Christmas Stocking Costs this year?

[neveroutofthekitchen]

How much are you intending to spend on stocking fillers per child? Are you cutting back this year?

no budget set yet, but it's somewhere I'll cut back this Christmas. We have bought expensive tickets to an experience, and our 7 year old (who never wants anything big), has asked for a Lego train set, which we know he would love. As a result, we'll spend less on stockings, but I need to get my thinking cap on. (Stocking will be the only additional gift we buy, together with the Lego (Santa) and ticket attached to a related hoody).

I don't really count it up but I probably spend anywhere between £20-£40 on my kids stockings and around £50-£100 on my husbands (he gets less actual gifts).
We all love stockings, I can count on one hand the items that my kids haven't been excited over. We open them first in bed before going downstairs.

My kids usually have things like
Pants
Socks
Toothbrushes (although this year it'll be new heads for their electric brushes)
Choc coins
Jewellery
Hair accessories
Lip balms/kids nailpolishes
The small orchard toy games, paint by numbers etc, I'm doing top trumps for my 6 year old this year
Stationery
Candy canes
Tubes of sweets
Small lego polybag

My husbands contains things like
Boxers
Socks
Sweets
Candy canes
Scratchcards
Guitar accessories (new strings, picks etc)
Keyrings (lego star wars ones, bands he likes and so on)
Beard oil
Moisturisers/deodorants etc
A new wallet last year
Beanie hat
Small lego set
Jewellery
Gift cards

My husband does mine and it usually contains things like
Makeup
Toiletries (usually Lush)
Jewellery
Stationery
Laces for Dr Martens
Scratchcards
Sweets
Small lego

Mine are in their teens/20’s so stockings are expensive.
I tend to go for things I know they will use like toiletries, spices, chocolate, mini alcohols.

Mine are 24 and 16 and their stockings this year will cost me about £200. like to do them 'luxury' ones and I buy from September to spread the cost a little

As to what goes in them

Dior aftershave in his / Lancôme perfume in hers

CK pants in his/ Nike crew socks in hers

M&S sweets and chocolates in each

Amazon gift cards in each

Costa or Starbucks coffee cup in each

Silver and Pearl necklace in hers this year and a silver chain in his

Jellycat Amusable popped in the top

I mean, I suppose some of the above could be classed as 'main gifts' - they just happen to be in a stocking!!
But I like doing them and they like receiving them and it's just how we do things

Round about £20 for DDs aged 5 and 3 this year which is the usual amount we spend.

Stickers
Temporary tattoos
Chocolate
Juice box
Hair slides
Crayons
Cuddly toy etc

We do stockings at the end of the bed, and sacks under the tree. Completely different purposes - the stockings are there to simply tell the dc that Santa’s been and to give them something to open when they wake at silly hours during the night. The sacks have to be opened as a family in the morning and contain all the main gifts.
Stockings have a budget of £20
Sacks are £100

I stick to £10 per human and £5 per dog.
So DH and I usually have sweets, chocolate and a jokey gift. DC have a Christmas plushy, 1 small bar of chocolate when they're over 18months old (fredo or mini chocolate buttons for example), a mini bath bomb (they each have a different baby shark this year), and 1 other random thing I think they'll like. And the dogs get a festive treat each. Only Stockings are from Santa in our house.

£10-15

I have mostly bought everything for this year - chocolate oranges, stationery, speed rubix cubes, socks etc.

Kids are teen/pre teen which is a bit easier. Nice consumables go down well.

No the stocking is such small bits that I buy as I go along. A lot is edible bits that I add to weekly shop.

Now mine are teenagers it’s the cost of the other presents that is an issue. Buying adult clothes increases the price so much.

In our house all presents bar one come from Santa so a lot of that goes in the stocking eg books, action figures, dolls etc. Stocking always has a selection box, chocolate coins, sweet tube, stationery, clementines, socks, toiletries. Don't buy anything just to fill it.

I’ll spend quite a bit on DDs but she’s late teens and then has probably 2 main presents. As well a bit of chocolate there will be Glossier and Charlotte Tilbury makeup, knickers from Victoria’s Secret (normally get their 5 for £25 offer). Then a couple of her favourite shampoo conditioner, shower gel. Couple of small bottles of alcohol.

DH

I'm not cutting back this year but I but stocking fillers that they most need and use e.g. toothbrush, toothpaste, bubble bath, flannel etc. They do get toys in them but not anything expensive. I never really set a budget for stockings, I just set an overall budget of £60 per child and try to stay under it as much as possible

I buget around £15/£20 for stocking fillers - I tend to follow the same sort of pattern each year which is:
Bath stuff - bath bombs, bubble baths, bath toys, shower gel
something useful- fuffly socks, character pants, toothbrush, hair bands
3 or 4 fun things - stress ball type toys, surprise bags, small stationary sets, bouncy balls, stickers, little art set
sweets
chocolate coins
orange in the toe
Something they both have - like touchable bubbles or a squishamal type toy.

Stockings are happily costing much less this year due to the fact that I massively overbought last year and held some gifts back. So for my DDs (10 and 4), around half of their stocking was already sorted - I've bought a couple of other bits and will buy edibles nearer the time. My DS(14) already had a few bits from last year too and I've bought the rest aside from edibles. I've spent about £10-15 each as opposed to about £40 each.

I've spent around £75 on Dd2's stocking and £55 on Dd1's

Dd1's main present is about £40 more expensive than Dd2's though so it all evens out. They have the same number of presents

We have a late teen who loves her stocking. She's had the same one so ce she was a baby & it's a bloody big felt one bought at a craft fair. It was easy to fill with cheap craft sets / toys when she was small & expensive to fill now that she's older.

I reckon we'll spend about £150 on it - makeup, perfume, toiletries, mini prosecco / cocktail, chocolate, make up brushes, fluffy socks, unusual small items for her room etc

She needs a new phone so that'll be her main gift -expensive but not hugely exciting really so I'm very likely to go a bit mad on the stocking.

Since she stopped believing in santa we've started doing stocking for me & dh too. We do each others.

I get him things like alcohol, book, nice nuts & coffee, gadgets, aftershave, nice soap, socks & any other bits & pieces I come across that he'd enjoy.

I also get him a main present & this year getting him a Sage coffee bean ginder to go with his machine.

He does my stocking & last year he filled mine with loads of loccitane products, mini champagne, my favourite chocolates & stationery.

The stocking have become one of my favourite parts of Christmas. I'll do one each for my parents if they stay with us too. The first year I did one for them they were so excited - my mother said she hadn't had one since she was a child & my father had never had one!

I have a different attitude to stockings, I don't buy stocking fillers as such, I just put small presents in it, things DD would get anyway.

So over the years she. had beauty stuff (bath, make up, creams), a power bank, books, an audiobook, a pocket warmer, T-shirts, travel game, pocket knife, head torch. Maybe some sweets just for her but. that's it.

I forgot to say that I always buy things as I see them in the 4-5 months before Christmas, so I don't have the expense in one go. We are also doing a stocking this year for our dog, she'll be 9 months old at Christmas so I'm going to include a few treats and a new toy.

No specific costs. What goes in the stocking is just what ever fits in it. Last year we introduced sacks so they got the bulk of the gifts and we just filled the stockings with chocolate.

I’d say our stocking cost is going up tbh. In our house the stocking was really just to entertain them in their own rooms before going downstairs for the “main event” so when they were small and into toys it was relatively inexpensive with most items only costing maybe a couple of euro.

Now as they’re getting older (almost 13 and just turned 11) their tastes are more specific but they still love a stocking so I’m buying a smaller number of items that cost a bit more and “filler” will be edibles.

I try to do the stocking for £10‐£15.

DD13 will probably price up at £15 or just over.
DS11 around £12 and DD10 less than £10.

Our stockings are quite small. Usually fit in a couple of small items like a key ring or a bouncy ball, a chocolate Santa and a pair of socks.

I'm somewhat agog at the size of some peoples stockings, they must be big enough for the BFG to wear surely??

I usually spend around £50/55 per stocking. They’re quite big stockings though:

Hot Wheels car
Boom City car
Mini phlat ball
Chocolate coins
Mini tub of candy floss
Tube of jelly beans
Multi-pack of Minecraft socks
Minecraft gloves
Mentos lip salve
Smiggle keyring
Smiggle spy pen
Smiggle highlighter pen stack
Smiggle eraser/sharpener
Smiggle pop out pencil case
Bakugan Deka (large)
Nerf bullets refill (20 pack)

usually do my nieces stocking for about 20 pounds or so she is 4
examples
slinky
small doll
choc coins
mini colouring set
hair bits
bath bomb
chocolate
pocket game
socks
lol surprise

In addition to stocking she has her main presents either in a sack or in a pile in the lounge. She has a seperate stocking with bits in it as above. Very easy to fill at her age relatively cheaply

my own 2 had them until they were adults

Usually around £50-75 each but they are more gifts than fillers.

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