How much do you spend on Christmas, all in?

[walkwalk]

Just wondering as growing up we didn't have much, so didn't spend much. Now I am a bit more financially comfortable and we have a budget of £750 this year - that's for absolutely everything (tree, food, booze, gifts, treats, activities...). It feels like a LOT but then I read on here about some peoples traditions (Christmas Eve hampers with new games, treats and pj's for whole family), and very impressive gift lists for the kids etc.. sounds lovely but it's kind of blowing my mind, doing the mental math, they must be spending thousands??

Just curious, obviously look away if you prefer not to talk money! :)

I'm going to guess between 500 and 700 but i start shopping early and dont keep a check. That would include food, tree and all presents.

All in about 6-7k that includes all the food, tree, Christmas Eve boxes, new PJ's and stockings.
I have 4 teenagers and save up all year.

Christmas is expensive. Big purchases have been made xbox/ gaming computer previously. Skint this year so trying to do everything cheaply. Have dug up a tree from the garden and made decorations for pennies/ free. Hopefully no more than £500 all in

Lots of requests from school at the moment, class funded christmas gifts for teachers/ ta's, fundraise for the virtual panto, christmas jumper day it's that sort of thing that pushes you over budget as the dc want to participate.

We started using budget tracking software last year so I tracked it for the first time ever and it was about €250, so I've budgeted for €300 this year.

That covers
Real tree
Kids presents - age 12 & 2, nothing outlandish.
Small token gift to each other
Small token gift to adult family members
Family Christmas cards
Extra supplement to food shopping for treats
St. Nikolaus / stockings
Couple of Xmas events e.g. Christmas Market, Carol singing event
Gingerbread House we did last year
Maybe some decs.

We didn't visit or have visitors last year. We were hoping to this year but obviously not now (we live abroad if the euros didn't give that away).

I’ve gone minimal this year as I’m due to become a student in September next year and need to save.
I’ve spent about £300 I think. My parents and his dad have gone mad with presents for my son so I’ve only spent £100 on a bike and stocking fillers for him. Another £60 on my niece and nephew then another £60 on token family gifts.
My parents and sons dad are coming for Christmas Day. Dad provides the meats, mum the crackers, dessert and wine and sons dad is going half’s with me for everything else.

It’s actually been nice not to splurge so much.

In years past when I was married, my MIL went all out at Christmas. She had 4 sons, all with partners and two with kids. She’d easily spend £500 each on the partners, £1000 plus on each son and an obscene amount on the kids. It was always pretty awkward. 2 sons were high earners, one lived at home the 4th was on benefits so you never quite knew what to spend so not to offend anyone. I’m so glad I’m out of that now!

Big supermarket shop £250
Presents & stocking DD £200
Presents for everyone else £200
Cards & wrapping, Christmas holiday arts & crafts, decorations £150
Tree & wreath & mistletoe £100

So far £30 deposit of goose from butcher, £70 earlier on for gin to make sloe gin - that's all my presents sorted. Can't think of anything else I'll need to get that isn't covered by normal shopping and what's in the freezer from allotment.

1k on gifts.
£60 on Xmas Dinner.
£40 on wrapping paper.

Around £1000, and I find that a really tight budget to get everything in, perhaps I need to lower my expectations!

Probably £500 all in

£250/£300 on presents, but that has been spread out over September, October and November pay, and then I'm estimating £150 on food from Decembers pay check. We don’t really drink alcohol (apart from we get one bottle of cheap Buck’s Fizz) so there’s no real expense there.

£200 each for 3 adult DC plus their stockings so about £800. £400 for foster son plus £80 on his stocking, £100 DH present plus £50 his stocking, £100 my present plus £50 my stocking, £100 each stockings for 2 dgc. £300 for good and booze. £90 other small gifts for cleaner and tutors. £50 food donation to local food bank and £10 food donation to school for class party. About £2300. This year adult children and foster son are having more as a bad year, no holidays and no birthday treat for foster son with his friends. No Xmas activities and we usually do a lot like painting Xmas baubles, ballet, ice skating, Xmas art/craft markets, no works meal, no cricket dinners, no swimming gala or awards evenings. Basically every time we miss something the money we would have spent gets added to Xmas budget. I normally give 3 adult children £100 each and foster son £200.

Just tallied up everything i could think of off the top of my head and im close to 2k.

This includes food for the day and a wine delivery
Presents for everyone including what dh has gotten me and I have gotten him

New tree and all new decorations. An awful lot to spend really isnt it

We spend around 800 on gifts, 120 on food and drinks, 100 on activities (usually 2) and 100 on extra decs or christmas jumpers so in total around 1100 -1200. I save £100 a month into a savings account to cover it so I don't have to think about budgeting for it nearer to the big day

Around £1000 for me, DH, DC, both sets of parents, grandparents who are still with us, our siblings and their partners, and food.

We don't buy for extended family such as aunties, uncles, cousins and their families, and we don't do pre Christmas treats, christmas eve boxes, hampers, games etc.

I don't buy plastic tat. Adult sons spending money towards new graphics card and xbox series x. Adult dd having towards mini break for 4 days over New Year. DH having new router tool and me new earrings.

Present for other half - £600
Ds - 700
Dd- 790
Dss - 810
Dsd -690

Food for Xmas eve, Xmas day and Boxing Day (meals will vary between 4 and 18 people) - 900

Drink - 1200, but will last beyond Xmas

Nights out and hotels, inc one new outfit and one set of cheeky blinders fancy dress stuff - £1600

Tree and decks for new house - about £450

So. A lot really.

About a grand. But have gone ott as we've had a difficult year. What can you do when your dd asks for her nan back?

@WillSantaBeComingToTown

No Christmas pudding or crackers. Not everyone has a typical British Christmas dinner you know.

Maybe we'll spend a fiver on some festive biscuits. MIL has sent us some chocolate for Christmas day.

Don't see what's wrong with soup, beef Wellington and sides, a cheese board and festive ice creams. Plus a nice breakfast. I am starting to think now that it actually costs more like 50 quid rather than 70.

Probably around £800 this year and previous years, but with baby #2 due next August, and probably more expensive toys as DC get older I imagine we'll quickly get into the £1,000-£2,000 bracket soon.

@Timshortforthalia

I'm really impressed at all those people who do it on a small budgets.

I'm also wondering whether this this thread is representative of mumsnet in general or whether people just dont add the bits I do?

I know covid has changed a lot, but normallyn loads of people I know would spend money on visiting a Santa's grotto/xmas experience?

We never buy a tree or decorations- but obvs lots of people do that.

I dont hang around in particularly rich company, but it's not uncommon for xmas to be the time when chn get a laptop/console. Bought new, these gifts alone would take up most of a £500 budget.

Then theres stockings. Just because you've been buying bits for it all year, doesnt mean you didnt have to pay for it??
Likewise those people who say they'll only spend an extra £50 on xmas food, cause they've been chipping away at it. You still spent the money! That's no different from people who put away money each month then spend in december.

Then theres shopping. Even if we dont host, we still would visit families and never go empty handed - not much a bit if booze/soft drinks plus anything I'vebeen asked to contribute. So I'd consider xmas food costs to be more than just the meals on the 25th.

I have no doubt that lots of people here are being genuine and are doing it quite cheap. I think that's especially true if your dc are young.

However, I do wonder if people add up the numbers dif to how i would add them up as the my experience suggests people spend loads more.

Agree with this.

We save all year, and I try to keep it under £1,000 every year. I always fail! If I can do it for £1,200 (£100 a month) I am happy.

Hosting any meals costs a shit-load. Some of that is in the usual December grocery spend, of course, but it adds up. Making sure you have all the booze, soft drinks, snacks, napkins, crackers etc.

Outings, charity donations, wrapping paper & Sellotape, postage, presents for teachers and brownies and unexpected Secret Santas, extra travel (petrol, hosting gifts, meals en route if long distance), the tree, an extra set of lights, that bauble you couldn't resist - it all drip, drip, drips to add up.

Even with presents - I'll buy clothes 'as a present' for the DC, or underwear for their stocking, PJs on Christmas Eve etc. OK, I would buy these anyway, they are not strictly 'Christmas' but I count them as part of the festive spend. Mostly cos I CBA working out what is 'normal' and what is 'Christmas'. I am more generous to the DC at Christmas than at any other time of year, but this is balanced because on a birthday I'd never make new pants a present, but somehow it's OK if Father Christmas decides to!

I think an awful lot of people saying they do it for virtually nothing are not adding up the same costs - or they are estimating and if they tracked it would be properly horrified!

Sorry but I personally disagree with the previous posters.

I’m sure that may be the case for some people but some people don’t have the choice but to do it frugally.
To me that money for Christmas (although not a lot to some of you) has to come out of my pay checks from at least September for there to be any kind of Christmas at all. I don’t feel sorry for myself, we will have a bloody lovely Christmas because £250/£300 on presents for me, DH and DS is a splurge, we will get things we definitely couldn’t afford to buy ourselves/our DS for the rest of the year and the £100 to spend on Christmas food is such a complete luxury! Our decorations are the same each year (maybe add one new decoration each year - this year I had to buy a new set of lights for the Christmas tree as ours were knackered)
We do a lot of free things that also add that Christmas magic, instead of chucking hundreds of £ at other activities. We go for walks/drives to look at Christmas lights, we (when it’s not corona) sometimes watch the Christmas light switch on in our town, we go for walks to find foliage, and pine cones etc to make into decorations, we do arts and crafts activities, we dance around to Christmas songs. We eat popcorn whilst we watch Christmas films, we go and look at Christmas grottos/displays in garden centres/shopping centres.
I’m not criticising others that spend vastly more at all, but don’t assume others are miscalculating or lying- some people have to make the most out of what we have!
I bloody love Christmas

This is what my super frugal Christmas expenses look like:
I have a living tree that we keep outside so that was free plus decorations and lights out the cupboard
£15 for Secret Santa (my friends all group together to do this)
£60 spent on each of my mum and dad's presents but split between me and my brother so £30+30
£40 for petrol to parents and back
£60-70 for nice wine/desserts/nibbles etc to bring with me
£15 for a nice bottle of wine for my partner's parents

...that's it I think! Me and my partner don't give each other Christmas presents (we've got too much stuff as it is) and no kids definitely makes it a lot easier to do it on the cheap. Plus all the things I enjoy most at Christmas are free or low cost (watching Christmas films, going for wintery walks, playing board games etc.).

Admittedly on a normal year I'd probably spend a small fortune on Christmas drinks with friends, pub roasts, going to the theatre etc but obviously that's off the cards (especially since I'm in tier 3!).

I think an awful lot of people saying they do it for virtually nothing are not adding up the same costs - or they are estimating and if they tracked it would be properly horrified!

Nope. I keep a spreadsheet on my phone of every single Christmas expense. No screams of horror here. I know what I spend.

There’s also a big difference between costs if you are hosting and costs if you visit family etc.

Typically we would visit family, and we would pay about £100 for either drinks or snacks or some contribution. We’d stay for a good few days and both sets of parents would be offended if we paid for anything else - although we do cook.

This year, buying Christmas dinner alone has been about £60, let alone all the extra food, drinks etc for a number of days.

I definitely used to be able to do Christmas for about £200 in my twenties!