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!

minimecantrollerskate I’d be very happy to receive one of your bags of goodies, they sound fab.

A good rule to live by if you want to have money in the future, is simply not to spend money you don't have.

Obviously mortgages are an exception because they are pretty much necessary.

But in your situation, I would not even touch a credit card. If you want something, save for it in advance and buy it when you have the money in your bank account. Yes you have to go without for a while whilst you save, that's life. The alternative is getting into debt.

I put away £50 a month out of my wages for Christmas. Then whatever is left rolls over to the next year.

I buy things on offer, these shopping list/ to do pass were £1.20 reduced from £4

I buy boots 3 for 2 gifts in the January sales, I buy 3 and get points, then buy another 3 and use a years worth of points to get them free - so purchasing 2 gifts to get 6 “Aunty” gifts or secret Santa gifts ready for next year. Only but gufts that’ll last.

I look at the decorations ready for next year and limit this to 3 new secs

I get gloves and scarves in the sales, stocking fills in sales and place them all together in attic with wrapping paper and Xmas cards

Get all this down and wrap on December 1st and write cards

Make chutneys, Christmas biscuits for neighbours and friends

Ask for ideas if the D.C. and limit to £90 each which is taken from general savings

I try to save throughout the year and have no debt apart from mortgage. I don’t go mad, but bits and pieces for stocking through the year. After Mother’s Day is a good time in supermarkets, this year I got DDs a notebook and small mirror with their initial in for about a pound each. I don’t buy for my brother and partner… I give to his DSC and he gives to my DDs and I try to spread shopping over 3 months at least

I grew up with a single mother and we did what we could afford. It never bothered me and it felt Christmassy no matter what we did.

We strung up fairy lights and decorations, wrapped the presents and put them under the tree, went out to see the Christmas lights, baked cookies, listened to music and watched films, and had stockings with cheap and cheerful things inside...it wasn't expensive. And that's how I'm doing it with my kids as well.

Buy now pay later from Very for more expensive stuff. And I've got 4 kids so I start about September/ October to buy little bits and pieces otherwise I get stressed.

Nc123 we also have a look at all the lights in the neighbourhood.

It really varies for us, you have not mentioned the age of your DD. When DS was little we spent £20 on his first Christmas and really not much at all until he was older, when he was 15 he had his most expensive gift ever, a high spec PC for schoolwork and gaming, that was 1.2k, DH built it, one bought outright would have been 2k.

I have bought DS, DH and DS GF gifts. This was all from a designer retail outlet, spent about 200. DH will buy his Mum something.

Life is unfair so Christmas needs to be about cutting your cloth, even if it’s not the Christmas you want.

My mum used to save each week when we were kids. I'm sure she ran a mini Christmas club with some colleagues and friends where they saved a small amount each week and could then spend it in the Grattan catalogue in the Autumn.

She also alternated a big Xmas and a small Xmas. One year we'd have a large £100 present like a bike, the next year smaller presents up to £50. We have high incomes but still do the same with our son. I spent £500 the year he had a Switch, but the next year £200. He knows and accepts he won't always have the same amount spent on him. I also buy him lots of educational presents rather than toys....he's having a raspberry pi and lots of books this year.

Also ask immediate family members to buy children what they want rather than anything. I've got both sets of grandparents buying off his list this year so it's less for me to buy.

Cut down on adult presents as much as possible.

Save Tesco/Nectar points all year and use towards food/alcohol/presents such as books etc

You have fifty weeks to save, Write £1 to £50 on a page, line by line. If you are flush, put £50 away (bank or savings tin or whatever) and tick that off. If you are skint, put away whatever you can spare, and tick off the appropriate line.
It adds up to quite a bit.
And my kids are experts at having leaky biros or whatever on clothes so they don't get expensive ones!

I would rather cut down the Xmas expenses- then spend another huge amount of money with additional knowledge of my current debt situation tbh.

@cookiemonster2468 of course children don't get everything on their list, otherwise I'd be out right now trying to source a real life purple unicorn

My point is even if I got 3 maybe 4 things of their lists it will likely cost over £200 each not including stockings. Toys like lego are on their lists, which are ridiculously overpriced. Neither of them get much throughout the year and if they do want something they either have to save for it or work hard or sometimes I just buy it as a treat.

I also don't buy everything brand new and will try and source things secondhand where I can, but it's also nice for them to have new things.

I shop throughout the year and start getting one or two food bits a week from September onwards so I haven't got to worry about the cost of things in December. I only have ds and parents to buy for this year so a lot cheaper for me than previous years.

When I was paid less I started shopping in October to spread it out. Now it mostly comes out of November salary plus a bit of December for last minute. I have an overdraft as a buffer. Then I get a bonus in December which pretty much covers the extra expense.

All told we probably spend £1000-£1500 extra maybe. Not as much as holidays, that's for sure.

I buy throughout the year as I see things in sales.
I budget and save for food and save for Christmas throughout the year.
If I do it correctly then I never need to touch decembers wage and it goes into the emergency fund .

I love the sound of that hamper, @minimecantrollerskate.

My DCs are all adults now, but when they were small I bought stuff for them throughout the year if I saw something on sale. I asked them to make Santa lists around Hallowe'en, and usually managed to get them about 2 items from their lists through careful shopping, although some years I did things last minute when pre-Christmas sales started. It really adds up with five DCs. Now that they're adults I still do Santa but we all do a family gift exchange on Christmas Eve, so each person gets a gift from four siblings, leaving me with far less to put under the tree.

I think the secret with children is managing expectations and plenty of chocolate and candy. I always bought a couple of new DVDs for everyone to watch, and cheap family presents like big jigsaw puzzles too.

OP, for non -family gifts, in your shoes I would buy something small and neutral like a scented candle from TK Maxx with a strict limit on spending per person. Minime's hamper is a super idea you could really run with.

@Poppets14

I spend probably about £300 on my dd £50 on my mum £25 for each niece £15 on my friend

and then my husband will spend
£50 on his dad and stepmum
£15 nephew
£15 niece

This is us being as cheap as possible

Me and my husband don’t buy for each other

If you are in debt because of this level of spending, then you are spending too much . £50 for your parents and £300 for your DD would be fine if you had spare cash but as you don't , this is too much . £200 for your DD and £30 for adults would get them all very nice presents but the money you save would pay for additional food/drink at Christmas.

Next year make yourself a realistic budget based on what you can afford to save each month. £50 per month x 10 months is £500 which should give a very decent Christmas all in . Can you afford to save this much? If not then cut it down a bit.

I use the Plum app and save into five different accounts for the various things like Christmas, birthdays, summer holiday, etc.

The Christmas one is for Christmas presents, all food and events over the month of December. I usually aim for £1,500 and always stay in budget. The leftover sits there in the account for next Christmas. Zero stress!

OP, I honestly think that rather than saving £30 per month to spend on one day every year is not the best use of your money, if you don't have a huge amount of it.

I don't see why you and your husband have to spend £50 on your mum or his dad and stepmum. If you bought them a nice bottle of something each, you could get something for £12ish. M&S always have offers on booze and half-price gifts pre-Christmas.

£25 is a lot to spend on a niece (depending on her age, you could easily give her a £20 present but buy it for £10 if you look out for offers - Martin Lewis Moneysaving Expert has good ideas in the run-up to Christmas - or a £10 gift voucher if she's older. Or look on Facebook Marketplace/Ebay/charity shops).

£300 is a huge amount to spend on your daughter, even if you are sharing the cost (though how else would you do it, if you're married?) I know many, many parents who spend way more than that - but I also know many, many parents who spend way less. I aimed for about £100 per child (which I know is also a lot in comparison with many other people - but it's the amount I can reasonably comfortably afford - and also not an amount which would encourage the DC to think they can just ask for stupidly expensive items and be given them without having to do anything). I now give my adult DC £50 cash and a couple of little silly things to unwrap (always from charity shops).

I used to make cards, wrapping paper, tree decorations etc with my children when they were little as it kept them busy when it was dark at 3PM. We still use the decorations now, and the youngest is 17! They're still our favourite decorations.

Christmas dinner is just a normal chicken roast (it's just the four of us, so no point buying a big expensive turkey). I get it all from Lidl, and it probably costs a tenner with extras. Tree is a fake one which I bought about 20 years ago in John Lewis ex display sale for about £10.

Entertainment is free, as we play silly board games and go to Midnight Mass.

So it's not particularly expensive, but we have a nice time and the adult children still like it enough to come home!

My only real tips are:

Buy things as and when you see them, if they are bargains! 2nd and 3rd weeks of January are great for buying socks, gloves, hats etc with 75% off, and if the children are little, they won't care that they were 'last season' by the time they receive them. Ditto decorations, wrapping paper and cards. Waterstones have in previous years knocked 80% off cards in January.

M&S have fantastic 'reduced to clear' alcohol ranges. You need to keep a very good eye on them, but they make brilliant presents. I invested heavily in good vintage port which was reduced from £20something to £6. Their own 'posh' gin in was recently reduced from £20 to £10. Small whisky was reduced to £3, so that will be my dad's present. So keep your eyes open, buy stuff and store it!

It's a bit tedious, but it's actually no skin off my nose as I don't particularly set out to haunt the M&S wine aisles. It's just that if I happen to see it while I'm in there, I buy it and store it!

This year is the first year I've set budgets and actually stuck to them. I've seen things after we've reached our budget for the kids and I've asked grandparents to buy for them instead so I know they've got things they might actually use rather than lots of plastic crap. We've only spent £80 each on the kids (4 and 2) and £30 each on immediate family (so x7). I've also got my youngests birthday and nephews birthday in Dec so it can be a bit expensive. We've been saving since July to be able to cover the costs and anything I've seen this month I've put on the credit card to pay off at the end of November. I've used a Fox & Moon Christmas Planner this year which has been a god send so I can write down everything I buy rather than just sticking it in a cupboard and forgetting what we've bought and how much we've spent. I think this is the first Christmas we won't be going into January with Christmas debt.

@TheChild

This is the first year we have saved every month for Christmas and we saved what I thought was a good amount. Made the mistake of discussing Christmas shopping with some of the school mums and realised it is NOT enough, one mum was spending £400 on 2 tracksuits for her DD 😳 I have a feeling most people put it on credit cards, because I can't understand how people can otherwise afford all the stuff they are buying otherwise.

Please don't make the mistake of getting yourself into debt trying to match this ridiculous level of spending .

1. Put some money aside in seperate savings each month, it could be in a jar, savings on banking app, somewhere where its visibly set apart from other available money
2. If you have a massive jar of coins (some people chuck change in them) regularly use coinstar/ coin convertor and add it to savings.
3. Shop in sales throughout the year
4. Save up boots points to use in xmas 3 for 2 offers.
5. Use offers such as tescoclub card to get things half price or on offer.
6. Keep a list to hand for present ideas and things you have bought to keep track
7. Should have put this as 1 but try and think what a reasonable budget for Xmas is to you personally, try not to think I should spend so much because x y and z person spends this amount - what would you like to spend? Use this for a rough idea of how much to save each month.
8. Keep in mind things you've learnt from past years - what did u spend on that was a waste? Can u cut down on stocking fillers, certain activities, etc. Some people buy new decs every year - is this necessary?
9. Try and be more mindful of your purchases ie. Is this going to appeal to my kids interests/ something they want? Or is it I am buying this to make up quantity/ cos everyone else has one, or its a panic or guilt purchase.

10. Try to reduce impulse buys -if you see stuff online keep it in the basket/save for later to see how u feel about it later even if you leave just overnight.

I joined my local credit union. It saves my child benefit (part or whole, I decide) in a locked acct which becomes open in October.

DH gets a bonus in May, and we always put away £1500 for Christmas and DSs Christmas birthday/ party. Similarly, we decide on an annual holiday budget and put that aside. Before this, we used to save on a monthly basis.

We save per month. I must admit that I have overspent, mostly on decorations. Something I'm going to have to do cut back on next year as we clearly have enough. I do go overboard with DH gifts because we don't treat ourselves much during the year. Don't have any children though.