed day trips in our budget.
We spend about £300 on food but otherwise pretty much the same as you.

We also have a trip to pick out our tree, the kids choose a new tree decoration each and we have hot chocolate and cake (probably a £100 altogether) which is included in the £2k.
I feel like we get a good two- three weeks’ worth of family time for that money which I think is a bargain really.

£1500 on Christmas and about £1000 on December Christmassy activities.