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 haven’t totted it up but haven’t borrowed to pay for anything (nothing on the credit card). The only thing I’m mildly concerned about is the Christmas dinner is all on a farm shop order, and due to fluctuating prices there were no prices on the order form this year. Feel like I’m possibly set up to be fleeced, but it does make life so much easier. I’m working till the 23rd and the thought of hitting Aldi for the Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve is a bit too much 😱

For us about 500 on gifts for DC, then 450 on gifts for each other, and wider family, just kids and great grandparents included. About 60 on all the Xmas activities school run, Xmas fairs etc, and a trip to see Santa, 70 on theatre tickets this year. Then extra food and wine/fizz would come to about 80 maybe. Plus the cost of keeping the house warm during the day over the Xmas period. Then extra petrol to visit family, maybe another 40.

Spent around £300 on DS, wish had been more but has so much already.
Spent around £200 in total on family and friends, not a massive amount of people.
Budget of £80 on festive days out/activities. We make the most of any free community events, just cost of travel and food for those.
Food would have been around £60-80 buying a meat hamper from the butchers, Christmas treats and drinks. I'm not hosting this year, so saving there.
I don't think my spending is so bad. I buy over a period of 6 months and put a little money aside. I spend within my budget. My DS would be happy with a jigsaw, he's so grateful

No more than £800.

Family presents
Cards
Friend teacher presents
Decorations and other shit

I suspect it’s around the £800 mark for us when you add up gifts for the kids, stockings, Christmas Eve box bits, family presents, gifts for each other, food and drink (we host), Christmas fairs, visit the Santa, all the odds and ends at school. It’s a LOT!

Kids presents and stocking fillers - 800
Lights tree etc - 80
Trip to london winter wonderland- 500
Christmas pjs- 30
Food-150
Total 1600

There's a big distribution here as I expected but it seems that my spend is fairly 'average' in that it's both a common figure and the middle of the range.

For context, kids are 11 and 18 - I have had many much lower budget Christmastimes when they were little and so do really appreciate not having to count pennies so much now they are older. Seeing it all added up does make me think though - it has been really interesting to see all of your budgets for comparison!

Our share of Christmas meal - £60
Gifts - £50

That's it.

Can't spend any more money as we don't have it.

I budgeted for £850 for all costs, only spent £110 over.. think it’s may be cost of living tbh. Everything just gone up. I always spend over... if I see deals I can’t resist... did better this year than last though. Will be paid off after January’s pay so no hassle..

DH and I have just done a quick recce and it's approx £2500.

We have one DS17 and buy for roughly 20 other family/friends.

We host and provide all the food & Drink for 5 adults & 3 late teens from Christmas Eve until Boxing Day.

However not included in that amount this year are gifts between DH and I (which is a first in 31 yrs!) as we are going to Las Vegas in January for his 50th and have treated ourselves to Business Class flights as our joint prezzie to ourselves.

We can afford it though and would never get a single penny in debt for Christmas.

I started buying in September so have spread the cost out of our disposable income that way.

It is shocking how all the "bits" add up though!

When my oldest DDs were in reception and yr2 I called them in sick because I physically couldn’t get them to school. I also had a baby too. I was soo sick at the time. About 9.10am I got a call from the school saying that’s not going to happen, they turned up 10mins later and dressed my DDs before taking them to school. They also brought them home. Since then I’ve lost count of the amount of times since then they have collected, kept my DCs in school and brought them home to help me. At the time I didn’t know it was the first of many, but it was. It was the beginning of many years of chronic illnesses.

I’ve always been eternally grateful to the school and individual staff members. Buying them small Christmas gifts and end of year gifts is my way of saying thank you. They didn’t have to go out of their way, but they did.

Sane for our old lollipop man. He put his life in danger so many times with idiots on the road who don’t think the rules applied to them. Saved one of my DDs when she was a toddler after I turned round literally for a split second because the car door didn’t close properly. She was off into the road with speeding cars, he saw her but was too far away so ran out trying to stop the cars, luckily I caught her in the corner of my eye and grabbed her. Lollipop men and women definitely deserve parents thanks.

Many school staff go above and beyond that a lot of parents are not aware of, especially if they haven’t needed extra help. Sadly I’ve needed this help and I’m so grateful as I don’t know how I would have managed at times without them.

Spending a lot more than we meant to on DC, got carried away...

About £200 each on DC including stockings - about double what we usually spend! But lots of it is things like books and sports equipment

£60 on DH, he'll also spend the same on me

£230 on 6 family members

£150 on petrol visiting family far away (!)

£20 on advent stuff and a Christmas concert - mostly do free things

£70 on a Boxing day trip

Plus probably another £100 on nice wine and Christmas food, and £60 on Christmas Eve meal out

So about £1000 - way too much! Next year we're staying put if we can, which will cost a lot less.

Oh I forgot tree and teacher presents - so another £70 or so

Kids £2000
Food £150
Me £300 ish
Thats it really, lots of bike rides and dog walking planned