Who do you buy for and how much do you spend?

emweaver

I spend around £15 on each child and try to spend less on the adults lol.

I buy for DH, 2 daughters, mum, dad, mil, 4 brothers (all under 15) 5 nephews and 1 niece. I don't buy for the adults as they all decided last year not to buy for adults so didn't want to be the only one.

This year I've decided not to buy for bil or his son as in all my daughters life hes never bought her one xmas or bday present, Ive not had anything off him for 13 years and he doesn't even bother with dh now.

kiss_me_now9

Spend about £30 on my sister/her fiance (this year they're getting a hamper), about £25 on both my parents and probably about another £30 on my OH, not including his birthday present which is 6 days before Christmas. Grandparents haven't been thought about yet... may get them something homemade but need to figure out what.

Also buy for my sisters cats and mine... just a little something, somewhat of a tradition stemming from childhood

kez_s

We have quite a few to buy for, we spend approx. £150 each on the kids, plus they have stockings which is usually another £20/£30 each, but in their presents they get clothes, PJ's, books, etc., I refuse point blank to spend hundreds of pounds when they do well throughout the year and we like to lots of Christmassy treats during Dec. DH and I buy each other, but he bought me an SLR for my birthday/Christmas which I've wanted for ages! But we will still buy each other as it's normally us who goes without or can't find anything we want, if DH doesn't really want anything then we keep the money for after Christmas.

We have 3 nieces and a nephew and we set the amounts with our siblings. Then we have DH's Mum, Dad and step Mum, normally about £40 each. Then my parents, roughly £50 each as they do a lot for us. We don't buy my oh's sister and husband by mutual agreement. We buy my bother and his girlfriend and set the amount prior. Then it's my Nan roughly £30, then we buy dh's Nan & Gramp and his Auntie & Uncle & family, this normally things like photo's of the kids and chocolates. We don't but the rest of our Aunt's and Uncles, cousins, etc., my gawd if we did it would go on forever! Plus I buy a friend and her husband something as she's like a second Mum to me and she always remembers my kids every birthday and Christmas. I also may have to buy my friends children if she comes over to the UK prior to Christmas.

But with all the amounts I get a lot of very good deals, cashback, vouchers, plus we save every month of the year which is just as well looking at how many we buy for!! LOL!

ragz_2

I have 17 relatives and foster-nieces/nephews to buy for - all budgeted at £10 max each apart from the foster kids which I budget £5 for as they will get a LOT of stuff from their families. (We also have 6 family birthdays around xmas, £10 each there too) If I manage to get a nice gift for less than £10 then that's a saving and I don't spend more to make up for it.
For the grandparents I am doing them each a food hamper to share, totalling their budgets to make £20 per hamper and hoping to come under that by making a lot of it. Have gone over by a few quid on only couple of presents, mostly under or on the dot

Close family is me, DH and three kids. For that I have budgeted £50 each for mine and DH's main gift, £20-25 for kids' main gift and £20 each for their stockings and £30 total for Christmas eve box. I'll get DH a few little stocking type presents and usually my best mate and I get each other a stocking instead of a gift but she's poorly this year so we may skip that.

This all comes to around £500 on gifts alone, so luckily I spread it over many months. Started October this year which is late for me. I wouldn't go into debt to buy gifts, if I couldn't afford to spend this much I would cut back on our gifts to me and DH and make cheaper gifts for relatives.

bluenitsuj

We buy for:

3 x nephews £15 each
Mum £20
dad £20
Dads wife £15
Step sisters x 2 £10 each
Wife £50
Daughter £50

Other people in family just get a card off us as it was getting really silly. Even my sister only gets a card from us, and vice versa, I do not buy for cousins, aunties, uncles etc as it was getting out of hand, luckily most of our family had adopted this approach.

lacithecat

Baby - 30 pounds of various stuff from mothercare and such
Mom and most of my family - will get pictures taken (100), but rationalised that they would last forever and spread over everyone, it makes sense
Other friends and their children - aiming to do everyone for 7 pounds. I know that sounds like a funny number, but I am doing things like 3 for 2 from boots, and deal sites like Itsy Bitsy Bargains and groupon ... so plus/mine 10 pounds ... works out to 7 pounds.

Boy am I cheap (and oh so very broke).

lazer

I buy for

Mum - used to be £10, upping to £100 this year as i'm living at home again - they won't take anything for keep..
Dad - used to be £10, upping to £100 this year as i'm living at home again and they won't take anything for keep..
Brother - £10 - £20
Boyfriend - depends on what he wants - no more than £100, no less than £40.
Cousin - £2 (2 items for the poundshop and he does the same for me)
Best Friend - £10
Great Aunts - £7 (bunch of flowers)

Also, its my brothers birthday and boyfriends birthday on christmas week so I buy these too with my christmas presents!

So far - I've spent £35 on a joint present for ma & da, and th boyfriends birthday present is bought too.

LAM2011

It was at Christmas time last year that I realised how much debt I actually had and if I was going to buy anyone presents it would be back on ccards so luckily my family is understanding and I just got them something really small each. My BF family gives and expects gifts and luckily he supplies for them so I only have DS, Mum, BF, brother and his daughter to buy for. Aside from my niece (whom I will splash £20 on ) I am doing the hamper thing (great idea from this forum) and hoping to spend £10 or less per hamper. And bonus I am already nearly there - normally its a last minute rush around the week before xmas after waiting for some money fairy to drop me off a wad of cash which of course doesnt happen so out come the ccards.

For the first time in as long as I can remember I am not starting 2012 worrying about how much was spent on xmas and how much debt I was in. Hopefully from next year as well there will be a flicker of light at the end of the debt tunnel

victory

louby_lou wrote: »

Grandparents #1: £30 Christmas flowers - might try to make some fudge, definitely gingerbread, maybe a sherry / gin combo for nan...
grandparents#2: £30 Christmas flowers to be delivered

Nothing to do with me in the slightest but for the £60 you spend on the flowers could you not make them a fab hamper, some home made jams/pickles/shortbread/fudge/cakes/biscuits/cookies/snowman soup/ their fav chocs etc for cheaper?:D

cat04

I like to think that we don't spend too much, even though we have a lot to buy for, and although I usually write a list and jot down prices I don't think I've ever added it all up, so I may be in for a shock! Just about everything I buy is never full price due to codes, sales, offers, using points, vouchers and paypal earned through ebay and surveys etc. I do put most of it on a credit card but it's always paid off in full every month, and as it's a Nectar Amex all the points I've collected over the year pay for the Christmas shop including alcohol and some pressies

DDs x2 - Spent £60ish in the Sainsbury's 1/2 price toy sale, plus a few bits I've already bought, + stocking & Christmas Eve hamper = £100/£120 total
OH - £50-60ish varies, but seeing as I didn't get him much for his bday in Oct as I was laid up ill I'll spend a bit more. I don't like him spending more than £40 on me, but I know he spends more!
Mum & Dad - £40 Joint hamper (Mum is trying to declutter and doesn't want 'stuff' so it's all useful) fave whiskey / tea / coffee / biscuits / smellies / gardening stuff etc
Brother - £20-£30
Nan - £20
Grandma - £5 (due to some good bargains!)
'Auntie' - £5 as above (Grandma's life long friend always gets stuff for the girls so they send her something)
Auntie & Uncle - £7
OH's Mum & partner - £20
OH's Dad & partner - £20
OH's Grandparents - £50
OH's brother & GF - £30
OH's Auntie & Uncle - £20
OH's Cousin (13) - £10-20 (last year was over £30 cos he was bought a new xbox and we were asked to buy a controller, think we spent way more on them then they did on us, which is fine, but they have 2 wages and only 1 child and we have 1 wage and 2 children so this year hopefully it won't be so much!)
OH's great auntie & uncle - £5
DD's friends x2 - £10 total
OH's God-daughter plus 2 siblings - £9 total
OH's best friends & son - £15 total
Teachers/TAs etc x4 - Hoping to do pots of gold this year but not sure whether to do them with scratchcards or not, so will be 50p or £1.50 each
Nursery & pre-school staff x approx 8 - as above

£486 plus either £6 or £18 for school staff.....looking at it like that I think it'll be without scratchcards! So lets call it £500 including emergency pressies. That's more than I thought it would be! It will all be worth more than we paid, not that I'd buy it at full price lol. We haven't bought for OH's family yet so hopefully we can shave a bit off, and I'll look out for offers on the bits I want to get for my Nan and parents.