Christmas Spending

[mrseace711]

Something about this makes me feel sorry for the stepson. If I were in this situation I think I would put the difference away for college for the step son if that is not already taken care of. I hope he understands the inequity, so hard to be a blended family.
Donna

Sorry you feel that way, but its hard to explain to the 4 kids at home why he goes on vacation a few times a year, comes over in new shoes and clothes (all brand name) EVERY other weekend, why he has so much that he comes to brag about when we cant do that for them. I am not excluding him at all his gifts are nice, but his Mom does NOT want his gifts sent home she sent his b-day gifts ALL back to our house and was angry last Christmas when we packed his gifts to go anyway she returned them and said he has everything he wants at home, he comes over every other weekend IF she feels like it. theres no intention of making my stepson feel left out, we do not see him till the week after Christmas and I am not buying him a LeapPad which is what boosted my younger 2 kids up becuase he ALREADY owns one along with a DS AND a DSi, a Leapster, a Leapster Explorer, and he told us his mom is buying him an iPod(this is NOT an exaggeration). OH and hes 4 years old Im not angry Im glad he can have it all and his mom can afford it all year round, but theres no competition we do not live that way and my stepson receives the same love and support as my stepson (DS5) who we have custody of as does my biological DDs

 

[mrseace711]

Honestly, this year I don't even know how DH and I will afford things for each other let alone everyone else we usually buy for. This year has smacked us hard with personal and financial issues..... Thinking we are going to have to go homemade with each others gifts, and if the family members don't understand, too bad. I had to empty my Disney savings jar to put into the bank account for bills, oy! That made me sad, lol. Praying next year will be better!

I send my prayers your way! My husband and I have always skipped ourselves so that we could spend on our children but I read somewhere either here or ?? Im not sure where, where they made it an tradition to trade ornaments every year instead of gifts! I LOVE that idea so Im going to bring that up to my hubby, every year we take all of our kids to pick out ANY 1 ornament to add to the tree. I want to start the tradition of just him & I trading ornaments

 

[MaggieBailey]

Hang in there

Thank you so much for that It's just one of those things, when it rains it pours.... I keep singing "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming" to myself, lol!

Thank you for the idea of the ornaments, mrseace711!! We don't have children (just fur kids, lol). I'm pretty crafty (not in the tricky way), and since we live very far away from all of our families, and it's been years since we've seen some, I'm going to make picture frames, with a current photo for them (something my DMIL and DM asks for all the time anyway, haha). Thank you for the prayers, they are really appreciated!!

 

[marmalade]

I send my prayers your way! My husband and I have always skipped ourselves so that we could spend on our children but I read somewhere either here or ?? Im not sure where, where they made it an tradition to trade ornaments every year instead of gifts! I LOVE that idea so Im going to bring that up to my hubby, every year we take all of our kids to pick out ANY 1 ornament to add to the tree. I want to start the tradition of just him & I trading ornaments

I like this idea. My DH and I don't exchange gifts either because we would rather put that money towards our kids. We do get the kids ornaments every year, but when they move/marry or whatnot they will take them all with them and are tree will look empty.

Since we always put thought into our ornaments we give the kids, it will be a nice inexpensive way to give each other something. As well as still have ornaments on the tree after the kids leave.

 

[wish*i*was*in*the*vi]

Sorry you feel that way, but its hard to explain to the 4 kids at home why he goes on vacation a few times a year, comes over in new shoes and clothes (all brand name) EVERY other weekend, why he has so much that he comes to brag about when we cant do that for them. I am not excluding him at all his gifts are nice, but his Mom does NOT want his gifts sent home she sent his b-day gifts ALL back to our house and was angry last Christmas when we packed his gifts to go anyway she returned them and said he has everything he wants at home, he comes over every other weekend IF she feels like it. theres no intention of making my stepson feel left out, we do not see him till the week after Christmas and I am not buying him a LeapPad which is what boosted my younger 2 kids up becuase he ALREADY owns one along with a DS AND a DSi, a Leapster, a Leapster Explorer, and he told us his mom is buying him an iPod(this is NOT an exaggeration). OH and hes 4 years old Im not angry Im glad he can have it all and his mom can afford it all year round, but theres no competition we do not live that way and my stepson receives the same love and support as my stepson (DS5) who we have custody of as does my biological DDs

Mrseace711,
It's your family situation and you don't need to explain it to anybody. Life gets pretty messy and who is anybody to judge you? Just let it roll off your back.

 

[wish*i*was*in*the*vi]

We usually make a pretty big deal out of Christmas at our house. I would say double the $700 figure just on the 4 of us (my husband, myself, and our 2 kids), and usually a $100 or so on each set of parents, and then there's my parents and my brother and my husband's sister and her husband to buy for. This is the first year I've ever been an aunt so now I have a baby to buy for.
We are not buying as many gifts to open on Christmas for ourselves and the kids this year though (we're capping it at about $100 a person plus stocking stuffers) because the kids' big gift this year is a surprise trip to Disney Jan 4-11.
We're very blessed to be able to afford a wonderful Christmas, but we don't go into credit card debt to be able to do so. That, to me, is when you've gone completely overboard.

 

[happybratpack]

I'm going to splurge on a computer for my Mom ($400) but everything else will be WAY under what I usually spend. I just can't do it this year.

 

[Willow1213]

This year, I anticipate coming in right around $700. Normally it is much more than that. My husband and I are givers by nature, and with no kids to spoil at Christmas, we tend to spread the love around our families.

We buy for each other, my parents and brother, his parents and 2 sisters. Generally we also send a "Christmas Card" with a family update with new pictures and stories from the year to family far away that we don't get to see often. The older generation especially appreciates this. With Facebook, etc, we keep in touch with cousins and some aunts/uncles there throughout the year.

Last year was way too much, so we're scaling back. We bought big gifts for each other last year. We both decided we wanted iPads and waited until March when the new model was released. Christmas in March cost us $1500 This year we are skipping the big gifts for each other and splurging on our annual Disney trip.

 

[mrseace711]

Mrseace711,
It's your family situation and you don't need to explain it to anybody. Life gets pretty messy and who is anybody to judge you? Just let it roll off your back.

I know =( I was just giving examples of our budget this year and it hurt my feelings a little to be misunderstood. This years budget is big for us because of electronics =) My stepsons budget is $100 less because we are not buying him a LeapPad he already owns one. That was the easiest explaination

Previous Year Budget
DD9 $150
DD7 $125
DS5 $100
DD4 Under $100


WOOO HOOO I am excited for Christmas
DS4 Stepson Under $100

 

[scrapquitler]

We only buy for our children and 'family gifts' for all four of us, one niece and one nephew (about $25 each for them), a family grab bag (4 gifts X $15 each) and a few teacher gifts ($5 each). But we spend a lot more than $700 (It will likely be somewhere between $1200-$1500).

HOWEVER, out of that, we buy a LOT of things as 'christmas gifts' that we would normally buy anyway. Underwear, pajamas, socks, winter boots, winter coats, gloves, scarfs, hats, clothing, toiletry items (that they get in stockings) all count as our Christmas budget but honestly, I'd be buying them for the kids/dh/myself ANYWAY. Then we always buy some big item (last year we bought a TV), again, something we'd buy anyway, so should I REALLY count it as Christmas spending?

At least half or more of what we spend we would have spent anyway.

 

[richmond282]

See, stats like this are confusing. If you consider myself and my husband as separate people, then yes, we will probably spend about $700/person. If you consider it $700/family, then no, we will spend more. And while my kids are people, they don't have money, so will not spend anything.

I agree with this. Our family spends between $1300-$1500 on Christmas each year depending on sales and things. So if we divided that by the 3 people in our family then we would under $700/person I guess, but I do almost all of the shopping so in reality I'm over $700 for Christmas spending and DH and DD are waaaaay under. lol!

We buy for a lot of people. Our list looks something like this:
*Me, DH, DD7- $300/each
*my parents, sis, BIL, bro, SIL- $25/each
*my 4 nieces & nephews- $25/each (or less)
*my DH's 3 nieces- $60/each (they get a higher budget just b/c we are basically the only people that give them any gifts at all. They don't ever get together w/ my family so the sets of nieces and nephews have no idea there is a difference in the gifts they receive.)
*8 teachers- $10/each
*3 co-workers- $10/each
*Angel tree/ Toys for Tots/ etc. children-$100

I do use lots of amazon credit I have accumulated over the year through swagbucks. I just count that as if I actually spent the $, so less out of my pocket. I shop sales etc. as well.

 

[mrodgers]

The mainstream media also thinks that salaries are more like $150,000 incomes, not what the norm of $30-40,000 truly is.

At first I don't believe the $700 figure at all. But then I recall what everyone at work talks about spending for Christmas gifts on credit cards and, yeah, I guess I can believe that number.

We buy for our kids (2), don't buy often or much for each other, and only get a small token gift for grandparents from the kids. I'd guess spending $300 would really be a stretch for us. Last year it was probably less than $200.

 

[tikilyn]

I've already double that 700.00!

Last year I went way over budget and vowed not to go over this year. We normally spend 500.00 per child and 250.00 for each of my parents (both of dh's parents have past away). Then we also splurge on ourselves but it just depends on what we want.

I am happy to say that I am almost done with the kids presents and I am under budget!! That's a first for me!

 

[RachaelA]

I'm cheap. DH and I don't buy each other presents. I buy the bare minimum for everyone else. We'll probably spend $500 tops. We'll have DD to buy for for the first time this year, but she'll be 8 weeks old so I don't even know if we'll get her anything other than maybe an ornament!

Parents (4)- $50-75 each Total of $250
Siblings (we pick names instead of buying for everyone) (2)- $60
Dad's side secret Santa (2)- $50
Nieces (2)- $75 total
Grandma- $50
Any extra little stuff will put us right around $500

 

[chuckabone]

I wish I could stay at that amount. With 3 kiddo's and DH and both sets of parents and teachers and kids school friend and our friends,and family, the cost is out of control. Already spent 400.00 on son's new X-box. After reading these post's, I think I am out of my mind for spending so much on Christmas. But how do you give one child 1 gift with a high value and watch the other 2 open a bunch of gifts? I would say in total I will spend between 2-2500.00 total. However, I pay cash for all of it. NO CC's here!

 

[furb & dez]

SHEESH.

I spend about $25-35 per person or family, depending on who I'm buying for. We have rewards credit cards that I cash in for gift cards to use on gifts, so... I'm not sure if that counts toward actually SPENDING...

I'd say, with the gift cards we're at about $300-$400?? And even that seems high to me.

I'm with you on this one. We don't give gifts to each other—we go on vacations instead!

As far as the family goes, I send cards. I do, however, usually give my best friend of many years travel gift cards (maybe... $50?).

I gave up playing the Excessive Consumption Contest years ago... one of many reasons I don't have to struggle with finances. Plus I get to throw it back in the faces of everyone who complains "oh, it's so horrible how commercial this holiday is, it's not the true meaning of Xmas" yet who still put themselves into debt buying crap for every person they know, may have known, or saw from a satellite photo once.

 

[angierae]

I have something like 13 nieces and nephews, so the cousins just trade names so we only have to buy for one of them (since we only have one.)

On my dad's side of the family we only buy for kids under 18, and there's only three of them. I will spend about $20 each.

We buy for my dad and my MIL, and then DD, and that's about it. This year DH and I will be buying each other kits from 23andme.com but that'll be our only gifts to each other.

I also picked up quite a few things when Borders was going out of business, so I got a ton of gifts for about $80.

So $60+25+100+200 for DD and maybe $75 for my MIL (my dad's gifts were done via Borders and a shutterfly $20 gift cert we got for buying school pictures through Lifetouch) so the $80 from borders = $540. And that's a high year for us because DH and I don't usually spend $100 on each other.

I just don't put a huge focus on gifts at Christmastime. When I was a kid I really didn't get anything any other time of the year so I got an entire ROOM full of gifts, but I try to buy little things for people all year round.

 

[neatokimmo]

I am at $333 for DD, my gifts and santa. I plan to buy my Mom & boyfriend something each for around $50. In years past, these two have pushed the numbers closer to $200 each. Enough is enough, we are adults, if we want something - go buy it.

I will have 5 little girl gifts that I can supply with my hairbow biz stuff.
I will have one little boy.
I will have four small couple gifts.

So I voted way under $700, but I guess I should have put right at $700.

 

[crazelion]

The only mind is be close to 700 dollars is I am either buying the kids either ipod touch or kindle fire for Christmas. That is all they is getting to. Except for other stuff that bought at the thrift store brand new. Is buy mom gift is be a cheap version of a similar to ipod touch that I got big lots for 45 bucks. I did mention that using all amazon cards to buy for Christmas this year too from my various reward sites that I am on.

Of course the kids get more gifts from family and friends.

 

[nikkistevej]

I thought the $700 was for one child- not for all Christmas- I read it wrong. So I voted wrong- I definitely spend more than $700.00.