Spill the beans..

gaily

Flibsey wrote: »

my daughter has has £124.99 spent on her for Yule and about £20 for xmas. we celebrate both, but her main gift is always for Yule. she's getting a refurbished IBM ideapad mini laptop, total bargain on ebay and I've so far spent about 2 hours putting things on she needs/likes when she's in bed or at school; setting up parental controls on her internet use, downloading firefox so that's easier to do, putting on quicklinks to her favorite sites and I'm going to be installing some games on it for her too. Popcap ones, Peggle and Zuma. as a family we have a Lenovo thinkpad, and hers looks like a baby version of ours!!!

Sounds like you've had as much fun from the present as your daughter will !! :T (and she'll get something that doesn't take until school starts to get set up properly!)

Pawan_2

I am amazed that on moneysaving expert (of all places) that people spend so much at christmas. It makes us look very stingy - but our children have always been very happy with their gifts till now.

Our children are 4 and 5, and we have always spent around £10 to £20 on each of them. Total.

We do lots of fun activities and make advent calendars and do Christmas baking, which they really enjoy. (but we don't knit our own yoghurt lol)

We don't have stockings or gifts from father Christmas (i never had either of these as a child, so never got into that tradition). Plus, they do get gifts from one set of grandparents, one aunt, and one uncle - so I think that is plenty!

I'm sure that as they get older, they will want what everyone else has, but we don't really have the money, nor the inclination, to spend a lot of cash.

shellsuit

smk77 wrote: »

anibell, I feel sorry for your son. After Christmas, he'll talk to friend's about what they got for Christmas. He's going to wonder what he did wrong to get such a small amount from Father Christmas compared to the other kids...

Actually, scrap that. I don't feel sorry for him at all because he'll grow up understanding the value of what he gets. Although, it's pretty clear to me that if he'd just asked for a £35 game then he's already on the right direction.

(He's probably past the Father Christmas stage but I'm sure you see my point!).

In answer to the question, I think we're just over £200 for my 3yr old and 5 month old but that includes a fair amount of clothes, books and a baby walker. We could afford more but I really don't believe in spending on the kids just because you've got it. Creating high expectations early on in child's life is not healthy. Oh, and it's Christmas....I've never been to church so not really sure why I spend anything.

Crikey, what a mean and thoughtless post *shakes head*

You have no idea of what her son will say or do and have no idea what his friends will say or do.

If that's all the lad has asked for, then he sounds like an absolute delight and his parents should be very proud!

smk77

skintmumof2 wrote: »

I dont like what you said there although you took it back.

PASS. Well done! You read beyond the first sentence.

shellsuit wrote: »

Crikey, what a mean and thoughtless post *shakes head*

You have no idea of what her son will say or do and have no idea what his friends will say or do.

If that's all the lad has asked for, then he sounds like an absolute delight and his parents should be very proud!

FAIL!!!! You clearly didn't read beyond the first sentence!

LEJC

ive not read the thread...but this is my experience this year....

my 13 year old has asked for nothing other than "his usual christmas stocking"....a collection of small things like socks,deodorant,terrys chocolate orange,some chocolate coins...small things usually it totals no more than £40...

Ive asked several times if there is a large item he wants...he has gadgets,perhaps not the most up to date phone etc ...but so far all my suggestions have been met with..."what Ive got works fine thanks mum"....

As a family we are however having a "luxury experience" as part of our summer holiday next year and it seems that our son has decided that a few gifts to open on christmas morning is all he needs..and has quite openly said hes looking forward to the holiday next year and sees that as more than making up for the lack of a new phone...

So it makes me very proud that he seems to have such an adult attitude to the amount spent on christmas presents...but it also makes me feel a little bad that he wont have lots albeit his own choice....

minerva_windsong

gaily wrote: »

Take your hard hat off Tessie - as you say, you have it - so you're allowed to spend it.

I'm sure your kids wouldn't go without if you had less to spend, and if you won't be piling up the debts to do so, then spend away.

This site may be geared up to money saving and i'm sure you are as game for a bargain as the rest of us. This site doesn't just intrest those with nothing to spend, or no budget to play with.

Hear hear!

My parents are incredibly generous and spend about £100-150 on each of me and my sisters, £50-75 on each of my brothers-in-law, £20-30 on my boyfriend, £50-100 on each of my nephews and then another £100-150 on stockings and tree presents (although my sisters buy my nephews' tree presents and the majority of stuff in their stockings). That said though they work really hard, save up all year for Christmas and do their best to get bargains whenever they can. It's definitely an attitude that's rubbed off on me as I'm very much a saver for Christmas and will stash vouchers etc to take some of the pressure off my budget.

Oh, and we're 24, 32 and 36 and still get stockings - my brothers in law get stockings as well and the oldest of them is 43! - and they still come from Father Christmas

shellsuit

smk77 wrote: »

PASS. Well done! You read beyond the first sentence.



FAIL!!!! You clearly didn't read beyond the first sentence!

Oh, so not only do you know that poster, their son and all his friends, you now know me and exactly what I do? :rotfl::rotfl:

I did read all of your post, I just chose to highlight and comment on the first part as I thought it was really mean and uncalled for, especially as you then went to post the rest.

DizzyB

I really don't know tbh. I don't set a budget as such, I spend what I can afford from month to month in the lead up and try to get the things they'd like. This month I was lucky as I had my clubcard statement through, which said I'd got £60 in unspent vouchers, which I was unaware of... and I then doubled this on their double points promotion... I bought £105 worth of stuff which I will collect tonight, and didn't physically spend a penny YAY!

Some presents are worth more than I paid, for example I got DS2's main pressie of the Cars 2 Imaginext set for £25 (half price) months ago, so the similar pressie for DS1 (the Imaginext dinosaur) will cost almost double, but is of the same value.

As long as they have the same amount to open, I am not too concerned about spending less on one than the other. They are too young to notice or care, so as long as they are happy with their pressies, I am happy too. They are 5.5 and 2.5.

smk77

shellsuit wrote: »

Oh, so not only do you know that poster, their son and all his friends, you now know me and exactly what I do? :rotfl::rotfl:

I did read all of your post, I just chose to highlight and comment on the first part as I thought it was really mean and uncalled for, especially as you then went to post the rest.

so you'll have seen that after my first sentence I proceeded to complement the son. Something you also did...

Kids are kids. They discuss what they got for Christmas. If you don't agree then you obviously missed your own childhood...I remember when I was about 7 I went into my next door neighbours house at around lunchtime and saw the living room floor half full of unopened presents for the 2 boys who were too busy playing with the toys they'd opened to bother with the rest. Spoilt sods and they most definitely grew up to be obnoxious.

If you go back to my original post you'll see that I also quoted another member who has spent a grand. I know which of the children of the 2 members I quoted will learn to appreciate value the most. If I was making a negative posting towards anyone it was the other person.

My post wasn't intended to be mean or thoughtless. It was actually a massive complement to the poster and the appreciative son. It was obviously lost on you though...

mooresud

We have 3 dd's (nearly 7, 5.5 and 3.5) and I'll probably spend £10 each on their stocking and about £30 each on their presents. The actual RRP of it all will probably be about £60 each rather than the £40 I'll be paying.

Letter to santa did include ipods, etc but dd1 knows she won't get anything like that cos we just can't afford it.
They get lots from family too, so we don't feel too tight not spending loads on them -as long as they get at least one thing from their list they'll be happy (i hope!) :snow_grin