Am I being to tight??? - Christmas Pressie help

tessie_bear

i dont think you are tight...buy what you think people would like on a sensible budget
merry christmas

Jacksmummy

Noooo your not stingy at all! more fool your sister if she wants to spend £100's... I too think of Christmas has a time to spend with family and friends and would much prefer a few hours with the peeps I love than any present no matter what it costs!
£20 is what I spend each on my parents, my brother and sister in law have £20 spent between them and the same for my sister & brother inlaw , Myself and dh have £25 each plus little bits for stocking etc and ds has around £400 (this amount has been cut down alot compared to other years)plus that includes birthday presents too cos he's birthday is 5days after Christmas, £400 might seem alot to some but I save all year round so come christmas we don't skint ourselves

Hope you have a lovely Christmas xx

Broomstick

Thanks for your post. I'd been meaning to add up the cost of Christmas for us this year and it's made me think about it again.

This year it's about £60 each for my two sons (young adults still living at home) main presents and about £20 each for them and me for little prezzies to put on the Christmas tree - our equivalent to stockings - and much of which is highly practical because they don't want me to spend money on rubbish but still enjoy the tree present opening. We've done it since they were tiny. I tend to spread the buying of these little bits and pieces throughout the year.

£10-£15 each for my parents.

£10 vouchers each for my siblings' three children.

My mum gave me a couple of spare cards to send my siblings so no spend there, and I've made a few h/m cards out of bits I already had in the house to have as back up in case any of the neighbours drop a card through the door and I need to give one back. I wound down the mass sending of cards years ago. Wrapping paper is from existing supplies so no spend there either.

£15 on prezzies for DS1's g/f and family.

We probably buy £20 extra in foodie treats (lovely cheeses, smoked salmon and fizzy non-alcoholic drink) for Xmas over and above what I would normally buy in a food shop. We don't do a traditional Christmas meal, never have; since we are veggie/fish eaters we've always done things differently.

We've replaced the artificial tree this year (the old one died from long service!) at under a tenner and got two new tree ornaments from Oxfam - we get a couple of new ones every year - cost £5 each. All other decorations get recycled from the previous year and some of them are ancient.:)

I make this £295 for the whole of Christmas - presents, food and decorations. I know I'm going to have to find ways to reduce costs next year. If we have spare money it will go on turning up the heating so that the house feels cosy all day.

B x

LameWolf

flippin36 wrote: »

Well it looks like I can out 'tight' you all.:D

Mr LW and I dispensed with present-giving entirely, from necessity when he was out of work, roughly ten years ago, and we have carefully never re-started it.;)

JulieGeorgiana

anniemf2508 wrote: »

I don't think your stingy at all...the only people that i spend alot on are my husband and kids.
Everyone else gets between £5-£10

So glad it's not just me!

I spend £100 on each of children, £20 on DH.

I have 26 people to buy for, so it's £5 a head (but my challange is to get a value of £15-20 per gift, while making sure it's something they like).

However everyone gets a nice card (in the post, none of this Facebook/text/email nonsense) and a handmade Calendar at Christmas, plus photos of the children in frames. I always buy nice wrapping paper too. I spend £100 a year on stamps alone, £40 on birthday wrapping paper, £10 on Christmas wrapping paper, £30 on cards...

By the time you add it all up I spend about £10 a head on everything.

You should never spend more then you have.

Ps. Now your sister know she may spend less and that'd make you less uncomfortable accepting her gifts x

bluebug

£20 is reasonable and that is how much we are spending per person in the family. £100 is excessive, I'm not spending that on my husbie

camNolliesMUMMY

Husband n kiddies get in the region of a hundred to two hundred.
Parents/grandparents get a picture of the kids I took x6 altogether 90p for six prints then £1.50 pack of two gold frames in asda great gift at 90p per parent or grandparent , also they get chocolates hm mince pies n gingerbread men made by the kids.
Bros sisters £10 each, they are teenagers and they get plenty at Xmas.
Aunties n uncles, a box of chocs
Cousins a pack of sweets.

madnotstupid

finding this thread really enlightening!! OH has 5 siblings, all adults with families, and we have a 'secret santa' type thing where we buy only one gift for one couple. the 'expectation' is that we will spend £50, which is a more significant amount of money to us than to any of them, so we tend to look for something that is reduced from £50. add to this 13 nieces and nephews, 4 parents, 1 godchild, and everything needs to be posted as we don't see any of them. Kids get £5-£10 each spent on them, but we look out for seriously reduced things on the net all year. couldn't do it otherwise. biggest bugbear is packing and sending everything - now do it by courier - as tracking is the only way we have of knowing if things arrive. not sure why we bother . . .

Butterfly_Brain

Not stingy at all, we spend £20 each on the outlaws, buying for all the nieces and nephews stopped when they were 18. We spend approx £100 each on our two but that is spread throuought the year it is usually something they ask for, something they wear, a game or DVD and a book and we spend approx £50 maximum for each other. I make all the pressies for DH's work colleagues little boxes of sweets that cost around £1.50 to £2 each to make, and they are always well received, I knit a lot of gifts as well.
I buy a lot of stuff in the January sales and throughout the year so come Christmas I don't need to spend a lot I just have to get food and a few sweets.
We will be cutting back even more next year, because I don't give out much hope of keeping my DLA or PIP as it is now known.

Bennifred

We agreed with siblings long ago not to buy presents for each others children (or siblings themselves) so we could spend what we wanted to on our own children - just as well as both DH and I have enormous extended families (one of my three sisters alone has six children and seven grandchildren and the others aren't far behind! I have eight sets of aunts and uncles, thirty-odd first cousins most of whom have children, etc etc). So it's cards all round and presents for nuclear family only - thank goodness, as that is plenty!