How much do you spend on kids at Christmas?

[kittysailing]

Have just finished wrapping all kids FC present and piled them on two sledges ( family tradition) and have suddenly been struck by how bonkers it is to give a kid over twenty presents all in one go! We've spent around ?100 on each kid which husband reckons is fairly modest. I think it seems a lot. Just wondered what the average spend was?

[Monkey]

I spent ?100 this year and that's after outsourcing the expensive presents to the grandparents.

All in all, there will be about 13 presents under the tree, which is ridiculous, really. The most expensive one is a jigsaw map of the world which cost ?40.

Looking at it now, one Barbie item would have even enough (there will be three all in all)I remember being over the moon when I got Barbie's gym in the 80's and that was my main present.

[vicki08]

300 each

[Scruffy Mummy]

Lump of coal & clementine.

Seriously, we spend max ?100 & give young scruff three presents plus stocking. Grandparent & other family usually give 4 - 5 more presents.

[katgod]

4 presents each from us plus a stocking with about 15 smaller things in it. Reckon it comes to about ?100-150 each- older one has less parcels but his cost more. Grand parents x2 and aunties x2 buy fairly modest things as well. So they do pretty well.

[SE22mum]

This year is ?20 per child. Previously has been ?5 each, or even 0. Everyone just spends to their budget I think. If ours was higher no doubt we would spend more.

[GinaG3]

I spend ?150 on my 5 year old, this year has not seen her get much though as she's now asking for more expensive items. I always watch and grab at half price or less, take advantage of shops misprices and shop on the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. I use distinct vouchers and get cashback too, never shop anywhere else than online.

Have a 3 week old baby now too, would of not bothered with anything but want my daughter to see her get some stuff and help with opening etc so picked up a few tiny bits for the future for under ?10 all in.

[eva_ben]

?25-30 on the 3 year old, ?10 on the baby. I recently spent a lot on a 3rd birthday and the baby really has too much of everything already. It's more about there being something to open than what it is. Neither of them wants for anything.

[SLad]

We don't want to raise children with huge expectations of multiple presents every Christmas so limit the presents and the cost (mostly second hand and under ?50 total), and make sure we do things like the Met Gift for A Child at Christmas scheme to reinforce how lucky we are.

My rule of thumb is, if it feels too much, it probably is too much.

[Pugwash]

We have just raised our budget for our adult kids and grandchildren from ?40 - ?60. they get the same amount for birthdays. For years, family agreed it was a maximum of ?20 per person and that includes our kids buying us presents.

[jollymummy]

We are about ?50 per child.

[Laur]

I like SLads & SE22mum's theory.

Having done charity work with disadvantaged children whereby some of them tell me that they don't have "any" toys I believe that the more spent on a child each year the less they appreciate the value of money.

[KikiMac]

Yep - about ?40 each child. They're only 2 and 5 kitty, you gotta leave yourself somewhere to go! X boxes and playstations (don't even really know what they are!) cost a lot more I hear - and as SLad says, don't want to set up huge expectations or create little/big consumers for the future.

But then mine still get paper advent calendars because I don't want them to get used to 'getting' something every day in December too. Too hard core?

[oimissus]

including all her stocking bits and bobs, maybe about ?40? That's 4 main presents, plus stocking. But I am starting to think that we are not the norm, her aunt bought her 5 presents for her birthday (more than we did), and the generosity of schoolfriends with her birthday presents, whilst of course lovely and kind of them, is quite astonishing.

We also have paper advent calendars, which she loves.

[EDlittlemoo]

I'd say spend what feels right and don't second guess yourself because of what other people spend on each of their kids...