For xmas how much to spend on a 4 year old

lisa_75

We usually spend about £300 per child, but this year I am aiming for £150 per child. That will consists of 1 or 2 main gifts that cost £30-£40 each and then lots of little gifts, like pencils, DVD`s, make up. They usually get about 40 gifts each as I love to see their faces when faced with a huge pile of gifts.

lisa_75

bella4uk wrote:

I think a 4 year old needs very little for xmas...if you give them more than 3 pressies they get confused as to what to play with first and in effect they don't enjoy it...so maybe 1 pressie in the morning, 1 after dinner and 1 more surprise later...cost is irrelevant.

Do you have kids Bella? I could not imagine a 4 year old coming down Chrismas morning and seeing 3 presents on the sofa. My kids would have been gutted. In fact I would be gutted if my Mum just bought me 3 presents! She always has a nice pile for me christmas morning and I am a grown up!

Chocmonster7

But why would they/you have been gutted Lisa_75? Surely it is quality not quantity which counts.

lisa_75

Chocmonster7 wrote:

But why would they/you have been gutted Lisa_75? Surely it is quality not quantity which counts.

Have you ever been a child? THE most exciting thing about Christmas is knowing that Santa has been with all his goodies. One of my most happy memories as a child was coming down Christmas morning and seeing the front room filled with toys for me and my siblings. It would not have been the same with just one box each!

Even now I would rather my husband bought me lots of little gifts that cost £10 each rather than 1 big gift that cost £100. I love seeing a pile of presents under the tree.

dora37

Edinburghlass wrote:

So I guess billyblack you suggest we all look on your website that you are advertising on here

dora37 I haven't read anywhere that users have said they find it necessary to spend huge amounts but if you are buying a bike, games console or something similar of course it will cost more than £20.

I dare say when I was bought a bike for my Christmas many moons ago it cost, comparatively, a lot of money but I certainly wasn't either a greedy child nor did I think my parents were going wrong somewhere.

Hi Edinburghlass,

I wasn't responding to the ' spend no more than £20 posts', far from it - we do spend quite a lot more than that - I'm talking about the people who deem it necessary to spend several hundreds (+ more).

People HAVE said that they find it necessary to spend lots of money and my point was that I would have to rethink it if I thought I had to spend that amount of money to make our children happy.

The above point was also aimed at the posts that said if you can afford to spend lots then thats fine - I CAN afford to spend lots, but again don't feel it necessary for my children to have a fun, happy Christmas.

Nobodies point is wrong - it is their point - that's it.

Chocmonster7

lisa_75 wrote:

Have you ever been a child? THE most exciting thing about Christmas is knowing that Santa has been with all his goodies. One of my most happy memories as a child was coming down Christmas morning and seeing the front room filled with toys for me and my siblings. It would not have been the same with just one box each!

While what you describe above is indeed a great memory would you really have been "gutted" to only find a few presents? Would it have scared you for life? Stunted your emotional growth? Made you hate your parents? On the scale of bad things which could happen to someone would it even register?

While everyone wants to make children happy they don't find lasting happiness in a pile of pretty coloured boxes which appear on a certain day in the year.

I think what this and a few other threads has highlighted are the differences in how people view Christmas and presents. Especially from different ends of the financial/experience scale, it's certainly been interesting so far!

Lillibet_2

lisa_75 wrote:

then lots of little gifts, like pencils, DVD`s, make up.

DVD's are a little gift?:eek: Blimey, my Mum's getting the Da Vinci Code which I don't expect to get for less than £12 & probably nearer £15, and this will be the pinnacle of her pressie from us with a few other small bits like home knitted mittens, face cream etc which cost a couple of pounds each! (which is my defination of little!) When did £10+ become a little amount?:eek::o Even if you mean the cheap £2-3 dvds, what does this teach kids about the value of money? How about the year they want 3 or 4 Disney DVD's at £10 each? Do you still buy them?

Sorry, I am not having a go at you, but am genuinaly curious?

Christmas for us is cheap as a matter of necessity which means we don't see the need to pad out presents with trivial junk which won't really be used or apprecieated, we would rather use those odd £'s to add up to something better, even a chairtable donation beacuse no matter how cheap our Xmas is there will always be others who are worse off & I think we should remember that & I would rather give in need than want!.

Maybe I just have a different mindset to others but it really really bugs me that Xmas is JUST about the presents for so many people? It never has been for me, even as a child in a well off family where I almost always (well, always:o) got what I wanted for Xmas. It scares me when you hear these polls that children think Jesus was prime minsiter during the war & Christmas came about because of a Coke advertising campaign! Even if you are aren't religious I don't see anything wrong with teaching children HOW christmas came to be celebrated the way it is & that it doens't have to include the presents for everyone.

Sorry, off soap box now:o:p

frizz_head

What is the matter with people here? Who cares who spends what on whom? I find it disgusting that people can come on here criticising what others do with THEIR kids.

Lets not turn this into a 'I am a better parent because......." thread, its a Christmas thread for goodness sake, so lets all just take a step back and stop criticising each other for spending too much or for not spending enough. It's all down to personal circumstance and choice.

"Deck the halls with bows of holly, fa la la la la la la la la la"

lisa_75

Lillibet wrote:

DVD's are a little gift?:eek: Blimey, my Mum's getting the Da Vinci Code which I don't expect to get for less than £12 & probably nearer £15, and this will be the pinnacle of her pressie from us with a few other small bits like home knitted mittens, face cream etc which cost a couple of pounds each! (which is my defination of little!) When did £10+ become a little amount?:eek::o Even if you mean the cheap £2-3 dvds, what does this teach kids about the value of money? How about the year they want 3 or 4 Disney DVD's at £10 each? Do you still buy them?

Sorry, I am not having a go at you, but am genuinaly curious?

What is a lot to one person is not a lot to another. £10 is not a lot to spend on a gift to me, no, and a DVD would be a stocking filler for one of my kids.

How I choose to spend my money is my choice. This Christmas has been saved and planned for and I refuse to feel guilty for spending money that my husband and I work hard for.

Chocmonster7

lisa_75 wrote:

What is a lot to one person is not a lot to another.

Exactly, which is why we are all treading a fine line in these threads. Some are bound to end up feeling depressed as they don't have lots to spend while others are going to feel like they are being told off for giving too much. We all just have to do what we think is right for our family but that doesn't mean we can't give each other a few ideas.