Say you have three or four DC and your Dsis has one or twoDC....

[LynetteScavo]

Do you spend four times as much on your DN, than your Dsis spends on your DC?

If not, is it fair that your DSis has to spend out, say £80 on your DC when you are spending £20 her DC?


I have more DC than my siblings, and feel a bit guilty that they have to buy more nephew/nieces presents than I do. If DB buys my DC a £10 gift each, should I therefore buy his DD a £10 gift or £30 gift?

But, then as I have more DC and earn less, I have a smaller disposible income....

I'm over thinking this, aren't I.

[pigsinmud]

Yes you're over thinking it I have 4 dc and my brother has 2. We spend £20ish on each nephew and they do the same with my dc. I know they can afford it and also they could spend less on my dc!

[cazza2878]

Yes you are, just spend what you can afford and hope that your siblings do the same. You don't have to make sure youre all spending the same, as you say - its all relative. Stop worrying!

[olibeansmummy]

Well from the other point of view, I have one ds, dsis has 2 and dsil has 3. We spend approx same on each of their dc as they do on ds and we're quite happy with that. You don't give to receive after all and we just want to get something nice for each of them.

[ScramblyEgg]

I'm in the opposite position to you - I have one DC, my sister has 2 DCs.

She always spends about twice as much on my DC as I do on her DCs, but it makes me feel uncomfortable (even though she has a much larger income than me). I think the spend per child should be the same.

[nappydaysagain]

I have 2 siblings one has 3DC the other has 2DC and I have 3DC. We've set a family budget of £40 (each family) to be split however. This includes a small gift for each of my sisters and their husbands. Works well for us. I usually spend £10 on the adults and split the rest of the budget on the children.

[makemineapinot]

We take it as a rough value of the gift so f u get on BFF , 3 fr 2 etc two kinda roughly count it as the original/normal value but we don't get too caught up on it. I buy for 5 people in total for db's family and they earn loads. I'm single mum and they buy for 3 of us but we give gifts of similar value to everyone.

[strawberrypenguin]

Yep, over thinking! Buy something you think they will like at a price you can afford. It's the though you put into gifts that makes them special not the price!

[SlightlySuperiorPeasant]

Definitely over-thinking. And exactly what strawberry said ^

[notso]

BIL's wife was telling me her and SIL have a budget per household of £60.
£60 between us would be £10 a head but £60 for SIL and her husband would be a £30 gift each.
We usually budget for about £25 on adults and £30 on children, however on DH's side we are doing secret santa this year so we just buy a £80 for one couple, much easier!

[ILoveOnionRings]

With DH's family we now do a family secret santa,it was agreed with everyone that £30 per gift/person was reasonable. For example there are 3 in our family so we buy for 3 people, SIL has a partner but no children so she buys for 2 people. Nephew and partner buy for 2 people, but other BIL has 5 in his family so he buys for 5 other people (albeit 2 children are grown up and working and therefore are having to buy for 1 person each this year). It works quite well.

Also when the draw is made you do not buy for someone in your immediate family, eg if I drew DH or DS I would put this back and try again for for someone else.

[chicaguapa]

Www.drawnames.com is good for organising a secret Santa. We do it for the adults and the DC but have a budget of £10.

[JoJoH1]

my db has 4 dc i spend about 80-100 on them closer to 100 if including db and dsil although we are not including adults this year to keep costs down. he spends about 40=50 on my one dd as he feels that is only right but it wouldn't bother me it xmas not a time for tit for tat :)

[LynetteScavo]

Thanks, chicaguapa, that drawnames is brilliant!

[CharlieUniformNovemberTango]

Keep the spend per child the same. Kids wouldn't do the math of who has more children etc. But they might notice the one of their cousins has a more expensive gift from you.

We just do the kids in our family. And keep it all the same sort of cost.

[MunchMunch]

I spend about £15 on my dn but my sil (db has no control over money) spends £15 between my 3 kids. Last year dd's present cost £2.

I know you don't give to receive blah blah blah but it has pissed me off (not so much the amount but the lack of thought that went into sweets) and this year there is an extra person in their family (teen) for me to buy for so I will spend £15 on her too. I will see what my dc get this year and next year I will say I'm not buying for their family. I say this every year though, for the past 5 years!

As someone on another thread said, don't make someone else a priority when they only make you an option. (I'm sure those were the words)

[strumpetpumpkin]

since when was christmas presents supposed to be about monetary value of each gift??

[alemci]

also do you tend to stop after the child reaches 18. My DS has suggested this as they have 1 child and have 6 nieces and nephews to buy for. I am quite happy with this, makes sense.

I think I do spend a bit more on my nephew and on my DS and her DH to compensate but TBH they have alot more disposable income than us.

I agree giving is about giving and if they don't give much back then so be it but this isn't the case with us.

[Binfullofgibletsonthe26th]

I don't think it's the monetary value, but the thought. If someone bought my ds a gift for ?2 and it was something that they knew he'd like, such as a paper plane modeling kit,then I'd be happy they took the time and care.

However a bag of sweets is a bit of a cop out, isn't it?

Especially when your putting time, love and hard earned savings into others.

The secret Santa idea sounds brilliant.

[CiderwithBuda]

Oh we have this in our family. I have one. One sis has 5, another has 3 and the other has 1. I buy for all and am lucky enough that financially we are comfortable and I also enjoy doing it. I tend to buy when ever I see something - have been known to start in the summer. The sis with five buys for all and always gets something nice for mine and my other sister with one. The sis with three decided last November that she wasn't buying for anyone. She knew I had already bought for one of hers but said she didn't care!

Money is a bit tight there but I have to say I was a bit annoyed. She could have bought them all an annual or a selection box or something. It was the lack of effort that annoyed me. As I say money is a bit tight but not that bad. I worked out that she could have bought an annual and a chocolate Santa or something for all for around £20.

No idea what she is planning this year. I have bought for hers. My other sis has too. We don't want her DCs to miss out.

Fun isn't it?

[mathanxiety]

We used to do a family gift exchange among the children. Each child picked the name of one cousin out of a hat, and only gave a present to that cousin. In my case, with 5 DCs, I bought 5 presents even though the DCs have 17 cousins. The IL family with only one child only bought one present for a cousin. We dispensed with gifts for the adults altogether. It worked out well, especially as there was an unspoken understanding that no-one should spend more than about $15 on any given child (twas in the States).

[WineGless]

Lots of cousins here but we have 2 DC. All spend equal amounts and which I think is fair. Especially if they are opening presents together on xmas day.
We don't exchange presents for adults.

[Takver]

Definitely don't worry! I have just the one dc, don't mind at all buying for lots of cousins esp as they're smaller & its fun buying for little ones :)

[TeaOneSugar]

We spend about £22-£25 per small child (depends what their parent says they want), older nephews/nieces/god children usually get £20 cash.

The number of children in a family is irrelevant, it's per child.

As someone said up thread, DC know if their cousin gets a bigger/better present but won't link that to how many dc there are in a household.

As a child I was aware that my aunt and uncle bought more for dc on her side of the family than his (mine) - its not nice.

[lljkk]

DH buys one gift for his brother.
His brother buys 6 gifts for us (one each).
It bothers me but DH thinks it's all completely normal.