The cost of Christmas

[Abby23]

I’m just curious to find out how much we have all spent this year on Christmas?.

Considering the state of the economy, are we spending less?, or the same?

I've aimed for less this year, managed a bit less as in no sale shopping etc but still ended up spending more than I'd have liked 🙄 trying to cut back on pointless gift buying tbh just seems silly

About £1000. Bit less than usual. DC adults now so can buy more of their own stuff. Not really related to budget.

i don’t budget so don’t have a figure however I feel it was less overall. Food spend was higher but less on presents & days out, eating out. Very little so far in the sales.

I think about 1k including the extra eating out and excursions. Three years ago we started putting £75 per month into a savings pot specifically for Christmas and that makes such a difference!

We don’t give Christmas presents to adults and we reuse the same ornaments each year, so extra expenses are limited: a few presents for our granddaughter, an airline ticket for our son so he could visit, a bit more and higher quality food/booze, tickets for the Nutcracker, eating out several times. That’s it.

i think the research has shown (according to the FT)?we spent £17 more but that it’s a fall in real terms.

Tons here, I haven’t added it all up tbh but probably more than usual. I did think about cutting back but I enjoy giving my family gifts and the whole Christmas thing/food/socialising.

I’ll try total it up . It is a big one but it has included a weeks holiday in a very large house …..

holiday home so whole family can be together. £2000
gifts £350 kids £150 adults
food for the week approx £500
we actually haven’t spent a lot here at the holiday as we have had different relations coming and having a home cooked meal with them then walking down to the beach…. But I will budget £30 for amusements and donuts
day trip to Whitby (arguably not Christmas as such £100)
two tanks of petrol £150
santa train £100 ( we actually won tickets this year , but did spend on travel / car park/ food /teddy)
train tickets to holiday home £50

so all in all £3450 …. Call it 3.5k.

out of that my mum/ sister put in £400 total towards it ( mum stayed for half the week on the holiday)

I put £500 on my credit card- the rest is paid off .

I did massively cut back on gifts this year…. In fact the kids got a budget of £150 each .

I would definitely rent a big house again… it’s been lovely

I buy through out the year with gifts, games for consoles, specific games dc may like and I buy non perishable items and store them like cans of pop or bottles of wine/nice olive oil for gifts. Same with bottles of perfume/aftershave if they’re a good price I buy them or get them from a site like secret sales. When asos has sales for things I pick up adult DC underwear and socks and PJs.
I have 4 dc who get about 200-300 each for gifts.
I put away a bit each month for the food shop.
I get a whole turkey/ham/pork and then do every possible trimming I can with all the veggies on offer. So I make roasties and truffle butter mash and a dauphinois. I make carrots roasted in various ways or glazed and then a carrot and swede mash. Use the sprouts for various gratin dishes and with pancetta and chestnuts. I also buy sausages on offer to use the meat for stuffing and make my own pigs in blankets as it’s much more cost effective.
At the end of the Christmas period I buy any reduced decs or serve wear I like but won’t buy full price for anything.

I absolutely would love to have certain brand Christmas items such as the Eleanor bowmer Christmassy stuff but I’m not in a position to spend that right now so I check Vinted and eBay for deals.

Kids gifts circa £300 each
Gifts for wider family £400
Meals out for family £1k
Food to eat at home £400
New decorations £50

I would say we spent slightly more than usual.

I would absolutely love that for Christmas. I love Whitby! What a wonderful sounding idyllic Christmas you’ve had.
If you ever want a new best friend ;)

I’ve spent less. I bought gifts and treats but fewer, I didn’t buy extra/new decorations, Christmas pyjamas or jumpers. Boxing Day we made a meal from leftovers and we still had more than enough.

Its the first year I have spent under the budget I set (smaller this year) and the first year I didn’t purposely spend to zero.

I thought it would be difficult but it wasn’t. Everyone was happy and had a good time.

£2k including all gifts plus the extra food, days out, clothing etc in Dec.

We save £250 a month from Feb to November to afford it.

Just the 2 of us for Xmas.....
cottage by the coast for a week £800
Food/ wine/meals out £800
Gifts £1000
Worth every penny to do exactly what we want.

Spent less this year

About the same as usual
11 people to buy gifts for, budget £30-35 =£385
OH present was about £130
petrol to travel approx £80
burger king in service station (this cost shocked me!) £11
meal deal on journey £4
cheese and wine £35
lunch out before Xmas £45
tickets to an event £16
i bought 2 rolls of wrapping paper and a box of parcel tags but they were reduced so only a few £
didn’t send any cards, didn’t buy any new clothes, went to family for a week who fed me……

Definitely spent a lot less, mostly helped as DP doesn't drink alcohol any more and I've cut down massively. No pub trips which would have been most days. Booze in house would have run to hundreds before...this year think I've bought 1 bottle of gin and 4 bottles of wine in total. We've really cut down buying too much food as well.

Tickets to a music event x 7, £800
Hosted pub meal out for 7 £400
Gifts for 3 DC and their partners £800
Gifts for wider family £200
Food and drink for the week£600
New year's eve with friends £300
Hosted wider family buffet £250
Charity £100

Total £3450

More than usual but a final hurrah as I've just retired so our income will drop considerably next year.

Less on presents, but food was expensive so it worked out about the same as usual.

Very quiet Christmas here, I probably spent c£500 in total.

Around 3k which is usual for us

I spent a bit less on presents for my children, although that wasn't really planned, they just didn't want or need much and I struggled to think of anything. But I spent slightly more on some other people, so not much in it really. All in all, it was probably about the same. I didn't have to buy much food as we went elsewhere on the day.

£80 per child on gifts (they get loads from family at Christmas so we try to keep gifts from us to a minimum -still too many!)

£1300 on travel and accomodation to be with family. On the plus side once there we didn't do any hosting so had barely any food costs.

Same as we spent last year and same we’ll spend next year, about £2400 (that’s for everything including social events). I save £200 a month for Christmas, I did have to top up a bit this month though.

For those who dont track closely, I would wager that the real cost is significantly higher... I wanted to keep to £1k max this year, which was hard work actually. Before starting my Christmas spreadsheet, I would have estimated that a standard christmas for us would have cost between £1k and £1500, but now I look back, I suspect it was closer to £2k (which I'm just not comfortable with).

This year, we ended up having a turkey fail and needing to go out on Christmas eve to get a last minute one, so I was over budget by £50, but pretty close!

Of the £1050 we spent, that includes all gifts, food, drinks, treats through December, activities, days out, baking & crafts for the DC, host gifts if visiting people, any new decorations, wrapping, cards, a few christmassy household bits, even down to postage costs to send things to family (a whopping £30 I hadn't budgeted for!).

For context, we stayed at home and hosted one friend, who brought two veggie dishes, but all the rest of the cost for Christmas and surrounding days was us. We have 3 young DC.

I budgeted very strictly with gifts, everyone in the house gets a stocking, but even setting a strict budget of £20/stocking, with 6 of us that was £120. DH and I have done a lot of work on the house this year, we would usually spend about £150 on each other, but this year set a budget of £50 each and it was great actually.

DC are very young, youngest is 18m, so he got a budget of £50, older siblings had around £80 each (not incl stockings). This worked well and they had plenty to open, but main presents of toy kitchen & dollhouse were sourced second hand. I know this will be harder as they get bigger and requests grow more expensive.

We stuck to a very strict budget for family, often spending under £10 for each main gift (thoughtfully sourced and researched though!). I also included homemade christmas cakes in pretty tins as a gift for each family, and DH who is a keen amateur potter made some beautiful ceramics.

Despite all of these cost cutting exercises, the total was pretty much bang on £1000. Tracking every single penny spent was really interesting, and useful too. I'll be doing the same next year to compare. I don't think it would be possible to spend much less and still have a similar christmas with a beautifully decorated house and presents etc. Would love to hear more from people who are also similarly anal diligent about tracking every penny.