How many people do you buy for?

[Lovemusic33]

And how much do you spend per person/child….not including your own dc?

I’m just writing a list of people I need to buy for, 9 children and 10 adults, I have cut down on who I buy for but can’t really reduce it much more, the kids are mainly my DC’s nieces and nephews (my ex’s children’s children), so I buy them gifts from my dc who are not yet adults and then my niece and nephew. The adults are my parents and their partners (both remarried), my best friend, and my one remaining grandparent as well as the DC’s father and his partner (again I buy a token gift from the dc).

So if I spend £10-£15 on each that’s still over £200 😭

How much do you spend on each child/person? And how many are you buying for?

Are there any good token gift ideas for under £10 that will get used and not end up in landfill?

My husband is from a huge family. 10+ siblings, dozens of nieces and nephews, and even more dozens of great-nieces and great-nephews. Many years ago, before we were married, we used to buy for all the nieces & nephews. We also used to buy a token gift each for each of my cousins' children, of which there were about 12-15. As the years went by it dropped away, firstly to only the under 18s, then only the ones that we actually saw, and now for his family we only buy for about 6 or 7 children, spending about £15-£20 each. On my side I just have three nieces & nephews, on whom I spend £20 each. Over the years we've stopped buying for extended family, neither of our parents are alive, we stopped buying for siblings by mutual consent, and have never bought for friends etc. So although we still spend a fair bit on our own kids, the actual spend on others is now only between £150-£200, far more manageable than the days when it would be at least £500 and often a lot more.

Parents, mil, dsm and dsf, 3 adult dc and dgd plus 2 partners

Ds, dh and my DN x2

Good friend

Manageable and will stop when my dns turn 18

Ds 13yo - depends what he would like. Most has been £350 for a bike plus maybe £100 on stocking fillers & extras. A nightmare this year because he's too old for toys and isn't into clothes/music yet.
Dsis1- £50
Dsis2,3,4 - £20 each
DB1,2 - £20
Anyone else - chocs or nice food, maybe £10 each

Usually 12 people and £550 in total.

My budget is:
DD (two) - £200
DS (newborn) - £30
DH - £150
Mum - £60
Dad - £60
Sister - £60
BIL - £40
Cousins x2 - £10 each
Cousins child - £20
Grandparents x3 - £10 each
Aunty - £10

DH buys for his family, I don’t get involved in that.

I have 3 to buy for as my dad lives overseas and we don't do presents. I used to spend about £100 on my mum before she passed away.
My adult DD and DS each have in the region of £300 spent on them.
My future son in law has about £60-80 depending on what I can find.
I start shopping in September and listen out for things that they mention so they always get lots of random useful stuff. I had great fun wrapping an ironing board the other year!

Dd did suggest secret Santa but I like to buy for them as I want to treat them itms

I tend to incorporate son ils gifts into the budget I would spend on 0ne adult dc itms so spend same amounts on my own ds as the couples

Just totted up and it's 47 this year. I did all the Christmas shopping already and spent around £1500, so average around £30 per gift, although some on the list will have had a lot more and others e.g. neighbours just a token small present.

This has definitely given me food for thought about trying to trim the list down for future years. If someone had asked me I would have genuinely said we did have many to buy for

Forty seven! Wow,

Makes my Xmas look like a walk in the park.

@MintJulia

Forty seven! Wow,

Makes my Xmas look like a walk in the park.

Make that 41, just realised that 6 on the list are actually the various family dogs

Please absolve yourselves from token gift giving. It really isn't necessary, and places a huge load on resources, both in terms of family finances as well as the planet's finite ones. You remember letting go of token Christmas card exchanges? The gifting for extended family and friends falls away just as easily and it is such a relief.
DP and I, despite both having living parents, siblings, nephews, nieces and cousins (no gifts for them), only buy each other one thing each, but only something we really want or need and would likely have bought anyway, preferably second hand. We buy fairly modestly for the DC. Until now, it has mainly been second hand stuff (a delight to research and source quality pre-loved tech, books, clothing and toys), but I am having to eat my eco hat a bit this year as DC1 really wants something which isn't available in pre-loved condition, and I can see this becoming a thing as the DC move through their teens and a pursue niche hobby.
Seriously, OP, unless you have money to burn, and don't really reflect on the unsustainability of extensive seasonal gift-giving in terms of the use of carbon and natural resources inherent in the manufacturing and distribution process of said gifts, just let it fall by the wayside and enjoy the relief!

All the kids in the family and friends children are now over 18 so get nothing.

Finally down to only buying 3 of my friends gifts and a parent.

So much waste and needless financial hardship on this thread, it's really sad.

I buy for my 2 children and my niece and nephew. That's it. And it makes everyone's lives better this way!

*2 children (1 gd, 1 best friends little girl)

*7 adults (including DH, adult Dd and son in law, 3 parents, 1 sibling (my brother) as he is single, lives alone and I like him to have a present, our mum isn't one for present giving. We've mutually decided with sil/bil to not buy for each other this year and have a meal out together instead.

*1 Dog, 3 cats in the family all get something small. (I'm aware they aren't classed as adults but they are on my present list

*1 work secret santa gift. I've tried to back out of taking part in this this year, but everyone thought I was joking. I do like secret santa as an idea, but I'm sick of coming in on my day off to do it, spending ages choosing a gift, spent way over budget and recieved countless crap bottles of wine quickly purchased on the way to secret santa (I don't drink).

Please absolve yourselves from token gift giving. It really isn't necessary, and places a huge load on resources, both in terms of family finances as well as the planet's finite ones.

Token gift giving in our case might involve buying our immediate neighbours e.g. some locally sourced treats / a bottle of wine. No it isn't 'necessary' but it's something they do for us so we like to reciprocate and it's hardly killing the planet

Yes a bottle of wine is nice and you may buy it for yourself anyway

I try not to buy tat for the sake of it now and would rather give vouchers or cash to family

too many.
Presents appear to be a big thing in H's family, and my suggestion of a secret santa went down like a lead balloon, so there's lot of extended family on his side to buy for. I agree with noeuf that for people you're tied to socially and see frequently it's not as simple as unilaterally stopping buying things.

I have stopped buying for my siblings and give just to nieces/nephews instead. I don't buy for friends other than my office mate. With my oldest friends we agreed to stop and spend the money on an evening out instead.

Anyone outside of the immediate family I stick to booze/good chocolate. Boring but relatively safe, and regiftable at least.

I’ve just totted it up and it is 28 people, which does include children. A mix of family, friends’ DC and teacher, cleaner etc

Some of those people I include only once, even though they need to be thought of more than once eg I have included DH only once, but I need to think of presents from me and presents from the DC to give him (or make sure that the DC have thought of this themselves)

Your Ex should be buying the nephew abs niece presents!

I buy for my sister - £30ish
BiL - £20
Nieces and nephew about £30 each
Friend - sometimes about £30/40
DH - £200
Kids - depends.

Luckily I've a small family! DH buys for his siblings.

5 grandchildren , and 10 adults 5 of whom we buy nominal gifts . For the non nominal adults,our DCs plus spouses we budget £50 per person and £25 per grandchild. We buy throughout the year so not a big hit at this time of year

We only buy for immediate family and a couple of friends children now.

Our DS - depends what he needs/wants. Anything from £100-500. We don’t really have a set amount.

My parents - £100ish
My GF - £50
My sister - usually a nice spa break or experience. Or something specific if there’s something she wants. We don’t really bother about the cost - She helps us with childcare and refuses to take any money for doing it so we like to treat her.

DHs family is us plus 5 other couples - each usually spent about £50 on each other couple. They decided a few years ago to do Secret Santa which was great - except instead of now buying one £50 gift for one couple (which I thought would be the point of doing it 🤔), MIL and SIL decided that we should each buy for 1 couple and it should be a £250 voucher for somewhere 🙄 We’ve done it the last few years and always try to put in a bit of thought to our voucher - a hotel/spa they like, an experience they’ve wanted to try, lessons for something etc. But the last 2 years we’ve received a £250 Boots voucher and an M&S voucher back. Which have been used obviously, but I really don’t see the point in all spending money just to swap generic vouchers!

Children of friends x3 - usually about £30ish each.

We have 16 people including our 2 kids, joint siblings/partners, dm and dn's. I keep costs down by following the Christmas bargain thread and also by buying early. I've also started to buy joint family gifts instead of gifts for individuals. This has halved the cost and made it much more affordable for us.

For the adults, I buy mainly token gifts such M&S biscuit tins and light up tea tins for no more than £5. The kids are between 4 - 12 so I'm buying them a cake jar set from B& M for £5. I bought dm and ds a toiletry set for £10 each from the Holland and barret sale. So I've spent £50 so far for the extended and for another £20, I'll be done.

I buy for 9 in total. My own 5 children, my husband and my Mum and Dad. I also do a secret Santa with a Mum group. Kids and husband £100, but I'll go over if they want something big. £50 on each parent, and £20 for the baby group child. I have siblings, and lots of nieces and nephews, but as I started having children no one bothered with them, so I stopped buying for everyone else.

Children we buy for: my nephew, my cousin's 2 DC, my DC's cousin on their dad's side, DP's nephew, niece and great-nephew, best friend's DD.
Adults we buy for: my parents, my aunty, my godmother, DP's mum, sister, niece and nephew and my best friend.

I spend very little on my parents as they don't want much plus have to take gifts home on a plane so need to be small/lightweight. My aunty and godmother I spend about £20 each and have flowers sent. DP spends around £20 on his mum and £10 on his other family. I spend about £10-15 on my best friend. I spend about £15 each on my DC's cousin's, £5 each on my cousin's DC, £10 on Best friend's DD and DP spends about £15 each on his niece, nephew and great-nephew.

I thought I didn't buy for that many until I wrote it down. I buy for 24 people and all of our 13 pets!

Of my 24, 11 only get very small token gifts around the £3-5 mark.

My parents - about £30-40 each
Dsis - about £30
PILs - about £30-40 each although spent almost £70 on FIL this year, he did have a milestone birthday recently though and I left DP in charge and he bought something cheap so I think it evens out
SIL - about £20
My GM - about £10-20
DNiece (3) - about £10-20
Token gift for my cousin - about £5
DP and I usually do around £50ish for each other but I bought him a new phone last year and have asked for some slightly pricier stuff from him this year but no more than £150ish worth.