£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

wishingthemortgaheaway

Please don't shoot me ��But, if you are over budget on stockings, under budget on main presents and some stocking presents have the potential to be main presents. Stop spending. They will have plenty, more than enough.
I'm pretty sure they are not Dudley Dursley's (from Harry Potter) who counted up each gift at his birthday and then threw a paddy because it was '1 less gift than last year'

Take the decorations back if you possibly can.

You can do this debt busting thing TOPM.

arsenalbarnie

Ha ha the lady in question was scarily organised. Btw if you like knitting have you got the loveknitting app? It's great they add free patterns to it, I love it. They have lots of cute Christmas tree one on there at the moment and Santa hats for boiled eggs lol. You can save them in a pattern library on there.

Treadingonplaymobil

Oh I’m all done on spending on the DCs, bar a few chocolates for the stockings. Remaining budget is on tree, wreath, crackers, presents for five other children (very close relatives/god children), cards, present for DH, replacement presents for the early narcissi situation, a secret Santa for a work group I am part of, maybe a couple of other things that I can’t remember right now. There is a list!

Treadingonplaymobil

Didn’t know about the loveknitting app, thanks for that!

Treadingonplaymobil

Right, I definitely need to be banned from supermarkets until after Christmas. On the bright side, I got chocolates etc for stockings, a gingerbread house, another string of Christmas lights, Santa wrapping paper - things that were actually on my Christmas shopping list.

On the less bright side, I spent £177.40. Of that around £33 was on Christmas bits and bobs and the remainder was food.

BUT, as well as batch cooking ingredients bumping the price up (ingredients for 8 meals for five of us, homemade packed lunches like quiche, and homemade snacks, so quite a lot), there were loads of special offers on, so I bought 2kg of basmati rice, 2kg of macaroni, herbal tea bags to last me until about March, 32 toilet rolls, three bags of apples and a couple of other things on offer. I suspect I was still over budget - the test will be in how cheap the next two food shops are - but I don't feel it was too insanely indulgent. Just a bit insanely indulgent. I probably didn't need the edible glitter spray, on balance...

apple_muncher

Could the edible glitter spray become dh's present...?

Cherryfudge

apple_muncher wrote: »

Could the edible glitter spray become dh's present...?

:rotfl:

The trick is to buy things you will actually use (which you probably have done) and then not to waste them either by buying too much or having more at one go because you have lots (I know this last one because I've been having an extra cappuccino rather a lot while they are on offer).

Perhaps next year the gingerbread house can be a project for the DCs to make from scratch and you could divide up a bag of chocolates between stockings. If you get one of those bags of Q St. from B@ndM and wrap them in a bit of Christmas paper with corkscrew-curled ribbon, a little goes quite a long way. Or even the 'seconds' chocolates from a certain well-known manufacturer beginning with Th... They are rather yummy.

Silver_Queen

I don’t wanna be “that guy” but I am a little bit concerned at the rate that you’re spending at...I love Christmas as much as the next gal but I’m a little bit worried that you’re overcompensating?

*scuttles back to lurkdom*

Treadingonplaymobil

apple_muncher wrote: »

Could the edible glitter spray become dh's present...?

:eek: is all I'm saying to that. :rotfl:

Cherryfudge wrote: »

:rotfl:

The trick is to buy things you will actually use (which you probably have done) and then not to waste them either by buying too much or having more at one go because you have lots (I know this last one because I've been having an extra cappuccino rather a lot while they are on offer).

Perhaps next year the gingerbread house can be a project for the DCs to make from scratch and you could divide up a bag of chocolates between stockings. If you get one of those bags of Q St. from B@ndM and wrap them in a bit of Christmas paper with corkscrew-curled ribbon, a little goes quite a long way. Or even the 'seconds' chocolates from a certain well-known manufacturer beginning with Th... They are rather yummy.

The gingerbread house is actually the cheapest way of doing it - I've done it from scratch before and by the time I've bought a few varieties of sweets and made the stupid house (which never stands up as well when it's homemade) it ends up costing a lot more than Lidl's £4.99.

I have overspent a bit, but you're right, almost all of it is genuinely useful as long as I don't get wasteful/overindulgent, and actually use it up rather than leaving it in the cupboard. <obviously I never do this >

Silver_Queen wrote: »

I don’t wanna be “that guy” but I am a little bit concerned at the rate that you’re spending at...I love Christmas as much as the next gal but I’m a little bit worried that you’re overcompensating?

*scuttles back to lurkdom*

I don't feel like I'm overcompensating (for what?), but as they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt, so I suppose it's possible...

I don't actually feel too alarmed about the spending so far - none of it is beyond where I thought I'd be, and it's on a par with/slightly below last year's levels still (which was literally about 50% of the year before). I knew my budget was ambitious (for me) and I don't mind if I bust the odd area. I set a budget for £1,300 for Christmas, excluding food, and I'm on track to remain well within that still.

Silver_Queen

I was worried you might feel bad about any perceived denial of things/fun/etc to your children through the year and are trying to make up for it - if you’re satisfied this isn’t the case then fair enough. And as long as you’re happy with your budget then fair enough! It sounds like you’re going to have a brilliant Christmas with your family and I hope you manage to take some time off from work to relax as well:D

Ps. For solidarity, you asked me to confess a few weeks ago about how much I’ve budgeted for Christmas. I’m too scared of the wrath of the MSE gods to say it out loud in my diary but the answer is around £650 for gifts for 13 people, which excludes travel, food, going out etc. So I have absolutely no room to judge :cool: