how much do you spend on bday presents - for other children?

[PotKettleBlack]

ds went to a 3rd birthday party the other day. He took a book as a present, cost me £6. I did notice most of the other presents were a fair bit bigger than ours (though not unwrapped so could be deceptive).

Just read on another thread someone estimating £10 per present to take to a party.

Feel like I have been tight now. Am I? This wasn't a special friend of ds's though the mum and I often have a quick coffee together if we bump into each other in the street. (not sure this makes a difference?!)

£5 ish.

I buy packs of books from Book People which work out at £1 per book and sometimes give those instead.

Look out for half price deals on things when you are out and about and have a present box so you can dip in it when parties come up.

£5-£10 for a child you dont know very well - up to £15 for one you are really close to.

phew - not too bad then. Annoyingly though I spent £6 on the book, I walked past Waterstones yesterday and saw the same book in the window with a 2 for the price of 1 sticker on. So now it looks as though I only spent £3!

£4- £7

Around £5 for just a random friend from school who is having a party. If it is a close friend (either a close friend of the DC or a close friend of mine's child) then around £10.

Up to £10 including card, up to £15 for best friends. The Book People is brilliant, so is The Works - lots of arts/crafts gear for very little money.

I'm the same as most, £5 for school/nursery children, £10-£15 for special friends.

I'm always on the look out for bargains, last week I got a fab doctor's dress up outfit from Sainsburys, £10 reduced to £5. Bargain!

We get the book people at work so presents are quite often books. In fact ds (4) said to me when I was wrapping yet another book set (2 minutes we needed to leave for the party of course!) "mummy, why do we ALWAYS buy people books" Woops, what can I say!

x

5 for a classmates party. 10 for their good friends and nephews/neices

for parties I do about £5.

my fave thing to do is go to the local £1 store, by five gifts, wrap them in tissue paper and put them into a goft bag with lots of shredded tissue paper......looks like a lucky dip, and yes, makes a mess when the child is delving in, but thats the fun of pressies and the children love it, plus it looks like I have spent lots when in reality, not much at all.

if they are children of close friends, or my childs best friend however, I spend £10/£15 :)

I definately don't think you were being tight. The dc are still quite young and how quickly will they grow out of a book/toy?

Ds is 12 and some of his mates are turning 13 - it's gone up to 20 euro now. Dd gives between 15 to 20 euro (she's 10).

When we lived in Berlin people used to spend 25 to 30 euro which was abit much but that's what they all did, but when they were all younger it was the 5 to 10 euro range.

I find it all too expensive especilly when they keep coming with invites. Ds is in a group of 10 boys who are his good friends but they all either give some game for ds/xbox/ps whatever or 20 euro.

Around a fiver - usually some art stuff or a book.

I try and keep a few unisex presents in for late invites/busy times but DS likes to choose the present himself usually. So values vary dependant upon what he chooses.

We only have 3-4 a year though as a small class and the girls tend to have girl only parties.

Two of my DCs went to a party a couple of months and the party child was saving for something from Game so the mum suggested a voucher.

This is fine as I want to get something that the child will appreciate but I found it really difficult as it made it obvious how much I'd spent and I aslo had the dilemma of whether to spend twice as much as 2 of my DCs went to the party.

I went for £10 in total but still worry that it wasn't enough.

I just stick £5.00 in a card. Generally the children recieve money from other members of the family and like to save for something

max of 5 quid . I pick generic "presents" up in supermarket/ end of season sales and recycle duplicates from presents my childs been given. Also have done the book people multipacks to split.

Last party present DS gave I think the skipping rope and crafty kit combined cost 3 quid or so.