Giving up Money for Lent

tlb2408

Hi,

I've been following this thread for some time but wondered when the new challenge will start.....

Keen to know if you do budget for birthday's can this come out of that and not £10 weekly allowance. The main reason for asking is I did my budget last week for birthday's and Christmas and it came to £1,100 (This does not include OH Kids!!). So my weekly allowance wouldn't cover this. Plus I did not include Mothers Day or Easter etc into this!! Was quite shocked at how much it is really. And we've cut down on buying family presents over the years tooo (e.g. nieces, nephews etc) so would have been even worse if we still bought for them..

Hope you won't mind if I do decide to join your new challenge..

Thanks

CAFCGirl

good lord! What on earth do you buy them?!!!

My gift budget per year is a very generous (in my mind) £400... admittedly I have no kids, but do have BF and his family to buy for, as well as my own.

But to answer your question, if you budget and set aside money for gifts, then no it doesnt come out of your £10... HTH

ShirleyPark_2

My gift and my christmas budget both work out to be £20 a month, so what's that £480. In reality I hope I don't spend that much, I guess I won't know until the end of the year. I don't have kids either, but my sister has 2.

We have quite a large family on my mothers side, she's one of 6 children who between them have 14 kids, several of which are now married with children of their own. As a family it was agreed that presents were only bought for children under the age of 18 and the adults don't get anything. At one point it was getting very silly, my mother didn't know what to get her neices and nephews and so she'd just get a small token present. My nan gets each family a tin of chocolates each year for Christmas because she couldn't NOT get something.

I don't think Easter Eggs are a necessity either, then again neither are chocolate advent calendars (but I still have one), but more than that I think they are just a total rip off, you get hardly any chocolate and they don't even have the sweets inside any more. Hence why I make mine, I probably spend less than £1 on chocolate per Egg and I melt the whole bar so there's a decent amount of chocolate.

I like the idea of making hot cross buns as a present, or perhaps some Easter shaped biscuits.

When I was little my mother had very little money and thought presents should mean something, so she used to get us to make cards and make presents for birthdays and Christmas. Even now I still do the same thing, though most of my cards are made from photos that I've taken. I send very few Christmas cards and instead make gingerbread snowmen and wrap each one individually and give those to people instead of cards.

postingalwaysposting

hi all

:mad: doctors... £12.90 on prescriptions :mad: i also had to give £3 to a collection at work... ok i didnt but she is really nice so... and i also got some bananas...

pippo

Hi all,
Another no spend today:j
I'm not at all arty or crafty, but am going to try & make the couple of Easter cards that I want to send. In the past if I thought about doing something like this I would go out & buy all the kit and never use it - but not now though!! I'll use the card & things I have in the house & pray they don't look like they were done at nursery school!
I'm really hoping that my pigsback John Lewis vouchers come through tomorrow as we are off to the wedding do on Saturday & that was my plan for the prezzie.
OH is suffering from man-flu so not entirely sure if we will get there I do so want to go, but not keen on going alone.
Think I've got my head around the new challenge and have been updating my budget, but I need to be careful not to reassign too many things as necessary:rolleyes:

CAFCgirl - like the new signature!

brassiclint

CAFCGirl wrote: »

There's no point saying you're in, if you then go convincing yourself that vodka is a food stuff, or that La Senza underwear is necessary. It's not, Primark will do if youre desperate and have no knickers!

Love it!!! That really made me laugh. Primark is definitely a "unnecesary challenge participants" dream!! Although saying that, it's where most of my unnecessary spends take place "oh it's ONLY £4" ... "oh it's only £2.50" .. i haven't been there throughout lent and shall only return IF IT'S ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY like for new tights when you've laddered the ones you're wearing

brassiclint

brassiclint wrote: »

"unnecesary challenge participants"

or we could also be called "unnecessarily challenged" if we want to be policitically correct ... :rotfl:

ShirleyPark_2

If anyone is after cheap ideas of things for Easter Presents, just found a great website
http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/specialfeature/easter_crafts_ms/

How cute are these ?

Made from 2 wooden balls painted, a pipe cleaner and a feather !

TurnaroundSue

postingalwaysposting wrote: »

hi all

:mad: doctors... £12.90 on prescriptions :mad: i also had to give £3 to a collection at work... ok i didnt but she is really nice so... and i also got some bananas...

If you are going to be a sickie minto then you should all move to Wales as, as from 1 April ALL prescriptions will be FREE!! :j :j :j Hope you are feeling better soon PAP

TurnaroundSue

.....oh yes, another nsd for me too