How much do you spend on your kids at Christmas?

mrcow

Stephb1986 wrote: »

So now we have spent £100 in total on 3 kids and get £10 back! I think its just madness, I or my OH wouldn't dream of just sending her item numbers for what we or my kids would want!

This is completely nuts.

Take ALL of it back. Text the sister back say thanks but no thanks. Then go out and spend £10 each on them - which is more than adequate.

I have three children of my own and would never stoop to being so rude as to do something like this. There is more to Chirstmas than presents - perhaps your sister in law needs to be reminded of this?

miamoo

You don't realise how lucky you are having a 1 year old, that doesn't ask for things! When my ds was 1 I went mad, spent around £200 on toys from a catalogue, I was stupid, and spent the next 2 years paying it off.
I learnt my lesson though, and I would say £20-£30 max for a baby at Christmas. Do you have a £1 shop near you? My sis got tons of stuff for her 3. Colouring things, stickers, paper, ducks for the bath, books, a watch each, doll, cars, just watch for small parts on toys. But things like jigsaws,board books etc would be safe for a baby.
Also as mentioned Clothes for the coming year is useful.
My 2 are 12 and 14, and they now get £50 cash and £50 worth of pressies each, everyweek I put £4 away an get a £1 sainsburys stamp so Xmas is less stressful!

belle2008

When my DS ws a baby, he used to love unraveling (sp?) the kitchen roll and tearing it into shreds. Obviously this was quite annoying! So for his first birthday we went to the pound shop and bought several packs of the stuff. He could then sit and unravel and rip kitchen roll to his heart's content.

Not suggesting you buy your DD a load of kitchen roll for Christmas, but just trying to illustrate the point that a one year old has no idea of money, and your idea of fun may not be the same as theirs. £50 is way too much. I think what other posters have said about putting some money in her trust fund would be a better idea. She'll appreciate it much more when she's 18. As you said, she is going to be getting loads of pressies from relatives anyway, and what you'll find is that instead of her little face lighting up as she rips open presents, she will become completely overwhelmed after 2 or 3. I say this because it happened when my DS was little, well-meaning relatives bombarded him with gifts, and it actually took away from the fun of xmas. Having presents shoved at him all day was too much for him and he just went all quiet! I wished afterwards that we had just given him the Xmas stocking and nothing else, as he was quite happy with the few little toys he had in that.

Crap_with_money.com

£50 is plenty on a baby of that age - I was in the Early Learning Centre last week buying a birthday pressie, and they were giving loads of decent freebies away eg Buy a baby doll, and get a crib and bedding worth £20 for free - or buy a small dolls house, and get a gypsy horse and dolls worth £15 for free!

If you managed to find something like that - you'd have a decent sized present and still have a good bit of cash left over for other odds and sods to bulk the pressie up!

Steph - no it's defo her! I have 4 nieces/nephew, plus my sis' and their OH's to buy for - but they've always been great as since there's only me, I get pressies back from my sis's as well as one from the kids! Obviously you don't give to receive - but it's nice to keep a wee bit of perspective and be grateful for what you're getting!

xxx

okciv

My DD is 2 & we have already spent over £130. This is on 4 'big' toys and a couple of books & bits & pieces
Looks like I need tips on clever spending!

Stephb1986_2

These kids are 4,7 and 9 i dont mean it funny but i got what i was given when i was a kid! The presents i got were off ebay but all new in the boxes. I think what people spend on kids is getting out of hand really. I know we all want the best for our kids but there is loads of ways to get it cheaper. Im 22 now and my mum says every year that i can have 1 big present and the rest is stocking fillers. This year i've got a new bed which i've gone halves on!

Steph xx

piglet74

£50 is loads for a 1 year old, i would actually try and cut it down while shes still too young to ask, money seems to go further when they are younger at Xmas, and dont know what to aks for, my daugter is 10 now, and as this will prob be her last year for "santa" i want to get her what shes asks for, which is Wii games and a mobile phone,

i have said to her that santa has a certain amount to spend on each child in the world and if you ask for wee things you got lots of them, but if you ask for a dear thing that might be all your money gone and shes happy enough with that!

Cinny91

There is a video of me on my first christmas. I'm sat wide eyed at the christmas tree grasping onto wrapping paper while my mum, brother and sister are trying to get me interested in some building blocks.

My mum said that she remembers being so excited on my brothers (the eldest of us, 23) first christmas that they opened the presents christmas eve! My brother wasn't interested at all but my mum said she loved it :rotfl:


There is no point spending money you dont have on christmas, it's the thought that counts! I seriously wouldn't mind if all my parents gave me for christmas was an orange, I just love there being one day in the year where we shut the outside world off and forget about work ect for 24 and enjoy being with my family (soppy but true)

StressedSteph

RedBern wrote: »

Better she has a few little things to open than a lot to ignore!... and she'll only play with the wrapping paper and boxes anyway;)

Ooooh this is sooo true. In the past my kiddies (4 & 2) have had a mini mountain of toys and looking back they got so overwhelmed by it all.

For their birthdays this year we only spent around £50-£60 each, which at their age is about 2 or 3 things. This was perfect for them. They seemed to spend longer playing with the toys and have looked after them better.

We are only spending the same again for Christmas, because of this we are hoping for less chaos rushing round trying to unwrap plastic packaging off tonnes of toys and fill them with batteries.

xx

shellyaspey

we thought we where doing the best thing by starting getting stuff in for our little girl who is 3 about 5 months ago ! we started stashing them away in the loft so not to be seen by prying little eyes ! anyway we my hubby went up there yesterday and half an hou later he shouted you better come up hear so up i went and was horrified at the amount of stuff we had up there anyway we added up and i almost fell back down the loft hatch as my hubby said !! well with the disney princess bike that makes 450 quid we just looked at each other and where speechless as we had no idea anyway after looking through 2 more times we realised that some of the disney princess sets where almost identical apart from a few small differences so some of them are now going back to the shop ! i think if we had left it later and went and done it all at once we would only maybe have spent at the most 150 quid