Couples - how do you budget for Christmas

skimper

We have a joint account so it's all one pot, we usually spend about £20 per person, we end up spending more on mine just because I have a bigger family.

Janey3

Money for Christmas gifts comes out of our joint account, but I do
the actual gift buying as OH is a bit bah humbug about Christmas but I'm the opposite. Left to him everyone would get a set of 3 hankies! We buy supermarket stamps every week throughout the year for the food and extras.

Mrs_Ryan

I have a big old family (parents, 2 x siblings, a BIL and my brother’s partner, 2 x nephews and a step niece) plus two best friends and a good friend who I always buy for so I buy all my own gifts and put some of them from us and some from me (depending on who they’re for) OH has a small family (dad, step mum, step brother and his wife and 2 nephews) but this year OH’s 2 nephews have a joint gift and his step brother and his wife always have a joint gift. Some years he will give me the money for them and I’ll go out and buy the gifts but this year I just bought the gifts and he gave me the money later as I got a great deal on a student shopping night I went to.

Christmas is my domain because due to his disabilities OH struggles to buy gifts- he tried to buy a 70th birthday gift for his (fairly traditional) dad and was he adamant he wanted to buy him a Wagamama voucher (I’m not sure his dad even knows what Wagamama is let alone want to eat there ) I snatched it out of his hand, put it back and bought his dad a bottle of champagne which he appreciated far more I choose my gifts and he will either give me the money or I’ll set up the purchase online and he puts his card details in to pay. It works great for us as I always get exactly what I want

Illbedamned

my family do secret santa, so its just £20 for one present

we go halves on his parents presents

we give ourselves a set budget (say £200 or however much we can afford)

Caraway90

We buy separately but they'll say from the both of us. Our money (at the moment) is separate, joint account for bills etc though, so makes sense to do this for presents also.

pickledonionspaceraider

Caraway90 wrote: »

We buy separately but they'll say from the both of us. Our money (at the moment) is separate, joint account for bills etc though, so makes sense to do this for presents also.

Yes ,same for me and my significant other

Cash-Cows

Joint account which all income and expenditure comes out of.

Lunar_Eclipse

I typically buy all the gifts (for everyone - our kids included) and they are labelled from both/all of us. Hubby doesn't really do any shopping, or want to be involved in any of it. So I just buy what I like for everyone!

We're married, so there isn't my money and his money anyway (legally or otherwise.)

skint_chick

We save £30 a month for gifts every month and spend about £15 each on parents for birthdays and Christmas and my nephews I spend about £20-30 for birthdays and Christmas. I usually get stocking fillers for my brother and SIL and spend about £30 on OH for his birthday and Christmas. My brother and I decided when my nephews came along not to bother with birthdays for each other so I get them gifts and he treats me to activities when I visit them. We also use the savings to buy Christmas cards/gift wrap/birthday cards etc. We started doing this because everyone in my family has their birthday between Sept and Christmas except OH so it made sense to start saving in January. We buy everything for birthdays and Christmas in October, except for gift wrap and cards if we need to stock up it's done in the January half price sales!

Former_MSE_Molly

Hi all!
This is always such an interesting topic, as people seem to have very different ways of doing things!

My partner is from a much bigger immediate family than me and has always said he will sort Christmas presents on his side, and I will sort mine. We don't have a joint account yet, but have realised we might need to soon for situations like this! We always help each other pick the presents together though :beer:

On my partners side though, this year we have all decided to scrap presents for the adults and have booked in a weekend next year to all spend time together (a miracle really seeing as there's nearly 30 of us including the kiddies! :eek:) Very much in line with Martin's No Unnecessary Present Pact too!

- MSE Molly