How much do you spend on your child on their birthday?

Lunar_Eclipse

We don't set a budget, but about £80-150/teenager. When they were younger it was much less - gifts for young kids are cheap! 17th (driving lessons) and 18th maybe more.

Neither of my kids are particularly materialistic nor usually ask for anything specific. We are a relatively high income family and value experiences over possessions.

toniq

Just had my daughters 5th birthday at weekend, we invited her whole class to a soft play party which was £300, worked out £15 a head, we did invite 30 kids but only 20 turned up and play place had already said we only pay for the ones that turn up thankfully.

We wanted every child to feel they at least got invited and not left out.

Her presents as it's the after xmas sales we got loads for £150/180. We went for larger things like tool benches and dolls crib etc to compliment what she got at xmas.

We wont do parties to the scale of this year every year, this year as it's her first birthday at school we wanted to include all classmates.

onlyroz

Typically £150-250.

This year my daughter had a party which cost £170 - we told her that this would be her main present. We also got her a lego set for about £60.

FatVonD

For the last few years I've paid for a festival ticket for my son's birthday (circa £200) and will continue doing that as long as he wants to go each year. I probably then spend another £50 or so on things for him to open.

When he was smaller he might get something like a swing set for the garden for his birthday, Christmas has generally been lots of smaller gifts and birthdays one more expensive present.

balletshoes

it changes from year to year, depending on if my daughter has asked for anything specific for her birthday. Some years its been under £50, some years its been the cost of a new laptop for example.

Lorian

Wait till they think it's ok to ask for a new iphone every year.....

Brightonsbest_2

Gosh oh mighty.

We are raltively well off EG, have our own home mortgae paid off, and a buy to let with mortgae paid of, I am a 40% tax payer and wife is 20% tax payer, we averaged approx 50 quid each for Birthdays and xmas as our kids work - we have done a one of presents for our sons and daughter daughter, gave our older sone when he was 24 and bought a landorove suv for cash, he did not expect it we gave hi 5k, then spend about 20k on wedding party, the other son bought a nice car for cas we gave him 3k one off, out daughter, paid 3k towards her brand new fiat500 bought for cash 3 yrs ago and spent 55k approx on her wedding, but 50 pounds each for birthday/xmas etc

beautiful_ravens

purpleposting4 wrote: »

£30 - £40 each. I have 3 children.
They know the budget and tell us exactly what they would like for their birthday that's within budget, could be lots of little things, or somehing for the full £40.

They get more spent on them at Christmas, some bits from their wish lists, some gifts of our choosing, and some items that they need.

On their birthday we also either take them out for a meal, let them choose what to have for dinner, or invite a friend over to stay. We like to keep birthdays simple.

Pretty much same here, also 3 kids. Anywhere from £20 - £40 depending what they want. More at xmas. In the 16 years Ive had the kids Ive never really known what I'll be able to afford each year, so Ive always kept present giving as low key as I can and tried to focus things more on an interesting experience, trip or activity.

sk240

Wow some fairly large expenditures on some of your children, no wonder a lot have kids dont know the value of money these days!
Certainly in my day (im 32) me and my siblings used to get in the region of £20-£30 each.
I remember when we got a sega megadrive once, and it was mine and my brothers birthdays and xmas combined!
However this served us all well, as all 3 of us now have our own homes in Oxfordshire, where a lot of our friends at of the school era have nothing :-(

ViolaLass

sk240 wrote: »

Wow some fairly large expenditures on some of your children, no wonder a lot have kids dont know the value of money these days!
Certainly in my day (im 32) me and my siblings used to get in the region of £20-£30 each.
I remember when we got a sega megadrive once, and it was mine and my brothers birthdays and xmas combined!
However this served us all well, as all 3 of us now have our own homes in Oxfordshire, where a lot of our friends at of the school era have nothing :-(

And your high horse is comfortable, presumably.


Do you have any evidence of a causal link between expensive gifts for Christmas and profligacy and poverty in later life? Or cheap gifts and later prosperity?