Parents,how much do you spend on christmas presents for your kids?

jellyhead

our portable dvd player broke and somebody lent us a psps - you can play dvd's on them. it's a small screen though and you have to hold it, but it's easier to keep the sun off the screen.

Melon78

Roxie

Both our sons are getting a Nintendo DS this year. I have one and its really quite scary how good my 3.5 year old is at using it - puts me to shame :]

Lunar_Eclipse

I've just bumped into an old friend at the customer service counter in Sainsbury's, asking for a red Nintendo DS for her son for Xmas. This will be his second since he's worn out the screen on his current one! Too much Pokemon was mentioned.

(Incidentally I told her we have screen protectors on ours, from Amazon I think.)

dunkbiscuits

Not including my husband and son I have 15 members of close family to buy for which I limit to £10 - £20 pounds per person. My son is 3 and we have spent less than £100 on him (lego is really expensive!) and I'll spend between £50 and £100 on my husband. I'm nearly finished my shopping and it will come in at about £400 for all 17 people.

RoxieW

Melon78 wrote: »

Roxie

Both our sons are getting a Nintendo DS this year. I have one and its really quite scary how good my 3.5 year old is at using it - puts me to shame :]

well my youngest is 4 and half but i never really expresses an interest in such things and doesnt have very good concentration. will see how he gets on though.

RoxieW

dunkbiscuits wrote: »

Not including my husband and son I have 15 members of close family to buy for which I limit to £10 - £20 pounds per person. My son is 3 and we have spent less than £100 on him (lego is really expensive!) and I'll spend between £50 and £100 on my husband. I'm nearly finished my shopping and it will come in at about £400 for all 17 people.

hiya - i've found with lego that the big sets that make something specific ie police station etc are abit of a waste of money as they're too complicated for the little ones. Mine had a big tub each of just a selection of blocks one xmas and its been plyed with non stop since. they'd rather make up their own vehicles/little men etc then do what 'mr lego' is telling them to do!

http://www.toys1.co.uk/lego-5483-creator-lego-vehicles-large-starter-tub-age-4-328-p.asp

this is the one - hours and hours of play!

LouBlue

dunkbiscuits wrote: »

I'm nearly finished my shopping and it will come in at about £400 for all 17 people.

That's really good, well done you!

lrr_2

Nintendo DS lite was bought 2 years ago for my daughter and has just broke. Basically from being well used. However I have to say it was the best present I have ever bought her. Played every day nearly, well worth the money! When I think of all the money I have spent on other toys for her and they just sit in her room. Scary! Dont mind buying her a new one as I know it will be played with. Bought her a Digimakeover last year - cost £55 and played with once!

katiecoodle

I think I spend about £50 - 65 ish on them but TBH they think its from Father Christmas & so it looks like I spend nothing on them....they get very very spoiled by other members of the family though so they're usually too distracted to realise that mummy & daddy don't get them anything at Christmas...

Hush-Puppy

Well, our main income (dh's salary) is about £14,500. We also get wftc and ctc. We have four kids, b.13, b.11, g.7, g.23 months.


We do get into debt for Christmas. Every November we get a 12 month bank loan and use that to pay for Christmas (plus we save some money to add to that). Because we've done this for years and years we don't *notice* the monthly loan payment.


I have budgeted £200 for each of the boys, £175 for my 7 year old and £100 for my almost-2-year-old.


The boys have asked for an Xbox 360 (between them) which, with it's game/controller bundle and 2 more games has cost around £200. That leaves me £100 to spend on 'things to open' for each of them. I've bought both of the boys book sets etc and am not above splitting them to make more parcels! I'm one of those who loves them to have a huge pile of pressies to come down to. We average about 15 parcels each usually.


My oldest dd is getting a bike (paid around half price from Gumtree and barely a mark on it!) as her main pressie, a new folding scooter, plus the Sainsburys £4.50 hifi. I've also got her loads of books and stuff. The 'baby' is having a trike, a table top kitchen, play food and various other small bits and bobs. We spend about £75 each on ourselves (it's the one time of the year we can ask for frivilous pressies from each other!).


I buy for another 20+ people (including a few children) and their budget ranges from £15 to £50 (£50 being my mum).


I know people on Income Support who spend more than I do ... can't understand HOW but they do, lol!


XXX