Christmas budget

[Beachbreak2411]

I have £500 saved and probably £150 spare from this months pay check. I’m a skint single mum and saving the above has been hard. Am I completely unreasonable spending the £500 on my daughter and splitting the rest in my parents, brother and my boyfriend?

In your situation I wouldn’t spend £500 on my daughter . She’s only 10 and whilst she may go to school with wealthy children etc , you can’t compete with that so don’t try. I’m sure you’re doing a fine job of being a parent. It’s not a competition.
There’s a saying about making yourself poor trying to look rich .
In your shoes I’d spend £250ish on my daughter , £25 each on adult presents if I had too and I’d treat myself to a haircut and some new clothes.

a stocking can't be filled with cheap bits once they are a teenager - why not? . I have done a stocking fir my DS every year, he's 20 now , he gets toiletries, socks, chocolate, favourite cereal, nice biscuits... stationery bits for Uni, a £1 scratch card .... nothing expensive- surely stockings are just fun gifts?

I agree with those saying “spend some on yourself” as I said at the beginning of the thread. I’m a single parent and I put back £20 a week during the year, this covers Christmas and some trips out. I spend £200 ish on each dc (15,17) and I spend £100 on myself, sometimes a bit more if there’s something I need/want. So this year I have bought myself some boots and a couple clothing items. My dc like the fact we all have presents to open together. They get quite a lot with the £200, I’m happy to spend more if they need a bit of tech, last year Dd1 needed a iPad for her school work. It’s ok to spend £500 if there’s a big ticket item they need/want but don’t spend it for the sake of it, my kids don’t ask for designer clothes, jewllery, make up etc…

And we do cheep stockings, not sure why you would put anything over £5 in them 🤔, stockings contain things like bath bombs, American sweets, fidget toys, mini tools, nail files, lip balms, body spray, stationary, socks and chocolate. Nothing expensive.

OP if you're skint, please consider spending less on Christmas and putting £300 in a savings account for your daughters future!
I'm not skint but would cringe at spending SO much on one day.

Think long term & build up savings because as she gets older things get more expensive as well. £200 max on Christmas and the rest in a savings or premium bond account. That's £300 x 8 yrs =£2400 to put towards university & driving lessons when she's 18. Much better doing this than spending it on plastic shite eventually headed for landfill.

My ds is Yr 6 so is going on a PGL trip in July which costs £500 & I'm saving for it already. I don't want him to miss out on this so I've limited his Christmas budget to £200 max.

@Welcometothejingles PGL counts as childcare if you claim for childcare costs via government benefits, handy to know!

I think its wonderful that you want to treat your DD for Christmas, but why not buy her a bunch of smaller presents to say maybe £100-150 and then take her shopping in the sales with some money and she could have a fun day out with mum at the sales.

It is entirely your choice how you spend the money for Christmas regardless of what people say on here.

Well done for saving for Christmas, your not getting into debt for presents which is amazing.

Its also fantastic to hear you are putting money In to a saving account for your daughter long term, I wonder how many others here are doing the same?

Rather than looking at it from how much you will spend, why not look at what she would like for Christmas. Last year we didn’t spend an awful lot but my 12 year old daughter got the two things she really wanted, with 4 or 5 smaller gifts.

This year, she will also get the two things she really wants with 4 or 5 smaller gifts, and it will cost considerably more. I don’t really set a budget for Christmas then spend to it. I don’t see the point of spending money just so I can say I’ve spent the money. That seems wasteful.

This is one of the strangest uses of “skint” I’ve ever heard. You’ve saved at least £1250 this year, including a direct debit of £50/month to a 10 year old with a lot of savings!!!

I wish everyone who was “skint” was like this. We wouldn’t have to worry about people using food banks, etc.

I am not skint but I 'only' spend £300 on each of my two children and I think that's more than enough

I'd seriously worry about my kids attitudes if they regularly had £1000 gifts at Christmas. I'd genuinely be worried they'd get spoilt and not understand the value of things.

This is one of the strangest uses of “skint” I’ve ever heard. You’ve saved at least £1250 this year, including a direct debit of £50/month to a 10 year old with a lot of savings!!!

What a horrible comment. Aren’t we constantly telling people who don’t have a lot of money that they should be saving for things instead of using credit?

@Derbee

This is one of the strangest uses of “skint” I’ve ever heard. You’ve saved at least £1250 this year, including a direct debit of £50/month to a 10 year old with a lot of savings!!!

I wish everyone who was “skint” was like this. We wouldn’t have to worry about people using food banks, etc.

I agree...I think using the word skint is a bit insulting to those who actually are.

If it were me I would spend £2-300 on your daughter, max £50 each on parents and brother then spend £100 on yourself.

Saving that amount on your own is amazing and sounds like you deserve it. Merry Christmas OP!

Aren’t we constantly telling people who don’t have a lot of money that they should be saving for things instead of using credit? whats that got to do with the word "skint"

I’d genuinely be worried they'd get spoilt and not understand the value of things.

So people who don’t have a lot of money are raising their children to understand the value of things but people who don’t have to struggle are spoiling their children? Given the issues we see with generational poverty and the constant insinuations that people in poverty just don’t know how to budget properly, seems and unlikely scenario.

My daughter knows if she needs something, we can afford to buy it. She needs a new laptop as my old one just isn’t cutting it. We can afford to spend decent money on it rather than getting a cheap one my husband will constantly be having to troubleshoot problems with, so she will get one for Christmas.

She also knows that when she is spending her own money, it isn’t limitless and she has to earn more when she runs out. She is really good at looking for bargains and knows the difference between cheap and value for money at the age of 12.

Being our only child and knowing our financial future is as secure as anyone’s can be, she won’t ever have to go without, even as an adult. But she will be expected not to waste money unnecessarily and I’ve every confidence she will do just fine.

whats that got to do with the word "skint"

Because it can’t be both ways. We can’t expect everyone who uses the word “skint” to not have ten quid a week they can put away for saving, then blame people when they say their washing machine has broken down and they don’t have money to repair it. Or for going in to debt for things like Christmas.

If you value the necessity of saving, then it becomes part of the household budget just like food and electricity. If the total budget including savings equals income then that is being skint. Spending more on either of those if you don’t have to and foregoing savings isn’t smart.

OP has saved money despite being on a low income and you choose to berate her for saying she is skint? She is doing what is expected.

But enjoy the race to the bottom. Calling yourself skint in the U.K. when you have a roof over your head and food in your stomach must, by your argument, be offensive to those people around the world who live in a tin shack and have no money to feed their family.

Calling yourself skint in the U.K. when you have a roof over your head and food in your stomach must, by your argument, be offensive to those people around the world who live in a tin shack and have no money to feed their family nope the problem is there are so many in the UK who cannot afford food and the roof over the head- and its offensive to consider the word 'skint' to describe less than £1000 being spent on a 10yr old at xmas. Budgeting is fine and should be encouraged.

Yes, I agree...the op isn't skint. She's on a budget...like pretty much everyone unless they're extremely wealthy.

@BoredZelda

whats that got to do with the word "skint"

Because it can’t be both ways. We can’t expect everyone who uses the word “skint” to not have ten quid a week they can put away for saving, then blame people when they say their washing machine has broken down and they don’t have money to repair it. Or for going in to debt for things like Christmas.

If you value the necessity of saving, then it becomes part of the household budget just like food and electricity. If the total budget including savings equals income then that is being skint. Spending more on either of those if you don’t have to and foregoing savings isn’t smart.

OP has saved money despite being on a low income and you choose to berate her for saying she is skint? She is doing what is expected.

But enjoy the race to the bottom. Calling yourself skint in the U.K. when you have a roof over your head and food in your stomach must, by your argument, be offensive to those people around the world who live in a tin shack and have no money to feed their family.

The OP hasn’t found £10 to put aside every month. She has found over £100. Great to save, and budget. But to call yourself “skint” when you’re spending £500 on a 10 year old (and saving them £600/year ON TOP of their current savings as a 10 year old) is gone deaf, and insensitive, especially at a time of year when so many people who are generally “skint” have nothing.

We’re currently buying things for our baby who is due in the new year. There’s a lot to budget for. I wouldn’t talk about how “skint” I am because I’m wondering if it’s really worth a £450 car seat and rotating base in each car, or if I could budget and have a static base and seat for the second car.

Some people have NO MONEY, and just because you are on somewhat of a budget, it doesn’t make you skint.

@BoredZelda

This is one of the strangest uses of “skint” I’ve ever heard. You’ve saved at least £1250 this year, including a direct debit of £50/month to a 10 year old with a lot of savings!!!

What a horrible comment. Aren’t we constantly telling people who don’t have a lot of money that they should be saving for things instead of using credit?

but if you have savings you arent a skint... the definition of a skint is not having access to saved or readily available money.

Words have meaning... no one is saying it's bad to save (it is obviously great to save so you don't actually end up skint and desperate) but you can't claim your skint when you have a hundred in savings, that's like being a millionaire and calling yourself 'poor'.

£500 is far, far too much for a 10 year old (or anyone, really).

We are very comfortable but I would never spend that amount on a 10 year old. I would think about £150 tops (and only reason I say that is that this year DS - also 10 - is getting a cricket bat which will be about £100). Previous years I would have spent £100 in total, which would have covered at least 3 presents, like books, lego, clothing, etc. I think if you have too much in one go, you appreciate it less. I would rather space things out, keep some of the money for birthday, and just generally for having a nicer time year round!
Also, I think it's dangerous to get them used to expensive presents. Children are super happy with cheap things (my DD go mad for Claire Accessories type stuff), they don't need expensive things to be happy...

You can still have a lovely simple homely Christmas, that doesn't necessitate spending lots of money on gifts..Spending big, is not the meaning of Christmas.