Did you stick to your Christmas budget??

[StitchBuddy]

I had a pretty reasonable budget set. Now, here I am at the end and there are all these extra presents that keep cropping up. So frustrating!! I am going to end up about $100 over my budget. I guess that isn't too bad, but frustrating just the same.

 

[katie111]

I don't really do a set budget but I spent way more than I was thinking I would, including a trip to Disney! My plan was to give the trip to my kids & not much else but I still totally spoiled them. And pretty much everyone else on my list! Oh well, it's fun & luckily right now we can afford to be generous.

 

[kymom99]

No!

 

[eliza61]

No!

LOL.

First, my food budget got severely hit hard. My freakin siblings invited themselves over and not only that brought 4 or 5 extra guest. ****grrrr*** now most of the extra guest where old "neighborhood" friends but dinner and booze a couple of extra times adds up.

eating out.....it's been so rainy and dismal here in philly the last couple of weeks so it seems like every errand took 5X's as long, so a couple of extra nights of running late and picking up take out.

Extra entertainment. I had one wedding to go to already, my 35 year college reunion is being held this year and I have a dinner, plus I actually won tickets in a raffle to Motown the musical which means I've got to buy dinner, parking yada yad. All these events are going to be great fun but "whew" it's going to hit the pocketbook.

Whew, I'm about 700 bucks over what I wanted to spend. ouch!!

 

[kathy884]

I spent less than I thought I would on family by about $300, but ended up spending $100 more than I thought I would on the person I adopted for Christmas and got into the Christmas spirit and gave about $100 more to people who do services for us (added two people I don't normally give anything to and upped what I normally give to one person). // So overall I was pretty close to budget. I also budgeted way less than I did last year. Cut way back on gifts to relatives (cut off nieces and nephews this year who are all 20 plus -- just sent a Christmas card and note) -- That saved me a lot of money, DH and I agreed not to exchange, and I only spend about $200 on my son -- Last year it was closer to $500.

I still spent pretty close to that 1% of gross income that is typically recommended. The money for the person I adopted though actually came out of my Charitable contribution budget not my Christmas budget, so I was actually under that 1% recommendation if I look at it that way and spent .6% of gross income on Christmas gifts.

Unfortunately, though, what really kept it low is that I've been working so many hours and hardly had time to do anything, but a few minimal things for Christmas.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I didn't set a budget but have kept track and my purchases have been way more than I would have expected. Funny thing is, I didn't buy much in quantity and got great deals. There are just a lot of people. Spent about $600 per kid, oops!, and $100 per grandparent (5), plus DH, myself, and misc charity purchases. We are at about $2500. Yikes! I have never kept track before. Guess I shouldn't have started. Better not to know.

 

[gracie1]

I didn't set a budget but actually came about $300 less than normal!

 

[MOpGrad2013]

So far...YES! About $250 less and that included the shipping of items. I even sent more Christmas cards than usual-the week postage went up!

I gave the older kids $55 ($50 plus the tax) each to spend as they wanted. The went bargain shopping and I am impressed with the items they picked for friends and each other.

So, really only $140 under budget.

 

[AZMermaid]

No! I didn't have a budget per say, but spent more than I intended. We are at roughly 2K for gifts for the four of us. My husband always goes WAY over what we are supposed to spend on each other.

 

[Miss Whimsy]

I didn't really have a budget in mind except "don't spend too much" but that didn't really work out for me lol. I think part of the problem is that I just started using YNAB so this is kind of the first year I've really SEEN how much money I spent on the holidays, so I actually know for sure how overboard I went.

What got me this year is that I always host Thanksgiving for 8-10 people, and then I also threw a major holiday party 2 weeks later, in addition to my monthly Disney-watching party the week after that--so I had three food and booze based events in the space of 4 weeks, and then presents on top of that. I don't even have a lot of people I buy presents for!

BUT I get three paychecks in January so hopefully that will help me recover somewhat.

 

[Southernmiss]

For the first time in about 15 years, we are in a place where we can loosen the purse strings a little. It has been wonderful this year to get what we and our 4 kids (ages 20, 17, 15& 13) want (nothing too extravagant) without worry or concern or substituting something else because of budget.

We buy for lots of cousins and grandparents, host Thanksgiving and a Christmas Eve party for my family. And have several birthdays between thanksgiving and Christmas to buy for. So this time of year is expensive for us.

I think we're close to about $3500 or $4000 about $1500 or $1000 more than usual. And I will pay the credit card off Wednesday.

 

[tvguy]

The years we had an announced budget, we always went 40 or 50% over.

Gave up on that. Now I have a number in my head...the same number as before..... and that is all the money I put in the check book, always under budget now.

But, we have spent the last year throwing out 32 years of unused "Christmas gifts just for the sake of having a gift to give" gifts.....so our perspective has changed.
I you don't ask for something, you aren't going to get it.

That number is $1,000 tota. That's gifts for me, DW and our 2 adult children.

 

[Handbag Lady]

Nope and I don't want to know. I buy what I think people would like. I try really hard to think of that person and to get them something that would make them happy.

 

[texasroni75]

I admit it is easier for us to stick to a budget since we live 1000+ miles away from extended family, and don't exchange gifts with them anymore. So, it's just the 6 of us. I will say that previous years we always went over budget.

This year, I told DH I wanted to really limit our holiday budget (since we just did a Disney trip in September). My goal was to do $25 out of pocket for each child, and everything else had to come from gift cards saved up through online survey sites. DH was worried that Christmas morning would be disappointing for the kids, but I was sure I could make it work. So, with my gift cards and $100 in cash, through online sales and great deals at stores, we have managed to not only stick to our budget, but get at least 4 really nice gifts per child (one big item, and 3 smaller).

DH and I have been together for 20+ years, so we don't really give presents directly to each other anymore. We have the kids give us a present (we give oldest DD some money and she takes them shopping to choose our gift).

 

[disney1990]

I am $200-$300 over budget. Thankfully, it is money I have, so it is not charged. We refuse to charge Christmas.

 

[msmama]

Like someone else said this is the first year I really super tracked my budget with sub categories and everything. I'm below what I expected present wise but all the "other stuff" that goes along with the holidays was way more than I expected. Extra food, stuff for cookies, wrapping paper, teacher gifts, all that stuff really added up!

 

[Vernie822]

I did for the most part, with everyone except my fiance. We set a limit of $100, except last year he went well over that and I stuck to it. This year he stuck to it, but I bought him new waders and boots for fishing. His are so old and he really needed new ones, but it's something he would never spend money on himself. So it was worth the $100 over budget!

 

[Iowajes]

I did, even with shipping taken into account. I was pretty happy about it.

The bank account still took a hit though, because I bought a new car on Saturday. But it didn't come with a bow, so it wasn't for Christmas.

 

[Gigi22]

Yes, and no. I only give gifts to my sister's kids. I give cash, it's just easier than buying gifts, shipping them off, and so on. I decided to increase the amount I give for Christmas, because I have been giving the same amount for a while now, and they are all adults, or nearly. I stop giving birthday presents when they turn 21, or graduate from college, whichever occurs last, so increasing the Christmas money amount seems fair, KWIM?

 

[Chrelaine]

We went over what I intended to spend, but only about $200 from my estimations. We buy for each other, DD4, 3 nieces/nephews, both sets of parents, a good friend, the sitter, BIL and SIL. DH overspent on me, so I of course went and picked up a few more things for him. That's where I get into trouble We charge to earn points/miles, but I pay everything off each month, so going a little over budget isn't a huge issue. I also had DD done the first few weeks of November because the deals were so good for toys this year!