Ok..so how much shall I save for next year Christmas?

[AnxietyLevelMax]

honest question…we have no Christmas decorations and no artificial Christmas tree. Family of three. I can more or less budget groceries but anything else - no clue! Need to start from January. Additional saving account just for Christmas is empty at the moment😂

how much did you spend this year and divide by 12. Unless you can buy some now - we’ve just bought an artificial tree for next year.

£3000

Surely it depends on who you buy gifts for, what your income is and what you normally budget? It also depends on what you want to spend on a tree and decorations.

Life can change so suddenly, maybe a couple of months from council tax ( the free months).
make a small savings pot for Xmas food or save vouchers

Buy all the decorations, tree, wrapping paper,cards, stocking fillers and crackers now in the sale. It will save you an absolute fortune as there are some good sales on now.

How long is a piece of string? 🤔

How old is your child?

Our local FB group had loads of trees being given away for free.

Buy in the sales things you will definitely need

Our 5ft tree cost €12.50 in 2006, still going strong. We were poor as church mice, shared a chocolate advent between us (just DH and I), and I handmade tree decs out of felt.

It now has 150 lights on it and a collection of more felt decs and stuff from our travels, quite a mish mash.

We don't do Xmas eve boxes, EOTS, wonderlands, light shows, panto, Santa breakfasts, polar express trips etc, nothing on the run up except DS' school play.

We've spent about €300 between gifts and food.

But, we've seen friends, played boardgames, watched Muppets (twice!), built Lego, had a sleepover, ate nice food.

So, spend what you want/can and sod what other people do.

Look for things in the current sales. For presents I always start early, last year it was March. That’s the earliest time I’ve started buying gifts. Then for food I buy things non perishable as soon as the shops stock, usually September/October.

Throughout the year look for discounts for presents.

How many people do you buy gifts for?

One million pounds and a pair of Levits to trade with Putin's replacement for gas for your camping stove to cook your Xmas chicken & mushroom pot noodle.

My parents run a family Christmas account and and we put in 30 euro a week for 50.weeks
1500 is paid out the first day of December..it covers Santa presents, family presents,.food, Christmas clothes and nights out plus any incidentals like a dinner out before a panto. Any money left over pays for a couple of treat days durian January.

Different siblings pays different amounts but this works for us and it's so lovely knowing it's coming.

It's what's left over from everything else

So we do all essential outgoings eg. Bills obviously. Then food/petrol/school fund... uniform,day trips.., weekend money, children's activities.

Once all that is done, then we have Xmas /holiday/ bday Money.

B'day gets the least.

We used to put about £8 a month into Xmas into one of those tins you can't open.
We saved for two year's to build it up.

As we got more money DH moved us from tins to a spreadsheet.

But if essentials not covered we wouldn't be able to save anything.

I'm another who'd suggest get decorations in the sale, my pre-lit 6ft tree was about £12.50 10 years ago. I love it put it up in 45mins.

No point in beating yourself up comparing to other people's budgets. You don't know what their income, expenditure or level of debt is.

Work out your budget, calculate 'spare income' set aside some money for summer then at summer save for Christmas.

Yes definitely get what you can now in the sales. I have. We bought our first tree about 29 years ago for £12 in the B&Q sale and have used it every year since. We buy a few decorations each year ( mostly in the sales) to add to the stash which covers things getting broken. But mostly so I can gift some when the kids leave home. Get a big cheapy box of baubles and buy say four fancy ones each year in the sales.

I set up a Monzo account a few months ago and have about 15 savings pots on the go now! Even if there is only £200 in a pot it still takes the sting out of big expenses.

I save a monthly amount into an account marked Christmas. Sounds obvious but, Christmas is expensive with teens so I have to save quite a lot.

This does take the stress out of it and if I needed to I could dip into it for something mid-year. This year I wasn’t hosting and was just in charge of ‘bringing cheese’ so there was more money to spend on presents and treats. However, most years it is mainly for posh turkey, champagne, smoked salmon, Christmas crackers and, well, that stacks up quite quickly… I love hosting and it isn’t cheap.

We weren't hosting this year so spent much more than usual on gifts for DC - £200 each usually we spend £100. Then £60 each on each other. £30-40 each for other close family members. Wrapping paper and cards was no more than £20 all in.

About £80 on extra wine, food, nibbles etc.

We spent £20 on a cheap real tree, lights a previous year were £12 in sale, you can buy a lot of baubles in bulk for £15/20 in sale. Then you can add to decor year on year.

We didn't do any paid-for Christmassy days out but did go to local Christmas market, to see Christmas lights, Christmas walks etc.

Argos / habitat has some very cheap baubles and decorations right now

I save £100 a month... I used to spend £1800 but cut back.

I bought a Christmas tree for £30 this year, lights and basic baubles to start off I would say I spend £60-70 my first year? It depends on the size of tree and quality of baubles.

I built up more individual decorations over the year but my budget is something like this (family of 3)

DC Christmas - £250
DH - £50
Me - £50
Family Presents - £100
Secret Santas - £20

Food/Alcohol - £150
Nights out ( work) - £200
Days out (family) - £250 (we do quite a lot for this)
Clothes - jumpers/dress - £100
Decorations - £30

Just work out your budget and divide by 12... and try really hard not to touch it!!

I opened up a plum account. You can decide how much you want to save or, what I do is get them to round up all my spending. So if I pay £16:41 for something it gets rounded up to £17 and the 59p goes into savings. They collect the money once a week and you have instant access to your money.
I’ve also joined some of their other schemes, ie £15 gets put away every time it rains all day.
I don’t really miss it from my account, and it soon builds up

Decorations can be obtained via Freecycle, FB marketplace, charity shops. No need to spend much at all. Put out requests now on such sites before people pack away.

Btw the proper way to budget is to decide what you are willing to spend and make it work. Don't let the tail wag the dog.

How much can you afford to save?

You don’t want to leave yourself struggling so you can afford to overspend for one day.

As others suggest, get the tree and decorations now in the sales.