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Stay at Home Moms
$1000 to split between 10 people
Ugh... I am looking forward to Christmas but DH and I looked at our Christmas budget and realized that more than likely we are ending up with $1000 to split between 4 adults and 6 children (3 of whom are mine) and a birthday. This is stressing me out. I am hoping that a big Christmas bonus comes in for DH this year because we are going to need it.
We really wanted to get DD#2 and DD#3 a playhouse, when I look online at Craigslist they run for over $100 still on top of their other gifts...
Whats your Christmas budget like and how do you pull it off to where you get the kids stuff they want and still can do gifts for say, your parents?
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Re: $1000 to split between 10 people
We'll spend less than $1000. Probably more like $500.
First, we don't exchange gifts with any adults. Siblings and parents...we decided a few years ago that we just wouldn't do it.
We also save our rewards points from credit card and bank card throughout the year. I just cashed them in for gift cards to Target. That will go towards presents.
suggestion: Check out freecycle.org.
And post to see if anyone has outgrown their playhouse. It is a site that people list things they are wanting to pass on to another family. You can post things you are looking for and things you want to get rid of.
I haven't really sat down and worked on a budget yet...but this is my first year SAH, so I know I'm going to need to make some major adjustments to make it work without my income. My husband is paid on a bi-weekly schedule and there is always an 'extra' paycheck in December, so that helps. But he has a large extended family so there are a lot of people and kids to buy for!
I am planning on making soup jars for all the adults.
https://www.squawkfox.com/2008/12/02/holiday-gifts-8-homemade-gifts-in-a-jar-with-free-printable-gift-tags/
Also probably going to do a baby hand-print project as a gift for my parents. Maybe you could do some craft projects with your kids as a gift to your parents? Also, photo gifts (calendars, mugs, scrapbooks, etc.) are a lot of fun and can be inexpensive.
I will buy something for all the kids, but try to keep each gift around $15 dollars or so.
Good luck! I am SO looking forward to the holidays this year!
I think that's more than enough money for nice Christmas gifts for everyone. My DH and I were students at a late age and I had to figure out gifts while living off student loans. If you get creative, you should be able to buy a used playhouse and gifts for everyone else.
Make as many gifts as you can, personalizing them for each person. For adults, I've made/plan to make recipe books with family recipes, photo calendars, photo albums, family trees, and hand painted serving platter and wine glasses. I also have done themed baskets for adults. The items can be puchased for cheap at Walmart, Big Lots, and dollar stores, but when put together, they look great. The themes are related to the person's interest (e.g. scrapbooking, cooking, coffee, spa items).
If at possible, group the people together for joint gifts. Its a lot cheaper than buying each individual a gift. If its a family with children, give the whole family a family night basket with board games, card games, a family movie, pizza gift certificate, popcorn, etc.
One year for all the children, I made a dress up box for each child. I bought Halloween costumes, frilly dresses, etc. at Goodwill and boas, tiaras, hats, purses at Dollar Tree. I went to Michaels and bought those round plain brown hat boxes and painted them. The kids LOVED them. In all of our Christmas pics from that year, my nephews and niece are in costume. It was so fun!
Our parents are out of state, so I know what they really want will be anything about the babies....photo, video gifts, etc. This year will be easy now that we have the girls
HTH!
One year for all the children, I made a dress up box for each child. I bought Halloween costumes, frilly dresses, etc. at Goodwill and boas, tiaras, hats, purses at Dollar Tree. I went to Michaels and bought those round plain brown hat boxes and painted them. The kids LOVED them. In all of our Christmas pics from that year, my nephews and niece are in costume. It was so fun!
I just have to say, what an awesome, awesome idea and I am totally stealing it.
I can relate to what your feeling. Last year we didnt have any savings for Christmas due to DH's work going under and one thing after another happening in our lives, we were barely making it. I have this tiny little fake tree and thats what we put up and we just used what the kids made at school for decorations and things around the house to make homemade ornaments and such. It was really hard as parents for us to think that the only gifts that our kids would get would be from their grandparents not their parents. Two of our DD's birthdays are right after Christmas too. Thankfully Dh got a bonus last minute (really, last minute) and my friend bought the kids a few extra gifts and put on the tags that they were from us, we didnt even realize it until the kids said it outloud when opening the gifts. It was a very sweet thing. This year when taxes came around, we immediately put money in a Christmas fund that you have to pay to get the money out before the opening time which is mid November because we didnt want to be in the same boat as last year. So though I am complaining about having $1000 to split between 10 people, you opened my eyes to see that at least I have $1000 to split because I may not always be that fortunate.
We don't buy each other Christmas gifts, unless it's something functional for both of us (like a vacuum or a stove). With kids, we can go relatively inexpensively for our parents with things like pictures of DD. We also do a lot of homemade gifts.
GL
One thing that has helped me is I buy some things throughout the year. If I see something on sale/a really good deal that I think a specific person would like I buy it for a Christmas present. It spreads the cost out a little and I have some shopping done early. We also put money in a savings each paycheck for vacation and then Christmas.
Last year we had to use our Christmas money for some unexpected expenses and it was tight for Christmas. I did homemade gifts as well as framed pictures of the kids for our parents and grandparents(who are the only adults we buy for)
I think you should cut that $1000 in half and save the rest. I bet you will be surprised how nice the christmas is with half the money. Good luck!
Wow. This is tough huh? Because our kids are so young we really don't get them anything. We bought some post-Christmas clearance stuff for them last year and the only additional thing we're buying is a scooter for Parker.
In terms of our parents/siblings, we spend $40 and $25-$30 respectively. I have only my dad, but five siblings to buy for.
That seems like plenty of money to me. Just goes to show that it is all relative!
For us, we get our parents and g'parents photo gifts (I make everyone a shutterfly album of the last year) and maybe something else small too, like I knit them something.
DH and I spend about 100 bucks on each other (50 each)
Spend about 20$ on grandparents (send them a box of candy or a pie that I bake or something else consumable since they have plenty of "stuff")
The kids we spend maybe 100 each on. A pair of pj's, a book, a xmas ornament, 1 toy.