How do you handle your holiday budgeting?
I'm just curious...how do you budget for the holidays and gift giving for kids that are still living at home (as in, not adults, even if they don't live with you full time)?
Do you just pick a flat monetary amount and that's the budget for each person?
Do you let your kids make a list?
Do you go by age? Like "We're spending $200 each on the teenagers, but $50 each on the toddlers."
Or do you just go by what each child wants/needs and disregard the cost?
We aren't in the income bracket of people who can just throw caution to the wind and buy them whatever (nor would we if we could.....we don't want them to be entitled brats, so we keep it small).
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Depends on the year for us.
Depends on the year for us. In years when skids are with BM for Christmas, she does a big "Santa" tree with tons of gifts. So we spend about $50 on each kid and get them a few gifts at our house.
On years when skids are with us, we do the tree and probably spend closer to $100 on each kid, plus one "big" gift. Max is $200/kid; which is probably still too much, but since it's only every other year, we don't mind it. My skids are 5 (STB6) and 7.
DH and I each buy one gift for each other, max of $200. I buy a gift for my sister and his brother, each $50. I also buy a few gifts for 2 of my nephews, max of $30/each.
My family is huge. If I bought something for everyone, I'd be broke. DH and I agreed a long time ago that we'd rather spend our money traveling and making experiences for the skids than accumulating a bunch of junk they ignore after a few months.
We usually do 4-5 gifts per
We usually do 4-5 gifts per skid, and a few more for BS3 since here full time. Max amount spent is $50/skid and $75 for BS3. I go to Ross, TJ Maxx, and Marshall's to make it stretch. I usually don't spend all the money set aside, which is good since we both have large families. We try to save as much as we can. With young kids, it seems to be more about quantity, not expense.
We used to budget 100 on all
We used to budget 100 on all kids. And then $50.00 for extended family.
Now we draw names and it is a CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!! lol
We went from spending about $1000.00 on Christmas to around $150.00.
AND NO STRESS!!!! We draw names on Thanksgiving and have all that time to buy THE gift for the person you drew. So awesome!!
This is what I wish FDH's
This is what I wish FDH's family would do. His sister-in-law, who unfortunately passed away this June, suggested it last year. I'm just hoping that I'm not the only one in FDH's family who remembers her saying that. Heck, even though we won't be there on Thanksgiving, they can pick names for us haha.
We do this in my family, too.
We do this in my family, too. Makes it so much better!
Every year, I try to get FDH
Every year, I try to get FDH to budget for Christmas, especially since SD's birthday is just about two weeks earlier. It has only worked once.
Ever since our first year, we have set a budget, make presents for the grown-ups in the families, buy a gift for our respective parents, and buy gifts for the kids (under 18s) in the families at a set amount.
Every year but one, this has gone to pot as far as SD is concerned. Our third Christmas was the only one where I was pretty successful in making a plan with FDH and getting him to stick to it. Last year, though, it was an explosion of drama after SD and GUBM manipulated him into getting SD a new (to her) Xbox for her joint Birthday/Christmas present. He went way over budget, he overdrew our bank account - even though he assured me we had enough money to cover it - and we fought about it. A lot. Mostly because there was no discussion involved and a lot of FDH saying "I'm doing this and you can't stop me" and then lying to me about how much he spent, etc. It was kind of a big mess.
This year, I'm hoping to give the plan yet another go and hope that FDH finally lets it sink in that we aren't made of money and that SD can just live without certain things, even if it is Christmas. And that, honestly, children who can't even be bothered to talk to their dads don't really deserve new video gaming systems or other fancy electronics - even if it's a refurbished system.
I avoid this by doing it
I avoid this by doing it myself.
DH is only responsible for my gift. He sometimes forgets the budget, too, so I do all birthday, Christmas, etc shopping.
Hmmmmmm. I wonder if FDH
Hmmmmmm. I wonder if FDH would go for that. Probably not, because he always insists on getting SD something that's 'just from him' although now everything she gets should be just from him since she's always a snot when I give her anything.
I also wonder how many socks $50 could buy...
I kid! Maybe.
A couple of years ago,
A couple of years ago, probably the first year we were all together, so maybe 4 years ago, I did the big, all out, extravagant Christmas. The boys got laptops. The girls got American girl dolls, Build a Bears, and shopping sprees at Gymboree. They trashed it
Nobody appreciated it. The laptops were broken within 2 months. The American girl dolls were not taken care of. I haven't done it again.
I do all the finances here, and this year I set aside $1k. I said to DH last night "I set aside $1k, and I plan to get something for each of the kids, but for the kids that are asking for expensive items, like $60 games, will only be getting one or two gifts."
He seemed really disappointed that I'm not doing more. But I buy them stuff all year. I take them to the thrift shops and to kids consignment stores, and I buy new toys whenever ours need replaced. I'm always getting them parts for their bikes and scooters, and things as they need it, like new headphones and shoes, just little things here and there. So I think that since they get most of what they want and need all the time, it shouldn't be a big shock that I don't just frivol away a bunch of money on them around the holidays simply because it's the holidays.
I typically do 300 per kid.
I typically do 300 per kid. We didn't get ss anything last year because he wasn't speaking to us, this year he will be in Juvie. Dh and I tend to spend around 300.00 on one another as well. My mom and dad get 50 in restaurant gift cards. I have one niece whom I spent about 25.00 on. We don't associate with dh's family. So basically the whole budget will be 1575.00- ops I also have an aunt I usually spend about 40 on.
Skids and Bkids...$50 a
Skids and Bkids...$50 a piece.
Grandkids ... $50 a piece
DH .... As much as I want to spend
I am tired of the overkill at Christmas. Our kids are all adults now. 1 is married, the other 4 who will be here are single. I will mail a card to my son and DIL and grandchildren in Australia. They are not big with the contact thing so right now they get $100 in the card. I send cash so they have to go and exchange it at the bank.
Of course if DH feels the need to lavish gifts on his beloved hot wife he is most welcome... }:)
My extended family are all in NZ so they will be getting a card and a Christmas tree ornament. I made Danish woven hearts (check out Pinterest) last weekend for them all.
We (well mostly myself) make
We (well mostly myself) make a budget and I start hoarding money in Aug. we both have big families. As far as SD, we buy her one big gift usually no more than $25-30 and a few smaller gifts plus she gets a stocking. She's only 2 so we buy one or two toys and the rest are whatever she needs. We set a limit on how much to spend on each other and a limit on each family member. I did convince his family to draw names this year, trying to get mine to agree to do the same
When we first started dating
When we first started dating I went all out for DH's 2 kids but now I also have three beautiful little nieces so we go by our budget and we only buy for the 5 kids (no adults). Each kid (including DH's two) get $50.00, SK's get the cash and the little girls get presents to open (from Santa). It even bothers me that we have to give $$ to SS as he ignores DH and I. I absolutely hate Christmas and DH and I have both made a pact that we will no longer charge any gift (Christmas, Birthday,etc) ever again. It's cash or nothing.