What is your Christmas budget?

[KittyPup]

I’m considering trying to cut back a bit this year as DH thinks I go a bit mad at Christmas. I’m not sure I agree so I’m just gauging what others do.

I put away £250pm all year and everything Christmas related comes out of that 3k. This includes gifts for our 2dc (approx £400 each), gifts for each other and dc in the family, Christmas food shop, Father Christmas trip, Christmas jumpers, any new decorations / wreath making workshop, fresh tree etc. Basically anything Christmas related in December and then the day itself and a few days in between.

Can I ask what your Christmas budget is? Or do you just not track as you’d rather not know?

I spend £150 on presents for each of the two DC, sometimes a small present for DH & I, don't normally cook but we do spend a fair bit on chocolates and treats. Not massive drinkers, so usually a bottle of sherry. We do a trip out to a Christmas event (e.g light show). That's about it. Tree I've had for 25 years, add one new decoration each year. If we are feeling flush that year we get something big for the house for everyone, in the past it's been a Switch, a record player, this year it's surround sound equipment. Apart from making sure I spend that much on the kids, the rest will depend on what spare funds we have.

Around £1200-£1500 on gifts (us 6, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, token gift for teachers)
The food for Christmas week is usually £300-400 depending on how many we

When my son wanted a PlayStation we gave him our usual budget towards one, he asked other family members for money instead of gifts and he did odd jobs to earn money to save towards one. Their first phones were our old ones and they’ve bought any replacements themselves by saving up. They’ve both worked part time jobs since they were 14. Our younger children have cheap tablets (£50ish prime day deals)and share a switch.
I’m aware that we are fortunate that they do have other family members to contribute but we also buy for them so if we didn’t we may well have a larger budget for our own children.

I don’t have the latest tech myself and wouldn’t just buy myself the latest iPhone or whatever so I’m certainly not doing that for them!

That said though the little bits do get more expensive as they get older-both my adult and teenage child’s pants for in the stockings cost £20 alone this year! No more multipacks for a fiver.

Not sure what happened to the rest of my post and it’s not letting me edit!

Around £1200-£1500 on gifts (us 6, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, token gift for teachers)
The food for Christmas week is usually £300-400 depending on how many we’re hosting. But I’ll also have picked up chocolates to fill advent calendars and mince pies and stollen etc in the weeks preceding. In theory it’s cheaper when we don’t host but I usually take loads of treats and drinks to our hosts and then we still host anyone else either before or after Christmas so it works out about the same!
We don’t do paid activities as a matter of course, we took the dc to see Father Christmas in the garden centre once, we’ve done the Santa express once, we’ve been to the panto once. They’re not every year things! Usually we go to a Christmas market, go to the garden centre and go to look at Christmas lights somewhere. Oh and usually get fleeced for about £20 at the school fair.

We have artificial trees and use the same decorations every year except dh and I buy each other one every year and the dc get one each in their stockings every year. (Those are included in the presents budget)

It’s definitely under 2k. It’s a huge amount of money really but I love giving gifts so wouldn’t want to stop that aspect.

£300ish per child (2) plus another about £30-£40 on stockings
£100 ish on DH
£60 on each set of parents
£70 on DSis family
£60 on teachers/ colleagues etc

So about £1k on gifts, plus whatever DH spends on me.

Then there’s about £300 on food/drink, £40 on Santa visit, £120 on light trail, £45 on ice skating.

It seems like an awful lot written down but we spread it out from September. I love Christmas.

£200 on each child
£100 me & DH on each other
£20 each on niece, nephew, In laws.
Maybe £50 on new decorations if needed.
£100 Christmas Eve takeaway
£200 Christmas dinner/drinks/chocolate.
£200 on a night out, new Christmas clothes for work party.
We don’t have to do pantomime/santa anymore because DC are older.

Probably around £1000, we spend more now DC are teens.

No idea how anyone can do Christmas for just £3,000! We spend at least that on the food and drink alone over the festivities! Good Champagne doesn’t come cheap! And Christmas simply isn’t Christmas without a few bottles of £400 Krug Vintage Brut 2011 is it?

Including the obligatory annual Lapland trip and Nuremberg Christmas market weekends and we’re closer to £50,000…

But I have had to cut back like we all have, haven’t we… I used to do NYC each year too… now it’s just every other year. We normally have a Christmas shopping weekend in London to make up for it…. you can’t beat Harrods at Christmas time!

I’d never risk a takeaway on Christmas Eve. Always worry if it’s dodgy and I’m not well on 25th! Maybe that’s just me. I like to eat simply on 24th to prepare for the Christmas dinner etc .

Only 50? Bargain.

Up to 1k with gifts, experiences (panto, parties etc and food)..I can't justify higher budget than this, or we'd have no summer holiday or be able to afford to do any home improvements etc. I can't afford to go all out, and have to cut our cloth accordingly.

actual LoLs

I guess at about £1k. £120 is for 3 adult kids and granddaughter. Rest is on food and entertaining them

Yes, I think I get £50k to go a long way - it was more like £70k when we did NYC… but then we all have to economiise with the cost of living crisis don’t we….But then you can’t put a price on glitter and sparkles to make Christmas truly magical can you!

The only thing I budget is the dc’s gifts, usually around £700 each, sometimes a bit more now they are getting older. We don’t have a large extended family so gifts are mainly from us, would probably spend less otherwise.

In other areas we have cut back, not so much due to money but the realisation that some of the activities we were doing because we felt that we should rather than doing it because we all enjoy it. So no expensive Santa visits (dc too old now anyway), Christmas market at our nearest big city (cold, usually raining, stupidly busy), matching pyjamas (dc would be mortified now they’re pre teens). We don’t buy things to bulk out the present pile. They have a lot spent on them but it’s on things they really want/will use.

We do the annual visit to our local garden centre which has amazing Christmas displays, 1st December box which includes a Christmas jumper, advent Callander, pyjamas- things they would have through December anyway but it’s more exciting. We go for a lovely meal in between Christmas and new year. A walk around our local village with a hot chocolate to spot the best decorated house. None of these are expensive and are the bits my dc love the most.

We have the Christmas Day meal with family so no cost there except for wine and dessert. We do enjoy lots of cheese and party foods from when the school breaks up until new year so probably quite a bit on food.

small family so gifts for others aren’t expensive and just get absorbed into the usual weekly spend.

Me, DH, and DSs 15 and 16. We earn between us about 63k per year, but we live on a smallholding so have a lot of outlays that others don’t have.

Boys have £100 ish spent on them each including stockings. DH and I spend about £50 quid on each other. Other presents I guess add up to approx £150.

Food - we spend a lot I think as we are always the hosts and we have big families on both sides. So maybe £300? I reckon there’s lots I haven’t thought of so £1k maybe. We save £50 a month for it and then I always get a performance bonus in Nov which tops the rest up.

Including Christmas eve pyjamas, festive days out, Christmas home decor, and gifts - our budget is around £3000-£3500

I buy gifts for my partner, two DS, my parents, my 3 siblings and their children (4 DNs). We go to my parents house for Christmas so the cost of dinner isn't included. Most of our budget is spent on presents for our two DS. It gets expensive when you've got a teenager 😅

I buy bargains throughout the year but I'd say we spend roughly 200 on each of the kids close to christmas time on top of that.
Me and dh spend about 100 on each other.
Then I try to spend upto 50 each for my mum and sister and upto 30 on their partners.
Food wise it's pretty cheap like under 50? I already have the main, starter and dessert in freezer just gonna get sides and buffet bits closer to Xmas. (My mum makes us a hamper so don't need to get loads of crisps cakes and snack bits)

I would say that my love language is gifting. I love finding gifts for friends and family based on their interests, tastes etc. And find the planning and hunting for them really tun. So that probably does make me mindful when buying gifts and spending.

about £250-300 in total. I only get gifts for the DC (teens, £100-150 each). DH and I don't get gifts for each other. No wider family, so not much extra on food and drink. and a 🌲

I have just filled my Tescos online basket with everything we need for the Christmas week - (everything for the Christmas dinner, Boxing Day ham, salads, ingredients for a lasagne, Coq au vin, boeuf bourgignone, Yule log, canape stuff (eg smoked salmon, sliced brown bread), soft drinks, wine, breakfast stuff, fruit, box of Celebrations, dog chews etc) for FOUR people and it’s now standing at a whopping £527 pounds!

Can you comfortably afford this, or is some or all funded by credit ? I do think this thread could be interesting if the same question was asked twice ... "what is your budget this year" .. "what is the budget this year, based on what you can afford, excluding use of credit"

None is funded by credit. We can comfortably afford it, but it’s still a bit ridiculous.

Although since I said I was going to cut back, I haven’t at all 🙈

Thats all that really matters then. If it makes you happy, then don't cut back unless priorities change, surely..

£75 For our children and their partners and through grand children. My sister and my dad get whatever I think they'll like usually around £20 as they both have enough money to buy what they want.

DH is making a list of things we already have so we're not eating Christmas stuff in July.
Christmas dinner will just be for three adults . We're doing steak and chips and pepper sauce, just need to think about veg.

All in all it will come out at around a grand

What do you do for a job to afford all that? I’m in the wrong job