Would love to know how much others buddget for gifts each year on their SOA? Help

Elliesmum

Hi DD

I think there has been some great suggestions here. I do my best to pay around the £5 mark for presents for kids parties. Again I go for the 7 cards for £1 in the cheaper card shops.

Looking at my spreadsheet I spent just over £100 on 14 people last Christmas, inc. nieces, nephews, a great niece and my siblings.

Birthday parties are always a worry expense wise, but the suggestion of the sleep over may be better while the debts are hanging around.

I also do the eBay neutral challenge with myself to keep present/gift spending down - I buy and sell on eBay keeping the money in paypal and then spending never comes out of my bank account.

I also look for bargains over the year and keep a present drawer, like other posters have mentioned.

Hope this helps.

Thanks EM x

PaceThePixie

Morning All,

Just thought I would chip in here.

I do not budget at all for gifts. In our family it has always been once a person is 18 or over then a card will be just fine. I don't come from a large family but with them being spread over 3 continents it would be rather costly too. My Christmas card postage alone last December was £10 :eek:!! With the value of the cards being less than a £1 for all of them.

IF I do buy a present then it comes out of my savings and would cost no more than £20!! I then reimburse my savings the following month from my wages.

I am constantly staggered that people spend so much on others while struggling to make their own ends meet! I have been that person in the past. Family and friends will accept you for who you are regardless of how much or how little a gift costs. I am sure society has lost the plot somewhere.

Hugs and best wishes

Debt_Denier

PaceThePixie wrote: »

Morning All,

Just thought I would chip in here.

I do not budget at all for gifts. In our family it has always been once a person is 18 or over then a card will be just fine. I don't come from a large family but with them being spread over 3 continents it would be rather costly too. My Christmas card postage alone last December was £10 :eek:!! With the value of the cards being less than a £1 for all of them.

IF I do buy a present then it comes out of my savings and would cost no more than £20!! I then reimburse my savings the following month from my wages.

I am constantly staggered that people spend so much on others while struggling to make their own ends meet! I have been that person in the past. Family and friends will accept you for who you are regardless of how much or how little a gift costs. I am sure society has lost the plot somewhere.

Hugs and best wishes

Hi everyone thanks for replying. When I actually toted it up more careful it is more likely about £1400 but that is still stupid. I agree the kids don't even care what they get...but the parties are important. I don't mean the mcdonalds vs a home-made sandwich just the memories of fun with friends. I grew up with the wolf at the door but I still recall our family parties in the garden etc and even now my old friends recall them as some of the best parties. My mum was fantastic at parties and really great fun. I have no snobbery about parties and there is no competitiveness about parties among their friends I just think I have just gotten into a habit of feeling so rushed for time that a party out seems easier and convenient. I don't every shop around. I mean ever. I have never been in Home Bargains, B&M, I don't think I have set foot in Wilkinsons for 10 years etc. I work full-time and I value the time I have have outside of work to do anything other than shop. I will try the intermittent stocking up and the present cupboard ideas.

I am still determined to send cards. I love receiving cards and so do my children, They love waiting for the postman. A handwritten card (however expensve or cheap) is lovely to me

getmore4less

Why not do joint parties.

chocoholic_chick

I actually don't think what you spend is unreasonable, and its all relative to the amount of income you have, whether you are getting in to debt to purchase these presents, how much debt you have and whether you are meeting your debt repayments etc.


You seem to have a good income and after all outgoings have a good chunk of disposable income so in my opinion if you want to spend some of your money on gifts for others then why not. Yes I know some people think you should throw every spare penny you have on debt, but there's more to life than that!


Going back 10 years ago when our incomes were much less than they are now then I probably spent maybe £400 a year on gifts for others. Now I will regularly treat colleagues to cakes etc. at work, if I worked it out over a year it's probably in excess of £150. I budget £600 for Christmas presents for friends and family, on top of that I probably spend £300 on DH. For birthdays I spend maybe £600 a year. I don't think it's excessive, we can comfortably afford to spend that, I would never spend what I can't afford and I like to treat people. I still manage to overpay my mortgage on a monthly basis, put money into savings, and overpay our loan. It really is difficult to compare yourselves to others when your circumstances are different.

Teacher2

I would let people know that you need to cut back and save for a while. Then you can make reciprocal present agreements, e.g. a fiver at most for a kid's present and no presents between adults.

When my children were young money was very tight and we resorted to the following to save cash:-

-no presents at Christmas between my husband and myself
-birthday presents were something we needed like a new coat or shoes, not luxuries
-we did 'Secret Santa's' at work so we only had to buy one pressie for a limited budget, for example, not more than a tenner or a fiver
-you can make presents for colleagues like jams, curds, pickles, cakes or marmalades. My daughter made lovely cushions from old dress fabrics for her friends one Christmas and sewed their initials on them
-we told the children they had to pick something 'no more than...££££'
-I used Boots and Tesco's vouchers for presents and 'stacked' the offers. I bought Boots' presents on points when they did '3-4-2' offers at Christmas (still do!) This year I get £45 of goods for a top up cash amount of £4
-I bought things when I saw them on sale throughout the year
-I never under any circumstances buy anything at full price. I wait for sale prices to drop several times
-pound shops are good for some branded items

Cards are expensive and e-cards are a good alternative. The name of the e-card website is Jacquie Lawson (just put that into Google) and she charges £9 per year for an unlimited subscription or £13 for two years which is even better value. For that you get unlimited e-cards for every occasion which are then 'free'. You can buy cheap cards but it really saves on the postage which is now a humungous amount. It would save you £30/£40 at Christmas.

There is also a card website called Pink and Greene which does offers on packets of cards where you get stamps free sometimes.

I take your implied point that giving and receiving presents is part of a social involvement in life and that you can't be seen to withdraw entirely. However, I reckon your friends and family would be upset to think you were straying into financial difficulties to give them (often unneeded ) presents so it's worth having the discussion. Also, I think there is a lot of fat on your present budget that can be trimmed if you give it some thought.

Good luck.

HelleBelle

Hi,
Thought I would chip in with my tuppence worth.

I buy kids' birthday presents from The Works Outlet - you can get 4 books for £5

I typically spend about £10 on my kids for birthday and Christmas (per child)
I budget £10-15 per relative
We often end up making up a hamper with things like a favourite magazine, a crossword book (picked up from the works or book people), and homemade fudge, homemade gingerbread, 'snowman soup' (hot chocolate home made sachets), etc. The time taken to make these things with the kids creates wonderful memories.
I've not added up my total present budget yet but I always budget for Christmas presents at about £150 and come in under.
I have a Christmas present box that I put things in as and when I see them throughout the year. I keep a page in my filofax where I note what I've bought who. I don't tend to stick to the budget religiously - eg if I find the perfect item on sale for my sister for £5, and I've budgeted £10, then I won't spend the extra £5 on her just because it's in the budget. But I may use that to help me get the perfect gift for someone else where I might have seen the perfect item for £15... if that makes sense?

Also, instead of children's parties, you can make memories by taking them on adventures. Dependent on age, you can download treasure hunts from the web for somewhere like the science musuem (free entry) etc. or go to the park/woods and try and find xyz. I should probably take my own advice. This year we decided to take our son out for the day instead of having a party. He loves buses and trains and those alone cost a fortune. £5.50 return per adult on the bus to the next town!! No wonder we always drive....

Hope this helps

northerner999

Someone has suggested your spending is not exorbitant when broken down.

For much of that maybe - but £200 per child on Christmas presents when you are in debt is eye-watering spending to me. £400 on presents for two kids when you have thousands of pounds of debt plus a mortgage? In a year I doubt I spend that much on presents for everyone I know.

Until I am debt free I will not be increasing this. My sister got a wedding present that cost about a tenth of what you spend on one child every Christmas.

There are easy ways to reduce this. I have a big box of presents which I have bought for a couple of quid each. When I see something nice and good value, I buy it and pop it in. No idea who it's for or when - when the time comes I just hit up the box. It's easy to stash these out the way so you're not running around buying things at full-price every time a birthday pops up - especially if you have a whole class worth to buy something for.

I make presents for big events - my best friend got married last year and I spent a tenner on a nice frame for something I made at no cost to myself. They loved it, and it now takes pride of place in their house.
I know there is pressure at Christmas to buy the latest craze. When I was younger I was often given a budget of £20 and a copy of the Argos catalogue and told to pick what I wanted. Inflation over 20 years has probably made that £40 in today's money, but I really am sure you could get good enough presents for any age child at Christmas at less than half what you are spending on it at the moment.

classbhero

Just my 2 pence but if you need to send international presents, its probably going to be cheaper to buy the present from a website in your friends local country, save on shipping if its something bigish and also, if it breaks or needs to get sent back, it't much less hassle for the person receiving the gift. :-)