total christmas cost?

[giveyourselfashiny]

How much have u spent in total for Christmas? I'm thinking about starting saving for next yr and just wondered how much people actually spend? I know I spend more than I think cause I buy bits over the yr, but in total, for everyone for everything inc food, drink and night out we have prob spent 600! Which is mental, and will be coming down next year!

What does skint but not in debt actually mean, tho? Xmas was last mobth, so how are you "skint" this month, but not in debt? How do you borrow some of January's money to pay for Xmas? Or do you nean you used all of late December's salary to pay for Xmas, so there's nothing for this month?

£150 food (damn that goose), £200 presents for DD/each other/2 x secret santa with family, and £500 travel to visit family abroad, so £850.

We haven't had any wages in since before Christmas, pay day is the 24th, so skint till then! We bought things all through the year so spreading the cost made it easier.

spanish I suppose skint means different things to different people.
To me it means my bills are paid, I'm not in debt, I can tick over but I can't be flash with the cash.

About £1800 all in, but that included my Dhs and DSs birthdays and my daughters 21st, so I suppose about £1400 on Xmas

Spanish, 'skint but not in debt' in my case means... I didn't use ALL my December wages on Christmas i had tried very hard to get most things sorted by then. But i did have to use some of it. I very rarely have any money each month for frivilous use so just using some of it for Christmas meant the next month was going to be tougher than usual. Also we were paid a week early for Christmas so its a long month!!
I have made sure all bills are paid for the month of Jan so what i really mean is that food is very very basic, no treats, petrol is kept to the minimum, work driving only. That sort of thing really, no anything really except basic food, petrol for work and dog food!!

We literally spent about £250 on the entirety. However, it was rather miserable! Especially as Christmas day is also my birthday!

We spent about £80 on food for 8 for the xmas dinner
About £20 on my niece and nephew
£50 on my daughter who is only 5 and very easily pleased ;)
Did very small 'hampers' for my family and spent £35-40
And little extra bits on 'treats'/decor/etc

Next year we will hopefully save a lot on food and go to parents/inlaws... but I WILL get my dishwasher by then! :P

It would have been nice to spend a bit more and do more stuff like cinema/theatre/winter wonderland and Christmas market style of things, but after a rather turbulent year financially and only starting my new job in Sept we had to be careful.

Unfortunately all our being careful hasn't really paid off, as got the car serviced/repaired, which came up to a whopping £800... so we are worse off now than ever :(

Thanks for the replies.
I'm just very jealous. DH's work stopped all bonuses in November, which was basically our only disposable income since ds2 started nursery (£500 a month...).
We have a big family so have loads of kids to buy for. I am a clever shopper so only actually spent around a tenner on each niece/nephew. We've still ended up heavily in debt, on credit cards, and have no idea if it'll ever get cleared.
We've told the older nieces and nephews we're cutting back next year so they won't be getting anything at all, but actually that won't save a huge amount! Ds2's birthday is a few weeks before Xmas so thats an added expense close to Xmas.
Bleurgh to it all.

Yep, i sympathise with both katy and spanish Christmas was a big worry and stress here too really!

I wish it only came round every other year!!