How much did Christmas cost you?

[Sam9769]

With all the people you had to buy presents for and the general festivities over Christmas, how much do you reckon it cost and what would you say is the average cost of a Christmas present for a teenager?

£3k combined on presents for 2 DC and my parents (inc. Disneyland Paris) - DH and I set a budget of £50 for each other.

My parents paid for us to all to eat out on Christmas Day and we aren’t big drinkers so minimal food costs.

The £3k is fine for us, we can afford it.

About £200 for food and drink and £400 on presents. We did a fair amount of festive activities but under £1k total.

around £1100 including presents , tree , food and booze, but only small family

£2000

About £2.5k … but it depends on how you count it really. e.g. included in that would be presents which included £100 worth of bulbs and plants for the garden, a new smart-speaker for the kitchen, books that teenage DD wanted, jumpers, socks, pants etc. all of which would have been purchased at some point in the next 6 months anyway. Same with food - I’m including the cost of the Christmas groceries in there, but not deducting the normal groceries that we didn’t need to buy.

If the question was “how much does Christmas add to your normal annual spend?” the answer would be closer to £500.

About £500, all in

£150 per child on gifts
£100 family gifts (small family)
£50 teacher/suport staff gifts (sen kids)
£50 outings

about £3k including panto and trips. Only me, DH & the kids & no one else to buy for. Although, i did buy wine & chocolates for a few neighbours, contributed to the class collection for teachers & the kids did a secret santa so thats included in the total as well as as giving tree gifts which we do eacv year & bought foodbank donations that their school did.

bulk of it was gifts. Spent about £800 on my oldest & £500 on my other 2 (younger & in time they’ll get similar gifts but just now they are twins so similar budgets and number to open) as we have no family i tend to buy more.

average cost of my daughters was £80-£100 but did have some smaller bits from lush and perfume so £20-£50)

We spent £200 on each of the teens and £50 on each parent gift (sadly only 2 this year) and £150 on each other. We didn’t host a big group this year but went away instead and that cost us £2000 including all the food, drinks & activities we did (& Christmas dinner in a restaurant)

£2.5 k or there abouts...

At a rough guess I would say £2.5k. I’m finding this thread reassuring as I felt like I’d probably gone a bit mad/overdone things - I have a constant balancing act with my DH as I’m naturally inclined to be generous when hosting (and always over cater) and buy lots of stocking fillers as well as presents for everyone, and he’s come from a parsimonious Scots background where he didn’t ever do much for Christmas! Also it was our first time hosting. I was blaming myself for having spent too much when actually I think things are just really expensive and that’s kind of how much things cost (albeit I did buy more cheese/snacks food in general than we actually needed but haven’t wasted anything, we’ll just be eating biscuits chocolate and nuts etc until Easter (whilst simultaneously trying to lose the Christmas weight gain…hmmm)). I will definitely get less of everything next year though.

I’d say about 2.5k …

Should add when I say ‘overspent’ I didn’t get into debt for Christmas, and we do save approx £1,200 over the course of the year specifically for Christmas anyway to cushion it otherwise being an expensive month.

Actual pressies about £100 as only did stocking for the kiddies, but we escape the craziness and go abroad so thousands rather than hundreds. Can happily do it and have a fab time 🌞

No idea. But I bought everything on my lists, and didn't go into debt to do it.

3 or 4k I would think

I’d say £3k. Presents for family, dh, adult dc; hosting Xmas Day for 10; tree and new lights; guests staying for a week; plus a couple of Xmas days out, eg to National Trust houses to see the lights.

I spent within the limits of my disposable income. None of my immediate family have done anything different, though we each have different levels of disposable income.

Work meal, other night out, light trails, Santa visit, food, gifts. Got to be £1.5k of not just over. Worth it though.

I dread to think. I spent in the region of £600 on each DD, so £1200 on their presents. Spent approx £250 on DH’s presents, and another £100 ish on extended family. We spent about (I think) £350-400 on food and drink for the festive period. Then Christmas activities and days out etc, I’d say approx £300 or thereabouts (we did a Santas grotto experience, a lights trail, and a few cinema trips etc).

So all in a little over £2k?? Not our worst year tbh.

I am working this out as I go
Presents - £300-400
Food - £50 (just a bit of party food and biscuits)
Days out - £600
Additional fuel - £100

Inlaws pay for Xmas lunch at restaurant as our present.

We're not big gift people but like the theatre and light trails.

Hardly anything.

Few extras for food and drink. Xmas tree was £20. That's it.

£80 on presents for DD9
£30 for baby DD
£60 between me and DH for presents
£210 for presents for the wider family
£40 for the tree
£30 for decorations, wrapping paper and cards
£100 extra on the food shop.

550 in total.

More than I expected actually.

About 2k with hosting and gifts.

Both DC have birthdays this week too.

Suffice to say, I’m skint 🤣

At least £2.5k, I reckon. But that includes a few meals out where we paid for our sons and their girlfriends.

I haven’t added it up properly but with a quick mental tot up I make it about £3k.
£1.5k on gifts (3DC, 3 parents, 3 nieces, 3 god children and an aunt), £100 on tree and wreath, £400 in farm shop on meat (including rib of beef for Christmas dinner), veg and cheeses, £100 wine, £100 on ‘extras’ in the supermarket, £300ish on outings, £300 on the meal DH and I went for instead of buying each other gifts. Less than usual I think!