Total cost of Christmas?

[AltheaVestr1t]

Not a competitive spending thread! I thought I had budgeted and saved well for this year, but it's only the 7th of December and I can already tell that my estimates were significantly off. I'm not sure if it's the cost of living or just a general under-calculation of the associated spends - Christmas markets, teacher's gifts, secret santa, advent calendars etc.
I have started YNAB this year so it's highly possible it has always been this much, I just didn't realise.

All in all, I think I could book a week away for the price of Christmas, which is shocking! Does anyone have their Christmas budget nailed, or do you also find it always costs more than you expect? If you have it pinned down exactly, what do you think the total will be?

I don't budget particularly and I honestly don't know. Maybe next year I should keep track of it. I know that the meta quest vr for ds was about £400 and the Nintendo switch was about £300. So that's £700 before I even try to add up the rest of his presents, all dd's presents, food, stocking fillers, decorations (we got new trees this year), cost of meeting Santa, ice skating, presents for dh, presents for friends and family. Honestly don't have a clue but it's probably quite a lot. We go big at Christmas, we love it.

Just realised there's panto and new clothes and small things like advent calendars and crackers too.

I also found it's the little bits and bobs that add up. Admittedly I got carried away and the kids are mostly getting things they needed anyway but I've still got presents to buy and we're already around £1k. It's yet another thing to keep track of.

Can I ask why do so many people have 'teacher gifts' listed?

Most schools ask you NOT to send in gifts and most teachers (I know several) hate it because they have no use for 10 bottles of wine that arent their type, 7 boxes of chocolates, 5 mugs, some random mostrousity someone always gifts ect...

The teachers I know all make arts and crafts with the kids in school and the kids often make them a card and thats all they want, unfortunately usually most other stuff goes straight into the charity collection to go to food banks etc... (good cause but a pointless middleman)

So I would just save yourselves the money, if you do gift teachers the school usually have specific 'requests' that they want. Our currently want age appropriate books for the library and ask that 'only' that or a card is gifted (and they can no longer accept any food/drink items due to natashas law and possible allergies).

My friend has a child the same age as my son and they've both just started primary school this year but we live in different areas.

She said she's part of a parent group chat (I avoid all of these like the plague!) and the ring leader of said chat has suggested that they all chip in £30 - £50 EACH for the teacher and buy them a spa day/weekend or something 🙄

That is a lot of extra money for parents to be expected to spend and bearing in mind this is only Christmas; I thought the main gift you get a teacher if you get them anything at all is at the end of the school year in summer...

Sorry to derail the thread a bit 😳 I don't buy anything for teachers at Christmas, our school already bleeds us dry with Christmas Jumper days, nativity costume, big Christmas fayre and raffle etc. For 2 kids and eventually 3 when littlest starts school, that adds up to quite a lot!

Between 2 and 2.5K.

Presents for our DC £1200
Presents for family and friends £500
Tree and new decorations £100
Food and drink £250
Santa visits, advent calendars, teachers gifts etc £150.

DH and I don't even exchange gifts at Christmas because we have autumn and winter birthdays so at least we save a couple of hundred quid there!

I wouldn't want to add it all up, but roughly
1,500€ Kids presents
300€ family presents
400€ DH and I gifts to each other
300€ food and drink

So thats 2.5 k before I think about work lunch and night out, various parties, any new clothes or Xmas jumpers, kids Xmas fairs, Any days out, family meals out etc. Minimum of 3,000 Euro though....

I have spent
£70 for DH
£100 each for my 4 children
£100 each for their partners
£100 each for 5 GC
£140 for the GC who lives with me
£35 for friend
£100 for niece
About £40 for Christmas cards/stamps/wrapping paper
£120(roughly) for petrol and refreshments on trips to see family
Food I haven't a clue, I tend to buy stuff a bit at a time and just the fresh stuff close to Christmas so hard to work out.

So £1,900 plus. No wonder I'm broke.

Up to this year my budget was £1800 - £150 saved every month in Christmas savings account (with the Credit Union)

DC Presents - £600
DH Presents - £150
Other Family (Kids) - £150
Other Family (Adults i.e. Mum/Dad etc) - £200
Decorations - £100
Works Nights Out/Secret Santas etc - £200 (£100 each)
Christmas Family Outings - £200
Add to Food/Alcohol Budget for Christmas/New Year - £200
Total - £1800

If you add in my present - £1950

This Year... (Older DC)

DC Presents - £300
DH Presents - £50
Other Family (Kids) - £75
Other Family (Adults i.e. Mum/Dad etc) - £75
Decorations - £0
Works Nights Out - £110 (I don't have one this year!)
Christmas Family Outings - £20 (Christmas movie at the cinema!)
Add to Food/Alcohol Budget for Christmas/New Year - 100
Total - £730

Add in my present from DH - £780

It feels expensive for a cheap Christmas!

We are hosting for 12 on Christmas Day for lunch, that alone is costing £800 including alcohol.

Currently on £863, still to get crackers, food, few presents and small sticking things

We do a class collection and get something for the school then a gift voucher plus one small thing we know they like for teacher/TA from all the kids. Typically people chip in ~£10 per child so you get over £250 for the class & it’s enough for £50 of vouchers per staff member, £125 for school and a small gift/card.

We save £100 per month but it's never enough. This year I think we'll be at around £2k

£1000 for our 3 kids which includes presents, Christmas pjs, jumpers, Xmas day outfit, advent calendars & misc school related bits

£500 on family presents

We're going elsewhere for Christmas & Boxing Day but will be giving the hosts a £100 voucher plus bringing around £150 of alcohol

£100 on Christmas bedding 😂

Probably another £200 on Christmas nights out with friends (do we include that? We'd probably spend that monthly on going out)

We're going to Center Parcs the weekend before Xmas so will do Father Christmas there, that was around £100.

I've saved money this year by not buying any new decorations. I'm not sending any cards so save there (+ postage). Also I have wrap and bags left over from last year so that was a win!

Christmas it's self is pretty cheap these days. No young child related gifts to buy. No decorations as we don't spend the day here so can be arsed. Don't buy any extra food for Xmas apart from Xmas pudding and cream. Stopped buying for neices/nephews/ friends children when they turned 18.

My kids got 1k each
Dad £40
2 friends £40 each
DP £800 but that is his half of a suprise holiday for us both.

I have spreadsheets, budget was £2k so that I didn't go OTT... I did. Total so far is £2.5k and counting

I can’t be exact because I don’t know how much DH has spent on my presents but I think £400 is a good estimate and that’s for presents, extra food and decorations (we bought almost no new ones this year).

My spend will be about £1800 😱

1000 on gifts for my 4 kids.

40 on a Christmas Eve box for the kids

80 on Santa's village afternoon for 8.

My inlaws are staying with us for 5 days so an extra 150 on Christmas food and drink.

60 on Christmas jumpers for school events.

300 on gifts for family and friends.

The rest on things like cards, crackers and postage costs as I live at the othe side of the country to them.

DC’s presents £350 ish
family presents £150
food £150
days out/eating out £100

I can’t even get to a figure , I’ve done most if teh gift shopping bar a few small
bits and hubby , no idea on prices as it was for 5 kids plus nephews and sister and my parents and in-laws . I will overspend massively in December , my step son visits from abroad so we normally take him on days out and shopping so probably and extra £1500 or more just in December without gifts .

Not too bad here, under 1k. I don't set a budget and am self employed so start buying in September. Outside of presents (around £6-700 this year for everyone) we don't have much in the way of Christmas expenditure.

£44 (incl fuel and spending while there about £100) on a Santa experience (2 adults, 2 kids)

£50 maybe on top of the normal food shop, and that would be really pushing the boat out.

£100 fuel to visit family

Oh I've spent about £20 on a new set of curtain lights and a little light up garland too

Including everything
About 2k
And we’re not even hosting Christmas dinner this year
Includes lots of nights out,everyone is so happy to be able to go out again

I’ve spent about £730 so far and need probably another £200 to finish it all off. This includes gifts, trip out tickets, a couple of new decorations, clothes and pjs, cards, school pantos and things too. It’s so much money, need to save up better next year!

Tree and new decorations - £80

DC's presents - £1000 +

Food and booze - £350 ish

Family presents - £200

Hotel for Boxing Day - £110

I forgot DH's present which is an afternoon/ evening out with a meal and drinks. Usually costing £250.