How do people afford Christmas?

[Poppets14]

Just been out Christmas shopping and have had to use my credit card and store cards.

We are remortgaging the house in February and paying off our debts so we are back at square 1.
We are in about 4K worth of debt so not a massive amount.

My question is how do people afford Christmas? Everything is just so expensive.

Do you save all year?
Buy throughout the year?

We are getting are finances in order next year and I do not want to fall into the debt hole again!

My DC are both under 4 so don't need a lot spending on them - I save £25 a month towards Christmas so I have a £300 budget to spend.

I don't think there's any way you can afford Christmas without debt otherwise.

Also, as always, spend within your means. If you can't afford a £300 presnet for your child then they can't have one. It doesn't matter what other people are doing.

How many nieces are you buying for? £25 each seems a lot.

If you have storage space could you buy in the January Sales/Summer Sales etc. Keep a record of what you have bought, for who and where you have put it and keep it in your phone.

I’ve done it before where I’ve started early but then found the stuff I’d bought for the kids wasn’t what they wanted and the couple of things they got that they actually asked for were their favourites. So now I save and try to get what they ask for (within reason) even with saving though, it doesn’t feel like money goes very far sometimes.

We don’t really do the massively expensive Christmas experiences as I just find it’s too much pressure to have a great time and somebody is usually poorly, so we just make use of what’s free and sometimes see Santa at he shopping centre or whatever.

We don’t go crazy with food and drinks. I save nectar points and use them for whatever we’re having on New Year’s Eve.

@cookiemonster2468

What a load of rubbish “it’s the way you think about money”….err no it’s about how much money you have

... which comes down partly to how you think about and manage your money.

If I was £4k in debt there is no way I'd be spending money on Christmas.

Yeap - and OP doesn’t consider 4K massive 😂 it’s not spare change.

Honestly with social media etc new stuff to buy is shoved into our faces every day. It can be hard to escape, wefeel like we ‘need’ things. But we don’t! Christmas is all about the atmosphere, walking in the Christmas markets, being with family etc.
When did it become about the presents?

I buy throughout the year and buy mainly in sales and secondhand. The charity shops will be full Dec-Feb. I have space to put away things until the next year.

I'll save toys from party bags, Freebies etc for stockings if suitable.

We tend not to have turkey on the day (we had pie last year) and ask for food and alcohol gifts so don't buy cheese, chocolate, wine etc. So food bill is low.

We do splurge on Father Christmas trips etc though so I do these little things to even it up a bit.

I save £50 to £60 per month throughout the year apart from December and January.

I only buy for DC, DH and DM.

Also my top tip - there’s always something nice to eat that’s a reasonable price. I don’t buy people ‘stuff’ for Christmas. Everyone has far too much already.

Since the pandemic a lot of home bakers have sprung up offering nicely wrapped cookies, cupcakes and other goodies. I’m not British so I also buy desserts from my home country that’s very well received.

@Turtletastic

Those who say they only spend £100-£150 on their dc, what age are they?

I know my dd is 9 and one of the things shes asked for is at least £50
Ds11 has asked for some games for his playstation and most of them even if secondhand start at £30.
I don't go overboard but things are getting more and more expensive and will only continue to do so as they get older.

Both my DD’s (8 and 6) have asked for a ‘main’ gift which is around £50. I have a £150 budget per child so the other £100 will buy a few other medium sized things and their stocking.

We put £250 a month away for birthdays and Christmas

The covers parties a
for 2.dcs birthday present x3 dx and Christmas presents for 3 DC plus family presents but not for me and dh.

We used to get into debt but like you got fed up so now save up for it

Saving mostly. My 1st Christmas home from travelling I had a crappy little plastic tree, and really wanted a real one. So I kid you not, for the entire year I put €1 into a money box, come Christmas I had enough for my real tree (I had a really really badly paid job)

I have a direct debit set up to put £10 a week into a savings account. I use £100 per child (2) for birthdays and Christmas, then have £100 left for wider family (mum, sister & nephews x3).

If we have money to spare over November and December then I will spend a bit more or get bits in with the normal shopping, but it's enough to cover everything if it needs to.

@Poppets14 if it’s a struggle then consider joining park and setting up a direct debit for love to shop vouchers. It spreads the cost of Christmas and you can use the vouchers in loads of places to buy your gifts. They do specific store vouchers too. Worth a look for next year?

www.getpark.co.uk/budgeting/catalogue/c303/love2shop-gift-vouchers.item

List of stores that accept the vouchers
www.highstreetvouchers.com/gift/where-to-spend-love2shop-vouchers?sen=love2shop&link=10&id=875668

Ever since we were married, and back then very low income workers, we have put in a set amount per month in a separate Christmas savings account, back then it was £50 a month although it's more now. It's a habit that has just stuck, I've never missed the money as we've always done it but it's always been a relief to not stress about that time of year, and I love it so I like to prioritise for it even when money was tighter.

buy to your budget, not to what other people are buying.
So £50 for one family is a lot per child, and for another family they spend £300.

If you haven't got it, don't spend £300 on your dd.

Buy toys second hand. We got so much lego like this when ds was small, plus sylvanians which was dd2s thing.
gets harder as they get older, but yes, ebay is amazing.

Buy through the year, or save through the year.

Buy some things in the january sales, I always get christmas cards and wrapping paper at 20p each and then put them in th eloft and forget

Don't through away decorations (I had no idea people did this until I read mn) Use same each year.

Food, you don't need to drown in food for a week. Buy some treats and spread them out a bit, make it special in other ways, so we get a Christmas ham and make a big thing of having it one evening a few days before Christmas, and then have it for lunches, this makes lunches special all week. (my family LOVE the Christmas ham)

We save £X every month (Jan-Nov) then have December off and use this for all the Christmas shopping - presents, nights out, food and drink.

We save a lot each month so this gives us free reign in December to do the above. However we have no debt though so I appreciate we're in a much better position than others. If we had £4k of debt (which to us is a massive amount!) we'd be looking at reducing our Christmas spend and saving a bit each month towards it all.

Also by saving a set amount per month, it means that if I find things I like or need to book Santa visits etc earlier in the year the money is already there. I tend to start shopping in October so appreciate the money being there.

We have a savings account into which we save. chunk of money each month. The savings are not necessarily for Christmas, but if we don't have sufficient money in our current account when buying presents I will dip into the savings to pay for it.

We save £50 a month by standing order and try to top it up with any little bonuses, wins or unexpected funds. This year we have £800 in the pot.
We host (normally 8 guests in total), which costs a couple of hundred. The rest is for presents/Christmas outings. We dip into our 'standard' December salary as well (and don't save the £50 that month!)

I don’t think it’s that unusual to spend £300 on a child at Christmas.

Nor me.

I've bought my teen daughter a 'new' phone that cost 250. Even then apparently it will be barely average (which I find reasonably hard to comprehend, we aren't poor by any means but phones are fairly likely to get broken/ lost!). According to her everyone has iphone 11 or 12s so assuming these are Christmas presents 300 looks low! She's currently got a samsung galaxy S7 which is apparently one of the worst phones of anyone.

Of course like the stories of £200 tracksuits it may not all be true.

i buy things i can freeze in the few months running up, i save my clubcard and sainsburys points to use on bits and pieces. I keep an eye out for bargains, i make presents where i can use my skills, and stick to a strict budget.

My family is quite small, and my kids old enough to ask for money from everyone, and know not to ask me for high ticket items.

I afford Christmas by not spending £300 on my DD.

I'm sure your DD doesn't need that much spent on her. She'll always expect a lot if you always spend a lot.

We spend about £100 max and most years not even that amount.

Our Christmas isn't too expensive (for us). We use the same decs from one year to the next. We host and spend about £150-200 on food and drink, but end up with loads of leftovers to eat for the following week. I buy only for my husband and parents and spend about £200 in total. I'd never get in debt for Christmas. If we were having a difficult year, we wouldn't host and would say no presents.

I don’t spend £300 on mine because I don’t have £300 to spend, it’s as simple as that.

Tbh, when I've been strapped for cash I've been upfront with people that we couldn't really afford to do proper gifts, and have just done tokens for adults (kids get proper presents).

What someone else spends on their kids is neither here nor there - it's about what YOU can afford. Your daughter will benefit more from growing up in a financially stable, debt-free household than from getting a bigger Xmas present.

Sometimes credit cards are unavoidable, but I wouldn't be putting things like a present for your mum on credit card. If you said to your mum, "We're really skint right now and will struggle to do proper Xmas presents, do you mind if we just exchange small tokens?" I bet your mum would understand. Parents shouldn't want their kids to get into debt for them.