How much spent on Christmas?

[cantstayaway21]

I have 4dc Only buy for them and me and dh and the normal food etc but We roughly spend about 2k each year. From my fb feed on xmas morning he seems my kids dont get much but 2k is alot of money!!

Wow!!! 😳 I spend about £1! That's for 2 DC, DH, 4 parents, 2 step parents, 4 nieces, 3 nephews, best friend, secret Santa, all the food and extras, and 3 dogs! How do people get up too £2+???

*£2k+

Also that includes presents for DH and all 4 parents from DC as well!

@SanJunipero

I spend £300, which I save throughout the year - but we only have one child (age 3), and I appreciate presents for DS will probably get more expensive as he gets older. I save my Clubcard vouchers throughout the year, which pays for a chunk of the food, plus our circumstances mean that we have a cheaper Christmas in other ways (we don't drink alcohol, are vegetarian, don't host, only exchange token presents with family).

You should feel proud. That fab how you do that! ❤️

I have two kids

I reckon they get a good pound each. Me and Dh usually spend about 50p. So we do well this year

Btw. I don’t have fb. Or Instagram. Thank god I don’t ever feel the need to share my hoard!

Honestly. I don’t have A clue?!? Nor do I have any idea what others spend. Nor do I care frankly.

My ideal Xmas?!? All my family. Near and dear and playing games. Laughing and love. I don’t need gifts.

Share my hoard is abhorant.
Share it with refugees, homeless service personnel, lonely older people, abused kids.

I save up all year, and my budget is 500. I usually spend a bit less.

@Nocutenamesleft Thanks I realise I actually sound a bit joyless when I say we don't host, but that's because we're not geographically close enough to family / other family members have long-standing arrangements. But my favourite bits about Christmas are all basically cheap/free: decorating the tree together, snuggling up together with a hot chocolate to watch a Christmas film, listening to Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve... I'm feeling all warm and festive thinking about it!

[quote SanJunipero]@Nocutenamesleft Thanks I realise I actually sound a bit joyless when I say we don't host, but that's because we're not geographically close enough to family / other family members have long-standing arrangements. But my favourite bits about Christmas are all basically cheap/free: decorating the tree together, snuggling up together with a hot chocolate to watch a Christmas film, listening to Carols from Kings on Christmas Eve... I'm feeling all warm and festive thinking about it![/quote]
Awe. Same! I couldn’t care less about presents. I host every year. I just love the whole family being together. I love it. That’s all I need for Xmas. My husband. My kids. My in laws. My mum. End of x

£250 on presents for my DS. Probably £100ish for my DP, plus £50 each for my parents. No more than about £50 on food/drink - it will be just me and DS on Christmas Day so I'll get us something nice in for breakfast and we do an indoor picnic for Christmas Dinner. Once he goes to his dad's in the evening I'll either go to my DP's or, if he goes back to his mum's for Christmas, I'll stay in with a bottle of red wine and a cheese board. So no more than £600 in total.

Just calculated it we spend 0.5% on gifts and probably 0.25% on extra food etc.

£500 total on gifts for the 3 kids (2 boys £200 each, 1 baby girl £100. We split costs so I'm contributing £250)
Me and oh normally spend £50 on each other.
I then spend up to £100 in total for stepdad, mum, sister and brother in law, I tend to spend most on my mum. I use up boots points in 3 for 2 and stuff like that.
We have tree and decs so no money's there.
Probs less than £30 on xmas day food as this year it'll be just me and oh and the baby, (boys will be with their other parents).

I buy throughout the year and use sales, club card savings, boots points and stuff to make things stretch far. Gift life app is used to keep track of everything.

People saying they spend £100-£200 assuming an average UK income (£30k) are spending like 0.5% of their annual income on xmas, that doesnt sound believable though that sound like you just want to 'win' at saying your cheapest

The problem is that not everyone has an average income.

When I was a skint single mum my spend was probably about £150 and that was a struggle. I do spend Christmas day with relatives though so didn't need to spend much on food.

I'm in a better position now, but with less than the 30K you are quoting. I will split the cost of Xmas dinner with my sister (we don't drink alcohol on the day which keeps costs down). I've bought a £10 Amazon voucher to put onto my account every week so have a decent amount to spend on presents this year. I'll buy bits and pieces elsewhere too but not more than £100. This will be the most I have ever spent.

I've also got no idea where the 5% comes from, this is the first time I have heard of anyone talking about spending a % of their income for Xmas.

if the 0.5% query is related to me - I will explain.
Our wage is (not much) above national but we have a relatively small family and we do not buy for a lot of extended family members. Our presents probably add up to around £400.

Food wise, apart from a few extra goodies we don't go mad with food, so the extra £200 is quite a lot really. This is of course on top of our usual food shop, but includes alcohol and taking anything to contribute to any parties we may go to.

If I add up what I spend in total on gifts for mine and extended family...
£900 on gifts ( for 16 people, including my kids)
About £250 on food and that includes Christmas Eve takeaway and Boxing Day buffet...
It helps mum works in a supermarket so we get discount on the food...

@Gingerkittykat

People saying they spend £100-£200 assuming an average UK income (£30k) are spending like 0.5% of their annual income on xmas, that doesnt sound believable though that sound like you just want to 'win' at saying your cheapest

The problem is that not everyone has an average income.

When I was a skint single mum my spend was probably about £150 and that was a struggle. I do spend Christmas day with relatives though so didn't need to spend much on food.

I'm in a better position now, but with less than the 30K you are quoting. I will split the cost of Xmas dinner with my sister (we don't drink alcohol on the day which keeps costs down). I've bought a £10 Amazon voucher to put onto my account every week so have a decent amount to spend on presents this year. I'll buy bits and pieces elsewhere too but not more than £100. This will be the most I have ever spent.

but £100 as 5% is an annual income of only £2000... nobody is that low, even unemployed single mothers get a lot more than that in basic child benefits (I know I was one).

If you arent on 30k then you are spending MORE than 0.5% though, the lower your income the higher the %.

You likely where on a minimum of £7500 (basic minimum annual income that even benefits will cover you up to unless your under 18) so you spent at least 2% which is someone believeble for a low budget xmas where as 0.5% and under etc... is only believeble if people either cancelled xmas or are millionairs.

If you read my posts you would know I myself only make £11,000 a year myself at 5% thats £550 for a family of 5 which works out correctly (I spend between £500-£550) as to what is saved and spent.

@Lola001

if the 0.5% query is related to me - I will explain. Our wage is (not much) above national but we have a relatively small family and we do not buy for a lot of extended family members. Our presents probably add up to around £400.

Food wise, apart from a few extra goodies we don't go mad with food, so the extra £200 is quite a lot really. This is of course on top of our usual food shop, but includes alcohol and taking anything to contribute to any parties we may go to.

so £600 is 0.5% of your income?

£600 x 2 = £1200 = 1%

£1200 x 100 = £120,000

so you have an income of £120,000 then?

thats way more than '(not much) above national average'

We save £1000 over the year, and spend probably around £800 of it on everything for Christmas and New Year.

I shop throughout the year for stocking fillers and gifts that I see that I know will be appropriate for various people. I have a good stash of wrapping paper and cards so rarely need to buy these full price, but I top up in the January sales.

The money that's left over is for impromptu days out, and if we don't use it, it goes towards birthday presents!

DH and I agree that Christmas isn't about giving a huge pile of presents, but is about spending time together and making lots of memories.

About £200 each on dc's presents (2 dc's)
£250 on gifts for others
£150ish on food and drink
£150ish on festive days out

£50 Buffer rounds it up to £1k. DH thinks we should spend less on gifts, I think we should try to get the gifts for others down but with 9 nieces/nephews it's hard. And their parents spend the same amount on our dc's as we spend on theirs. I refuse to budge on how much we spend on our dc's though. £200 is already a compromise, I could easily spend more. When I was a child we hardly got anything, my parents could afford more (not loads but more) but they thought it was frivolous. I can still remember hearing my friends at school talking about what they got for Christmas and how jealous and upset it made me. I realise that I could now be creating that situation for other kids and how fucked up it all is but I can't bare the thought of my dc's feeling like that.

@mam0918 not too sure where you are getting the £1200 figure from, we spend £600 total.

£1.5k on gifts and about £500 on food and drink.
We have a big family and we also host. Included in the gifts are gifts for a teen boy and girl that we give to a local charity (for the babies we lost). I love Christmas.

Stop the comparison. Who cares if your kids don't look like they've got as much as some kid on Facebook? This really irks me.

One year DS got a beautiful rocking horse, that I had restored. Because he'd asked for a pony, and no to that commitment! It's still here ten years on. But it was thousands.

This year one of DTwins is getting a big tool bench set up with a little hard hat, all sorts of toy power tools, that I got off FB for sale for under £10.

Both children got (are getting) what they want, and what they ask Father Christmas for. Why on earth do I care if the woman next door is spending 20 grand or twenty quid? If she hasn't got a little work bench in there, DS2 isn't interested, even if she's got ten gold plated iPhones.

Don't be a sheep.

I've never actually sat and worked it out but we've never had to do the 'big Christmas' thing yet as I have a just turned 2.5 year old and we also go to family on Christmas day.

We do secret Santa with both families so that's £100 in total for all family.
DH and I spend £20 each on a token present.
Toddler about £40 on presents.
Visit to Father Xmas £30.
Food...we don't host so just nibbles and treats over Xmas so maybe £50.
So maybe £300 including other trips out.

I’m guessing as a family we probably easily spend £1.5k at Christmas. We easily spend about £400 on food as but normally have 10 eating Christmas dinner and that includes all nibbles, chocs, nuts, desserts, Boxing Day buffet, booze, etc.

£300 on kids presents.

£300 on family presents - huge family with lots of kids!

£100 on Santa trip / panto, etc

£200 on work Christmas parties (DH and me so £100 each)

kids x5 £100 each
xmas eve box £70 between them
festive snackage £20
xmas eve treat meal £19
Xmas day food £40
Parents presents £40
husbands presents £70
boxing day McDonalds £55
advent calendars £5
stocking x5 £20
so around £920

god that's a depressing amount of money to spend on 3 days