Want a really cheap christmas

Spendless

aliasojo- Don't know how helpful this is to you,as my children are young 5 and 2, but last year we cut back on the kids presents. They didn't notice because they have 2 lots of grandparents, 2 great-grandmas and an aunt on each side who all buy for them.

When we go abroad on hol, i seek out the shop abroad for different stocking fillers. Son has a name that's popular in states but you can't get anything personalised for him here. When we holiday in states or canada where we have relatives i pick up stuff like stickers and notepads with his name on.

Lillibet_2

We plan on sponsoring a child through world vision in our sons name this Christmas, and will keep doing the same for future birthdays, chrismases etc, (already started this when he was born) as soon as he is old enough we will involve him in the process of picking a charity etc. I hope to be able to keep the info from all the charitable gifts made in his name & present him with a file of them when he is older. We have bought him 2 gifts, both planned & thought through so we aren't wasting money on throwawy toys & the like. We have asked family & friends to limit his gifts to only one or 2 small items & if they realy want to spend more we would rather they put some money into his trust fund. Hopefulyl by starting liek this & not buildign up expetations of heaps of presnets we will be able to keep a reasonable hold on things when he gets older.
We have already told family that we are cutting back our spending on them and will be making a lump donation to charity instead and we really don't mind if they do the same for us, so far no one has taken offence and most have admitted that they have too much "stuff" already & don't need anything so what a good idea! I think it's just a case of making the first step when you have already set a diffrent precedent.

ashmit

OK - there are some great ideas on here - but please please has anyone got any suggestions on how to bring my husband under control??? Last Christmas we agreed to keep it to under £50 - now it was our first married Christmas and so it may be understandable but we both went over. But I only went over by a reasonable amount. He spent over £400 on me! Now I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I loved 'em all, but... we decided that it was our first married Christmas and we wouldn't do it again. But every time I talk about Christmas and a £50 limit, he gets a gleam in his eye and says 'yep, that's fine' in that totally insincere way that means he doesn't intend to stick to it for a minute.

Now, he can afford it (kinda); he spends very little really generally and most spending goes through me, for various reasons (basically cause he doesn't do the internet so I can find much cheaper deals for CDs etc). And I know that with me being 'head of the household' effectively (I deal with all our finances etc and most things are in my name - I'd like to change this but small steps...!) he gets a kick out of treating me (especially as I don't often treat myself) but... seriously? I'd rather he spent £20 on me and we had £380 to put towards paying our debt off.

Anyone got any pointers, cause I'm stuck

MrsB_2

Last year for my DH i bought him a goat, some chickens, and some blankets for orphans.

They were the 'gift vouchers' that Oxfam do. You get sent a card to give to the recipient that says;

For Christmas I bought You

A Goat

Then on the inside it says,

But I gave it to someone who needs it more than you do.

DH loved it, and it meant that somebody somewhere really benefitted from his Christmas present.

ashmit

Great from my point of view, I'd love to receive something like that, but I think he'd feel cheated as I give quite a lot to charity anyway (especially including voluntary work).

I do love those things from Oxfam etc - I had two cousins get married this summer. One got a tree and one got something from Oxfam unwrapped. They're especially good for people when you haven't got a clue what they might appreciate.

Curry_Queen

aliasojo wrote:

My eldest two (22 + 16) are always a headache though as their wish lists always include some sort of expensive electrical gadget thing. My problem in the past has been that if I buy the expensive thing, it never looks much sat there by itself so I always end up buying more to sit under the tree. Before you know it your Xmas bill is huge!

I'd love to know how other people cut down with teenagers in the family, lol.

I've faced exactly the same problems before, and even worse, the fact that they want for nothing has brought about recent requests of just giving them money instead, which of course they have a certain value in mind which f-a-r exceeeds what I would normally spend (or at least what they think I would spend as they don't know about my excellent bargain hunting skills! ) but this just doesn't sit right with me as it means nothing and is so impersonal

I can see this year being a real struggle to come up with some compromise that everyone's happy with

rchddap1

Something must be wrong with my step-daughters. Their Dad can struggle for ideas as they don't stay with him. So he asks what they want. Usually they come back with not bothered....or x would be okay. In past years this has caused us no end of problems sorting it all out. However, as we have been collecting 'stuff' all year its no problem at all and they are practically sorted.

There's always the doubt if it will be appreciated though.

Edit: Recently what we've started to do as they are 13 & 16 is get a few pressies for the tree and then they get a certain amount of money to go shopping with. This provides some stuff to unwrap at Xmas, and uses up one the 'holiday days' with a shopping trip. What they choose to spend their money on is up to them. Last birthday's one spent all her birthday money on a DS and the other went round the sales looking for cheap nice clothes for herself.

Poppycat

I always find a great present is a nice presented photograph of our kids to close relatives.

As I am into photography, I get a nice picture printed off the pc printer using quality photo paper and get a frame from Wilkos, sometimes with a border background inserted into the frame. Total costs not including your time, about £3-£4.

We would much rather spend what money we have on our kids and us.

bektoria

MrsB wrote:

Last year for my DH i bought him a goat, some chickens, and some blankets for orphans.

They were the 'gift vouchers' that Oxfam do. You get sent a card to give to the recipient that says;

For Christmas I bought You

A Goat

Then on the inside it says,

But I gave it to someone who needs it more than you do.

DH loved it, and it meant that somebody somewhere really benefitted from his Christmas present.

This sounds really good and something I would love to do this year. Did you do this from a special catalogue or would I be able to do this at my local Oxfam ?


Thanks,
Bek

MrsB_2

i did it through a catalogue they sent us in the post.

But here's their website: