Ask the Readers: How Much Do You Spend on Gifts?
Published on - November 4th, 2011 (Modified on - November 30th, 2011) (by J.D. Roth) As Kris and I near the end our trip to Peru, we’ve begun to make preparations for our return home. That means shopping.
I spent some time today buying books, for instance. Keeping in mind my recently-drafted guidelines of what to buy, I picked up a couple dozen Spanish translations of classic novels and popular children’s books. 
These books are all tiny (about the size of a religious tract) and cost only S/1.50 each, which is about fifty cents. I now have practice material for months to come!
The shopping Kris did today was more practical. She went in search of socks. Not for herself, but for other people. Christmas is coming, and buying gifts in a place like Peru is a fun change of pace. Plus, it’s cost effective. By shopping for Christmas gifts here, she’s able to stretch her budget. (Obviously, it wouldn’t be cost effective to fly all the way to Peru to do Christmas shopping; but it’s frugal to do so while we’re already here!)
As I’ve mentioned before, my family has interesting way to cope with holiday spending. Every adult spends no more than five dollars to buy a gift for each other adult. This makes it a challenge to find interesting items throughout the year. I often do my shopping at summer garage sales, for instance. This year, the bulk of my shopping was done at markets in Peru and Zimbabwe.
Christmas isn’t the only gift-giving occasion in our lives, of course. There are birthdays and weddings and anniversaries and graduations and promotions. And sometimes it’s fun to give a friend something just for the heck of it.
Not long ago, a friend of mine confided that his wife’s spending on gifts was out of control. “We spent more last year on gifts than we spent of food for our family,” he told me. I think part of this is because the lady in question is generous, but part of it is because she doesn’t want to look bad. For some people, it’s very important to remember the birthdays and anniversaries of everyone in their lives, and to do so with gifts.
I fall on the frugal side of gift-giving. Yes, if I see something that’s perfect for a friend or family member, I’ll buy it for them, even if it’s expensive. But that happens rarely. Most of the time, I’d prefer to drop an e-mail or to send a card or to take them out to lunch. As a percentage of my income, my spending on gifts in miniscule — and certainly far less than my spending on food.
What about you? How much do you spend on gifts? Not just Christmas gifts, but all gifts? How do you budget for this spending? How do you decide what to give and to whom to give it? What shopping habits do you have to make the most of your money? Most of all, what sorts of tips and tricks can you pass on to your fellow GRS readers?
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DH’s family is so hard to shop for that if we find something perfect, we buy it no matter what. So it varies by year. We give more if we give up and just give a gift certificate. Last year was cheaper than average and this year is a bit more expensive because we’re doing this for one of DH’s grandmas: http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/a-two-year-grandma-gift/
DH’s parents go way overboard with presents for DC… close to a thousand dollars each year if we’re estimating correctly. We don’t think he needs that much stuff, so it crowds out gifts that we buy for him. Santa only fills his stocking.
For my (smaller) family, it’s probably $50 for my mom and for my sister, so $100 total, not that much. Maggie and I exchange things off each other’s Amazon wish lists at the end of the season, which is really us buying what we wanted, but you know, in a gift exchange.
We don’t really budget. We spend most of the year thinking about what to get DH’s family and just ask mine what they want. We don’t try to make the most of our money, but we do try not to buy junk that people don’t actually want. No gifts just for the sake of giving something. The gift has to be (hopefully) wanted or useful.
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Yikes. $1,000 on a child. Maybe you could talk to your in-laws and explain that as your child is getting older, you feel it is an appropriate time to start teaching about saving and giving to others. So request part of your child’s gift in the form of a savings bond or tuition savings, and part in the form of helping the child give to something they are excited about (for example take the child to the zoo and give them money to put in the donations box). Doesn’t matter if your child is only 3. Check that bad behavior!
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We have something simlilar with my in-laws. Grandma likes to buy GIFTS – not tuition. So, we let her do most of the spending on things, and my parents do something small + college fund, and we get out of buying pretty much anything for our child. Thankfully bday is 6mo from xmas so clothes are always a great gift. as for telling her to spend it on something else like college fund – it’s her money, she saved it, she can spend it on whatever she wants.
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What Bella said. Back when I was pregnant my mother had the, “Grandparents have the right to spoil grandkids” talk with me, and my MIL made subtle threats about TOYS THAT MAKE NOISE if we checked her. The spending has only escalated since DC started getting cousins.
And really, it’s a first world problem and they’re very generous, it’s their money, and I don’t have any hang-ups about not getting to pick toys (or clothes!) myself. So we’re grateful and do our own college funding.
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We had a similar issue with my MIL until a day or so after Christmas in MIL’s presence my then four year old slammed one of her new toys to the floor and when told go be careful simply responded. “If it breaks Grandma will just buy me another one.” That finally openned her eyes at least enough to temper the gifts.
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Jesus said, “out of the mouth of babes”!
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LOL — reminds me of when my 4 yo niece received yet another toy from one of her grandparents and she shrugged, said “that’s not the one I wanted,” and tossed it aside. My sister was mortified, but it did teach all of us a lesson about giving too many gifts to kids.
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My in-laws give crazy amounts to our three kids as well. It DRIVES ME CRAZY as we have so much junk in our home.
I think that they would be offended if I asked them to give into a college fund. They enjoy watching the kids open gifts (it is like a gift to them).
So this year, I am changing my attitude about it. I am donating a bunch of their toys to Goodwill prior to Christmas so the house doesn’t feel cluttered and just enjoying the gifts and them.
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Oh I understand about Grandparent Indulgence and how it must be allowed. The extravegance of it is what threw me though. I love the story about “grandma will buy me a new one!!” Also I seriously doubt any grandparent would be offended at the fact that their children are trying to plan for college for the G-kids and could use extra help. It is all how you present it.
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We limit our gift giving to immediate family members, grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins. But we have a relatively small family and we only give gifts at Christmas (birthday gift giving is just for my own children and one nephew). Other than for my own children, I limit gifts to $30 or less and for my own, $50, unless it is something I would likely buy for then anyway (like swim team warm ups for my daughter). But here’s a suggestion for people with children who get invited to tons of birthday parties: Require your child to pay some percentage of the cost of the gift. I do a 1/3 and 2/3 split. I started this when I saw my first child accepting every invitation she received. After all, it cost her nothing and she got to do something really fun, eat cake and pizza and often came home with a small bag of goodies. Once I implement the 1/3 2/3 rule, my kids became more thoughtful about invitations and started limiting themselves to the ones that mattered most to them.
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I have to admit I spend a ridiculous amount of money on gifts, be they random this-reminded-me-of-you gifts or Christmas gifts. Possibly $150-200 for my mom, dad, sister and boyfriend.
In our extended family we do secret Santa with a limit of about $100 in total.
Birthday presents depend on whether I have found a great gift or have to make it up buying a larger amount of presents.
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The best possible gift you can buy in Peru is an Alpaca Rug or blanket. It packs up nice and compact also. Resell value is high in the U.S., and they also make amazing gifts or home decorations!
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My husband and I are both from big families – I’m the oldest of 12 and he’s the oldest of nine. My family has embraced drawing names for Christmas gifts, but his hasn’t – that means we have his eight siblings plus one of mine to buy for (and he’s working on his phd so money isn’t exactly flowing these days). Our goal – to find gifts that a sibling will really enjoy for $5 or less.
We do a lot of shopping at Goodwill and garage sales (last year I bought my husband a chemex coffee maker at Goodwill for $0.53 – if you’re a coffee person, you’ll know those cost more than $50 new).
I also save all the gift cards, etc from those surveys-for-rewards things during the year, and use them to buy gifts from amazon.com or my all time favorite store, TJ Maxx. Gift cards don’t count toward the total, so if I can’t find a good gift for my mother-in-law for under $5, I use the gift card.
I’d like to get into making more gifts, but currently don’t have the skills to make a gift they’d actually like. I’m working on that, though!
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I’m a lot like JD – I don’t generally spend a lot, but will purchase “the perfect gift” if I happen to come up with one. I prefer to be treated the same way.
In my case, “the perfect gift” would be to come visit me, nothing else. Sometimes, this may even lead to a future gift idea. For example, my brother visited me, experienced the horrid state of my cutlery when he made dinner one night, and sent us a knife set the next Christmas.
One of my pet peeves is gift cards. I’d rather get nothing than a gift card. I have a collection of expired ones sitting in a box that I never used because the store was inconvenient for me to get to, my time was limited, I forgot about them, or I simply did not carry the card around with me at all times to use the one time I happened to be at the store. This ties into my desire for a visit, as many of these cards were sent by family members who had not visited me the entire 20 years of my adult life, and thus had no idea what I might like or need.
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You’ll find sites online that buy gift cards for about 70 cents on the dollar. Or you could donate them to a local charity.
Social service agencies would probably be happy to give them to clients or use as a giveaway in a fundraiser.
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Sure, I could sell the cards at a discount (something that wasn’t available at the time I told everyone to stop giving me cards), but I’d still rather get nothing than waste my relative’s money.
My main issue was that gift cards take little thought or effort, instead transferring that effort (possibly at additional cost) onto the recipient. I’d rather get one well-considered gift (preferably a visit) every 5-10 years than a gift card every year.
Rather than transfer money to third parties (card purchase fees, reduction in value over time, lost/forgotten cards, selling at a discount, gas purchase to travel potentially long distances to a specific location), why not simply hand $20 bills to each other?
Dad: “Merry Christmas, here’s your $20 bill”
Child: “Thanks, Dad. Here’s YOUR $20 bill”
Both: “I feel so well-loved”
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Gift cards are a matter of personal preference, and do still require some degree of thought if given correctly.
Some people like to receive gift cards rather than real gifts, since that allows them the fun of shopping for what they really want. While they were teens, all my young cousins preferred to be given cash or an Amazon gift card. The trick is to find out what stores they like to shop at, and give an amount appropriate for that store.
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Pamela, you have some good suggestions for what to do with them if you DO get them. I don’t mean to discount those.
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Tom, I can totally relate about the gift cards. My son and I were just discussing that they are just like giving money only the giftee doesn’t get a choice where to spend it. Not usually the most thoughtful choice.
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I don’t even know you and this makes me want to come visit you. Planning now to visit my own far-off family next month! Yay for visits!
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LOL – you just made my day.
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Certain corners of my family do the gift card thing. The best way to handle it is to let people know what gift cards you prefer. My most-enthusiastic-about-the-holidays cousin does an email around Halloween where she asks if anybody would like to make requests, and a followup before Thanksgiving with people’s responses. They tend to be chatty and personal – “I’m going to be repainting the inside of the house over the winter and would like Home Depot gift cards, please.” People do make charity requests, but they are also very personal and specific – Target gift cards so kids at the local homeless shelter can pick out new clothes for school.
This also makes for better thank yous. I’ll send around before and after pictures of my newly painted house. My cousin sent around a funny email with pictures of her painting her nails while her new oven was self-cleaning. (She had saved up for an oven and asked for gift cards to help buy a nicer one.)
One note on giftcards: Walmart has cards that are replenishable over the internet. They are a good way to help out relatives you don’t want to send cash to. Or to the neighbors who help them out.
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Why don’t you visit them? Maybe I’ll understand this sentiment when I am older, my mom says that all the time “Why don’t you visit your uncle/second cousin/old friend from high school/etc. more often?” Well, maybe because I have a full time job and two kids and barely have time to pee, let alone sit and think about when to schedule visits with extended family members who, btw, never call me either.
More to the point, it is rude to invite yourself over to someone else’s house. If you want someone to visit, call and ask them over for dinner.
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I’m talking about immediate, not extended family, and I DID go visit, pretty much every year, and sometimes multiple times per year (despite living in different places throughout the country).
I gave an open invitation to come visit that I renewed every year. I even lived in one of the top tourist destinations in the US for several years with no visit. There were a number of times where my family either lived or visited less than an hour from where I lived and would still not visit, even if they had a specific invitation. I, on the other hand, would drive 14-16 hours to see everyone, despite the fact that I had a job that required 60-80 hours of my time per week, on average, in addition to a lot of tiring and time-consuming business travel.
After those first 20 years, I had a couple of kids, so I’ve finally gotten a few visits. Unfortunately, I’m not in as interesting a part of the country.
/therapy session
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Tom, I live this too. I live next to a major city (15-20 minutes away) and my brother and sister-in-law drive four hours to visit her family (one hour’s drive past my house and significantly further away from the city), but I never get a phone call despite my invitation to them to come over or meet up for dinner/lunch/drinks when they’re in the area or even just en route. It’s no use. They don’t want to visit and therefore, they won’t ever call or come to visit. Of course, they live in the boonies and yet I manage to get out there to visit them about once a year.
Makes me thankful for friends, because my friends put up with far more travel time to see me (and vice versa).
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Rachel, our situations are even more similar, since my folks also moved away to live in the boonies, and I’ve always lived in major metropolitan areas (even if my current one is not as cultured as I would like). I, too, am quite happy to have had friends to fill the gap.
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Fairly little. I’ve become fairly anti-gift in the last few years. I spent about $25 on my husband’s birthday this year to get him some fun chocolates from Chocomize (side note: not recommended). He didn’t get me anything for my birthday, and we won’t get gifts for the holidays. If I’m going to give gifts, I’d much rather give them for real events, like birthdays or anniversaries, than something like Christmas that isn’t a celebration of an individual. I tend to keep wedding gifts in the $50-75 range (from us as a couple), especially since our attendance means either we somehow worked for the wedding, or we traveled significantly to get there.
This is very different from how I was ten years ago. I was a huge gift giver, to an unhealthy degree. When I was earning $7.50 an hour, it wouldn’t be uncommon for me to spend $300 on a gift for one person, one occasion. I’m glad I grew out of that.
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I believe that Christmas *is* the celebration of an individual, and that individual has the initials JC. So I make a big meal for anyone who’d like to join me after afternoon Mass and before midnight Mass. And that’s a gift I love to give on a day that has great spiritual importance for me.
As for more material gifts and JD’s question, I don’t have a gift budget (and am also an orphan only child, so I don’t have family to buy for), but I pick up things at tag and thrift sales throughout the year so I have a fully stocked gift closet as needed for birthdays, dinner parties, thank you occasions and such.
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Well, obviously that’s a matter of opinion, which we do not share. Having been raised by a Jew and areligious goy, Christmas has never been much more than gifts and decorations to me. And I’m fine with that.
On the other hand, I do agree with you that one of the best parts of the holiday season is the opportunity to gather family for a good meal.
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Both of our families spend a lot on gifts, so we do too. We buy birthday presents for both of our families, wedding gifts throughout the year, and gifts for both families at Christmas. On average, we spend $80-$90/mo on gifts throughout the year, and $1200 on family members for Christmas.
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Generally $15-20 per person for birthdays/Christmas. My siblings and I sometimes give gifts and sometimes not. I knit, so sometimes I give handmade gifts, but accounting for the price of yarn it’s usually not much less.
For weddings, it depends on how close we are to the couple.
Usually in the $100-$150 range for Christmas and birthday and about $50-$75 for Easter for my own kiddo — generally that’s the time she’ll receive things she’s been pining after a long time and also things she needs. She rarely if ever gets big-ticket items outside those occasions.
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Well, with the exception of weddings we don’t spend much on gifts throughout the year. We’ll generally spend less than $100 on our teens’ b-day gifts, and much less (like maybe under $20) on our younger kids.
Christmas is another story. Of our parents, only my mom is still alive and we do buy her a gift. We don’t buy for our many siblings, but our kids will do a Pollyanna with their cousins. And then we have other people to whom we give gifts (teachers, cleaning lady, etc.) All told, last year we spent a little more than 3k on Christmas gifts.
How do we fund all that? Many of the kids’ gifts are from gift cards we get with credit card points – actual cost to us is zero. Another thing we do is save our change all year and turn it in to a Coinstar for an Amazon gift card – as good as cash. That’s always been at least $600 each year. And then the cleaning lady, teachers, etc. just get cash along with a card (and maybe some baked goods if I’m feeling energetic).
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doens’t coinstar charge to take your coins? or have i been going to the bank for nothing?
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As far as I remember, they charge a commission on cash to cash transactions, but have no such charge on cash to voucher transactions.
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I like to make gifts, so it’s not just a case of material costs but time spent too.
So this quilt for example:
http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/17546_401903840365_598230365_10500521_6345656_n.jpg
Cost less than £15 to make all in, took 2 weekends to put together (IIRC, it was a couple of years ago). That was for a very dear friend of mine who had told me she’d always wanted a patchwork quilt. After I gave that to her as a birthday present, her mum actually paid me to make one for her little sister, so it was good practice as well as enjoyable.
Socks like this:
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/72068_10150339610735366_598230365_16205585_6347714_n.jpg
Cost around the same to make (I used some very nice cashmere and alpaca), and took around 7 hours to knit. It was my first time knitting socks, so that was a new technique learnt and a present made. Also I can knit or crochet comfortably in front of the TV, and do some other hobbies while listening to podcasts, so I catch up with stuff I was going to do anyway.
I’d much rather spend 5 hours making something than work for 5 hours and spend the wages on something for someone. Of course, I can’t make everything (although I’m trying to!), so some things I do buy. I try not to spend more than £20 on close family and £10 on friends. Most friends at my age (21) don’t want presents, they just want you to eat a meal with them or go out partying with them. I nearly always get my parents those charity gifts, like a toilet in Ethiopia or whatever, and my dad is literally happy to get paper and string as he’s into origami and knotwork.
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Beautiful quilt, but I’m impressed that it only took you 2 weekends. I sew and quilt and I’m working on a wedding gift right now. Most of the fabric was given to me but I’ve probably put in over 40 hours of work time on it- not exaggerating. The time-cost for sewing and quilting is huge, and I’m not incredibly slow at it. For close family though I would rather take the time to give something handmade.
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The quilt was tweaked from a book called Quick Colourful Quilts and was pieced in a way that was really time saving. I can’t remember exactly how long it took, but it definitely wasn’t a very long time.
I also don’t actually quilt my quilts- I sew a fleece blanket on the back and bind the edges with more fleece. So the front and the back are only sewn together at the edges, not all over the top. This saves a lot of time as to me, one of the most time consuming things is basting the layers together before quilting.
Now that I’ve got some better skills, I’d like to make some proper quilts with batting and a high quality finish, but when you’re 19 and unemployed, the above one is good enough!
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Love the quilt. I als will be giving most of my gifts this year. I’ve aquired such a stash of fabric (mainly sale stuff), that the immediate costs to me is not much
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My mother and childless sister go beyond crazy with gift giving for all occasions. I do try to buy them nice gifts, but I’ve given up trying to keep up with their gift-giving. I cannot control what they do, but only act in line with my values.
I have for years done what JD does… buy gifts on trips for the people on my list. It lets me buy the cute and unique things I find, but in a way that will be more meaningful later.
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After years of trial and error, we’ve found the system that works for us and our large gift lists: we put aside $125/month for “Non-Christmas gifts” and $125/month for “Christmas.” All things gift-y come from one of those two stashes – from the Dora birthday cake to the Christams tree to presents for our 20-odd relatives to the random wedding invitation. For us, it’s a very honest assessment of what we are going to spend throughout the year, and that’s the key to our budget actually working.
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I spend approximately $500/year, with about $300 going toward Christmas. That $300 covers not just gifts, but also wrapping paper, Christmas cards, and postage.
In my family, we don’t really give gifts except to the kids, and we don’t go overboard with them. Now that my neices are grown, we all just do a charity donation. We’ve done this for about 5 years, and we love it.
The rest of the Christmas money I spent to make calendars (I wait until Snapfish is having a 50% or 60% off sale) from some of my photography, and also on supplies to make jam and jelly. Calendars and jam/jelly go to people like my hair dresser, the super at my building, some of my co-workers, and a number of my friends.
Non-Christmas gift budget is pretty much just birthday gifts for my immediate family, and few things for other occasions, as warranted (i.e., a new baby gift, etc.).
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I try to stick to a budget for the holidays. My family (Dad, 2 sisters, and a BIL) spends about $50 per person. My husband and I spend about $25 on gifts for each other. I try to stick to $50 each for DH’s mom and dad. The in-laws won’t stick to a pre-determined budget and often spend much more than $50 on us. As far as gift cards, I prefer to receive a gift card from my in-laws. My MIL doesn’t have a good sense of my style. Even when you give her a list of ideas, she often purchases what she thinks you should have. And then her feelings get hurt when you ask for the receipt to return the ill-fitting sweater or duplicate item. In fact, I would be OK with not giving gifts at all. I would much prefer getting together for a nice meal and spending some time together.
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As a grad student, money is tight, and last year I made the vast majority of the gifts. There were a hit! Not only did I spend much less money, but I think everyone actually liked them more because it was obvious that so much time and thought had gone into them. Homemade gifts also make me feel crafty at least once I year, I don’t think I’ll ever stop! In case you are curious, last year I made: lemoncello, vanilla extract, soap, coffee liquor, and heatable cornbags. And on my list so far this year: lemoncello (many requests!), fun patterned coasters, some jewelry, a tent kit for my young niece, and probably some crocheted things…I’m excited to get started!
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I love handmade soap! It’s also a great gift to give because it gets used up. A lot of good gifts get eaten or used up in some way, so they don’t linger around the recipients’ home.
This year I’m considering making marmalade…
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Last year, I took a lot of money to buy people ‘real’ gifts, which was really more about me than it was about them. I ended up spending $300-$400 doing this. This year, I’m using the crafts I’m making for my how-to YouTube channel as gifts, and making most of my money, my talents and my time! I’m hoping to spend less than $200, and really I’m saving doubly because I’m not spending money I would’ve ordinarily spent on the YouTube channel projects anyway.
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my favorite inexpensive gift for a lot of people is cookies! i love baking but my husband doesn’t share my sweet tooth, so i love opportunities to crank out massive amounts of cookies. it’s not free, usually i spent at least $20-25 on ingredients (damn you butter), but i can cover a lot of people with it and it’s “from the heart” enough that i don’t feel like i’m cheaping out.
i got married this year so everyone is getting wedding-photo related gifts, save the ones who are getting cookies. it’s definitely a “more effort/less money gift” year- i have much more time than i do cash.
lol i love the poster’s comment about handing around $20 bills- my family has gotten hooked on gift cards for some reason and i feel the same way, i’d rather just have the cash or not have them at all then have these ticking time bomb obligations in a drawer. the only exception are the ones you can spend anywhere- visa or amex cards- those are fine. gift cards to a place that i occasionally treat myself at is also a welcome gift- cash is super tight and most splurging is on the shelf for now, so gift cards let me have a little bit of fun at least. lol did i say i hated them? oops.
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I also make quiches for neighbors and teachers. They have been well received. You put them together and freeze them with instructions for re-heating over the holidays. Easy breakfast, lunch or dinner over holiday break. And since they are frozen in the aluminum pie crust tin — no dishes!!
P.S. I’d like to see a post on earning the gift cards!
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I love love LOVE the frozen quiche idea!! What kinds do you make and how do you freeze them (besides in the freezer, duh). I have been struggling with what to do for my friends this year and didn’t want to do cookies since everyone is trying to lose weight. A quiche!! What a fantastic idea!!
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I may be asking a silly question, but I didn’t think you could put aluminium in a microwave oven? Are you assuming that everyone has an oven to heat them up in? Cause not all of us do…
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When I give gifts, most of the time, I make them. I’ve made soap for years, and soap and lotion are my top gifts. I also make bread and pots of soup.
We have a Scholastic Book Fairs Warehouse in our city, so for child readers I can get books 1/2 off twice a year. Nearly all of my gifts of every kind are small budget gifts. To me the point is to say “I love you” from the heart.
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I like your “ticking time bomb obligations in a drawer” analogy – that’s exactly how I feel about them.
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I like the cookie idea. One year for the holidays I gave my friends cards that listed 5 types of cookies that had always been a hit at potlucks etc. They all let me know what type they wanted and then I delivered containers of frozen cookie dough – pre sliced or in individual cookie sized balls – with instructions for baking. That way they could do a big batch or just a few at a time. If people wanted more than one type I just did a combo container for them. It was a hit and I have not done it for a few years so it might be time to consider it again….
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As an extremely religious person, I also like to give and receie gifts-no gift cancellation or group gifts for me.At Christmas I purchase for two college kids of my own, thirteen adults, and four nieces and nephews. also my support group, quilting group and about five “angel situations> I budget $500 for Christmas including the prime rib dinner that serves twelve. I get gifts by earning gift cards, making gifts, taking advantage of deals and shopping all year round. Generally, we share lists, and get people items that they would not normally spend money on themselves. One of my gifts last year was a green teakettle. Not expensive, but I was too lazy to buy and using the micro up to then.
As someone on a limted fixed income I do appreciate gift cards for items I would not/could not buy myself such as bookstores
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Our gift giving budget has been all over the map and varies drastically from year to year. With a steady progression downward…
This year everyone’s getting homemade items (jams, pickles, cheese, soap). There are a few exceptions to that rule, but not many.
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I give to charity (my family has too much already and I can’t compete with their tastes) and I ask they give to charity rather than buy me a gift.Sadly, my main motivation is that they are the worse gift givers ever!
I don’t want to hurt them feelings, so I try and direct their gifts to someone who can really use them.
Now please excuse me, I have to go on to Facebook and tell everyone that since I don’t drink hot drinks, I don’t need any coffee cups. I have received a coffee cup every year for Christmas for the past 10 years.
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When I go to resale stores and gargage sales, I always go into a rant about how the government should BAN the manufacturing of new coffee mugs!!
Every family should be required to have a certain # they care for in their home so they don’t get released into the universe.
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Gifts vary on both sides of our family. Generally, our budget is about the same as J.D. Pohlman’s. But teacher gifts, etc. are on top of that. I think the best gift given last year was my brother-in-law purchasing snow removal from his 70 & 80 year-old parents long driveway via a local service. (None of us are in town.) They LOVED it and it was so helpful to them as we ended up with some big snow falls.
I bought my brother (who is very hard to buy for) a pencil drawing of his house and had a watercolor done of my folks by the same artist. http://www.etsy.com/shop/artworm?ref=seller_info Those were well received.
This year, I am struggling for gift ideas. But I am going to help the kids make a variety of cookie doughs that can be wrapped and frozen to cut and slice as desired through the colder months. And I’ve suggested that my husband and I gift each other our annual holiday dinner out with friends because that is usually an expensive evening out in a hectic budget-bending season.
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I forgot about teacher’s gifts! In previous years we’ve had a LOT of preschool teachers and have Target carded them at $20/pop.
Now that DC is in K, I’m not sure if that’s appropriate or not.
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It is appropriate. Think about a bookstore…..
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As a teacher (also in a high cost-of-living area), I’d say not only is it appropriate, it’s perfect (although my favorite are thank you notes from my students). I have enough mugs to last two lifetimes, Christmas ornaments that don’t always go with my taste, and every year I get more cookies/ fudge/ pumpkin bread than my household of five can keep up with! Target gift cards can also be used to buy something for the classroom. Amazon gift cards are also great.
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Oops, accidentally read that as “now that K is in DC”- as in the capital! My answer still stands
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We have really cut our gift giving down in past couple years. We only purchase gifts for sisters,parents,neice and nephews(2) for birthdays and Christmas with budget around 10-20. Our kids get more of course and my husband and I purchase for each other but try to keep in a certain budget amount. I would say about 1,000 a year for all occasions. My kids understand that marching band fees and school trips for extra activities and the cost of their cell phones take from gift giving but the extras mean more to them than the gifts.
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I budget $150 a month for gifts & charities in a combo budget. There is $50 going every month to a charity they rest gets sent on the birthday meals with friends or the occasional bottle of wine as a present.
The other gift I have been giving which cost more $$ is to pay for slides, negatives, and photos to be scanned for my grandparents and parents. They get a kick out of seeing the photo on a larger screen and we get digital copies so everyone in the family can get copies.
Months we do not use up the budget I give the balance to charity.
Last year for Christmas I knitted gifts. Most got wine cozy with wine bottle, or similar items.
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My husband will turn 65 on his next birthday and I am planning to take him to a Bach festival that he has been talking about for the past 37 years. This will be expensive but worth it. But don’t tell him, because it’s a surprise!
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My husband turned 50 two years ago. We had already planned a vacation in Sedona encompassing the birthday week, but I added to it an excursion to the Grand Canyon, with helicopter tour, on the day. Expensive but DEFINITELY worth it!
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Now that my mother and her mandatory “you must buy gifts for everyone in the family” will not be with us this Christmas, I intend to buy modest, useful gifts only for those people I REALLY want to. If you are related to me, but you don’t speak to me all year long, you’re no longer on my list. The balance of my Christmas Club will go to the Red Cross, a local food bank or Heifer Int’l. Oh, and I’m buying something for myself this year – for once!
Not only will I relieve myself of needless spending, but also free myself from having to fake gratitude for gifts given to me by people who obviously don’t care that I don’t wear size XXL, am allergic to certain things, and/or have no use or space for their “present”.
Please do a piece on lowering the boom on those you no longer wish (or can afford) to share material exchanges with, for whatever reason.
Has the Holiday music started on anybody’s radio station yet?
ho ho ho . . .
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Hear Here!
I’ve tried to “lower the boom” many times, with NO success. I’ve tried “give to charity” I’ve tried “please, nothing, I need nothing”. If I get one more tchotchke I’m gonna have a meltdown.
I fear my next trick will be to flee the country for 3 months.
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What country? When do we leave?
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We save about $1000 for Christmas every year. This year will be our last of $200 for each family member. It was a good amount when we were both working, but now we are retired.
Soon we will move to simple gifts for parents and Santa money for the children. The grand babies do not need to know they got something specifically from us. They just know that us showing up is the gift :>) I’d rather their parents have Santa money….
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We have a pretty big immediate family. We budget $125/month for gifts and so far that seems to be working okay. We keep it as a rolling line item, so if we don’t spend it all one month, we save the difference to spend in that same category another month. This way, when something big comes up like a wedding or a busy month for gift giving, we’re safe. We also include family “party” type food in this category, so for example, I’ll spend $20-30 on wine and dessert for Thanksgiving at my in-law’s and put it into the Gifts category.
That said, we have a separate savings line item for Christmas of $75/month. That pays for the tree, family gifts, teacher and work gifts, parties, etc. I’m trying to find ways to cut down that budget, though…
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I budget about $1000 total for christmas for 10 far-flung friends, 9 close family, 2 special nieces, and 1 loving boyfriend. Co-workers and neighbors get home-made cookies or cards. I feel so blessed each year and thankful to all of them that I always want to spend more than I should.
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We just spent $900 to fly to see family during Christmas, so we can’t afford much for gifts on top of that! I am trying to get creative with gifts and am knitting as many scarves as I can!
I also plan to make homemade soap.
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For Christmas, my family exchanges cookies instead of gifts and my husband and I have a $100 gift limit for each other. ($10 of which includes a stop at the $1 store where we try to go for the most goofy items possible.) The rest of the year is gift-free with the exception of my niece that I send $100 to for her birthday. We usually have dinners in with friends for birthdays or anniversaries. So, that’s $200 plus the cost of baking/cooking and maybe about $40 for cards.
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My parents are in their eighties and I give them a christmas tree every year. I drive them to the garden centre where they pick a tree. I pay and bring it to their home. We all love this tradition. It’s easy because they live in the same street.
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$1000.00 budgeted for Christmas: nieces & nephews get a gift in $50.00 range, we siblings do not exchange, and then for our two girls and a little something for hubby & I. Also Mom & Dad, but no more Stuff, usually a gift card & delivered goody basket from local grocery store for when they get to Florida for the winter and they really enjoy that. Also included in that budget is Christmas tree, extra bottles of wine or whatever for parties, etc.
Birthdays are about $25.00 for nieces and nephews (so about $250.00 for the years). Again mom & dad, usually potted flowers/hanging flowers for mom and wine for dad (glass a day for him), not stuff, but certainly something that use/get much enjoyment from.
Birthdays for our kids about $50.00-100.00, although this year a bit more for #2 who turned 16 last month and #1 who turned 18 today. Still try to keep it within reason.
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Our gifts budget runs right about 3% of the yearly budget. Seems like a good bit when I look at it, but gifts are really my one big extravagance – the thing I enjoy spending on.
That said, we’ve really cut down on the extended family and friends gift-giving. Every year, we found ourselves searching for something a sister or cousin might like, even though we really didn’t know that much about what they liked in general. We finally asked if we could just do an ornament exchange with extended family, and this has worked out great (although our tree is a little overburdened after so many years of ornament exchanges!).
For those who complain about grandmas buying too many gifts, may I suggest leaving some at grandma’s house? This has been a great solution for us, and we love having fun toys for the grandkids to enjoy at our house when they visit.
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We have a $250 limit for each child (teens) and they know it and adjust their requests accordingly. My sister and I swap gift cards for the kids (think we should talk about that, hmm…) but don’t gift the adults.
DH and I usually agree on something we need and would have to purchase anyway as our gift to each other. This year it will be a new bed. We’re long overdue and might try to hold out another year, but can make it a gift to ourselves and spend money we’d have spent on other gifts to get a nicer model than we would have otherwise. This is very satisfying as we know it’s something we’ll use daily, and we get to enjoy a high quality item.
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We always have one person who makes out like a bandit at Christmas. Last year was my dad ($800 snowblower), the year before was my mom (macbook). But since it is all the other people who go in together to buy the expensive item we don’t feel bad about it.
Hoping it is me this year though
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I start Christmas shopping in October, spreading out expenses and finishing up in early November.
Me and my gal pals agreed that we don’t buy each other presents we just eat a nice group brunch/lunch together every year. We are adults, so as long as we take some time out of our busy lives to catch up it’s always nice.
I really think Christmas is for the kids. Now my kid budget (friend’s kids, extended family, fiance’s family) we try to keep it in the $50 or less range. I know that’s a lot, but i tend to buy a cheap toy or piece of clothing and then a $30-$40 gift card.
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Gift giving for us falls into 2 main categories: The winter holidays and birthdays.
The winter holidays are tough because not only do we have to buy for my kids, my dad, and my husband’s parents and sister, but we also have to buy gifts for all the teachers and aids who work with our kids. Last year, I had to buy for 5 teachers alone! I spent more on teachers than I did on my husband and father combined. I got them all $20 gift cards to Target (the teachers) because I have friends who are teachers who said that the coffee mug/food/candles/bath products presents are the absolute worst to receive and made me promise never to do that to a teacher.
I spend on average $100 per kid, $20 per teacher, $50 per parent/in law/sibling, and $50 for spouse for a total of $650. Plus we celebrate both Chanukah and Xmas so we follow my family tradition of “a new book a night” for each night of Chanukah for the kids. I get them from Scholastic so that adds on $60 for a winter holiday total of $710.
Birthdays are nutty. My kids get invited to about 20 birthday parties each a year. I try to go stock up at Marshals, TJ Maxx, and those sorts of places for toys but it is still about $200-300 a year for other people’s kids! This year I am starting to turn down some invitations. Many kid’s parents invite all the kids in the class so now I am asking my kids if this is one of their good friends and do they want to go. It is hard to say no but now I am doing so to free up some weekend time and money.
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As a teacher, I absolutely agree with your teacher friends about the bad gifts. Add to this list all the teacher-themed knickknacks. Gift cards are a great idea in this case, but make sure they’re for a general-category store, like Target, a local grocery store or an office-supply store since teachers usually furnish many of their classroom supplies. I can’t count how many Starbucks gift cards I’ve been given, and since I don’t drink coffee, my only use for them has been to regift to my coffee-drinking friends.
The best gift I’ve ever been given as a teacher hasn’t been material, though. A heartfelt letter from a parent thanking me for all I do to help their child means much more to me than a pile of presents.
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I’m a former teacher and I totally agree about the gifts. I threw away a stash of mugs (don’t use them), candles (not safe to light with kitties in the house), lotions (allergies, don’t use it), knick-knacks (don’t like them) etc. Candy and cookies weren’t too bad but people sometimes picked really odd recipes. I personally loved Starbucks gift cards but ones to Barnes and Noble or Target are also great. I tell anyone who asks that the best gift for a teacher is a picture of your child, a drawing from the child, or a heartfelt thank you note. Throw in a $5 gift card if you can swing it, and any teacher will love you forever.
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My mom is a teacher so I know that they hate getting a whole bunch of junk! What I have done for my children’s preschool and kindergarten teachers to is organize making a scrapbook for them. Each child gets a page to decorate and then we put in all together. It only costs about $15 to make and is thoughtful.
This year I want to organize a gift of a new pencil sharpener as my daughter’s teacher HATES hers!
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I teach special education and have only gotten a gift twice. I would love even a mug because that would mean a parent thought enough to give something.
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I was just wondering this myself a few days ago.
Being the oldest of five, currently attending university, I tend not to give gifts for birthdays. I try to be home for as many birthdays as I can, but it doesn’t always work out. So to be fair I just don’t buy gifts for birthdays. Having a comparatively large salary (I’m paid to go to school — so I can get shot at later) and few expenses, I can spend a fair amount on gifts. This year I’ve decided to try and limit myself to $50 per person (four siblings, two parents and three grandparents). Some are getting slightly more expensive gifts, and others are getting considerably less expensive gifts. I’m a fan of buying what I think they will really appreciate so cost ends up being of little or no object. I’ve seen $5 gifts get bigger thanks (seem to be more appreciated) than the $50 one the year before. It’s a challenge trying to buy for three 75-90 year olds, my parents in their 50s and my siblings from 20-13 years old. But it’s always fun.
My sister and I realized a few Christmases ago that the best part of Christmas was the giving. Getting is nice, but I very much enjoy the lead up that come to someone I know opening a gift I spent months deliberating on.
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DH and I spend about $100 per person in our immediate family over the course of the year, on average. Most at Xmas. He does a little extra for his nephew’s birthday, and I do a little extra for my sister’s birthday.
We have a small family (well, his family is HUGE but the internal nugget is small), so this doesn’t get too out of hand.
We tend to get gifts when we are on vacation. This year we were in the Sierra for a week, and visited an alpaca farm. Several people are getting gorgeous alpaca sweaters.
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This time of year, the budget is zero. I always enter into the holiday season with the idea of not exchanging gifts and opting out of mindless consumerism. As the holidays approach, it becomes more difficult to follow through and I end up exchanging gifts with my girlfriend. It’s nice to buy things for each other, but at the same time I feel like we’re only doing it because it’s what’s expected at that time of year.
I hate Christmas.
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Maybe she would be more open to the idea of no christmas gifts if you give her things at other unexpected times of year. If you just say no to gifts period, that can’t go over well.
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It’s not really a matter of her not being open to the idea of no gifts, but more of a matter that I think we both feel pressure to conform to the expectations of the season.
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Me too!
My side of the family, only little kids get gifts. Cheap, easy, stress-free.
But my partner’s side of the family has a huge set of gift expectations and they’re not at all negotiable – if he wanted to negotiate, he could maybe, but I have no standing and he thinks it’s fine. But I get saddled with all the work (or else I cover at home while he runs around at the last minute getting gifts) and it leaves no time for the rituals I actually enjoy. It’s a struggle every year and I hate Christmas more each year.
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I try to keep my total gift-giving in the $100-150 range for Christmas. Often, there is one bigger gift that is just perfect for someone that eats up almost a third of that budget. I’ve opted out of most work and loose social group exchanges, like the annual cookie swap one woman’s group I’m in does. Other than that, there are two birthdays I buy presents for, usually about $20 each.
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From 2006-2010, I spent an average of $539.24 per year on gifts, plus an average of $75.12 per year in gift certificates that I’ve earned from taking online surveys. I don’t count the gift certificate money against my gift budget, but the average annual cost of my gifts is $614.37. I currently budget $900 per year for gifts.
I normally only give gifts to my parents and three siblings, so in a year, that’s 5 birthday gifts, 5 Christmas gifts, Mother’s Day, and Father’s day, for a total of 12 gift-giving occasions per year. In the 2006-2010 time period, I had 7 additional miscellaneous gift-giving occasions (graduations, housewarmings, etc.). That makes the overall average cost per gift $45.85.
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we tend to give gifts to sibs, parents, and grandparents at new years (no xmas in our families), and birthday and new year gifts to our nephews and neice…14 folks total, so it doesn’t get too out of hand! We spend about $30/pax unless something “perfect” shows up as a target of opportunity.
We tend to give a lot of homemade gifts, though (like pickles, cookies & baked goodies, hand-sewn or -knitted clothing/accessories (esp. for the kidlets), etc.) or “experience” gifts (like theater show tix for the die-hard play lover in the family, or a road race entry for the 5k addict). DH and I nearly always take a joint birthday trip as our gift to each other since we adore travel.
I hate gift cards (they strike me as thoughtless stopgaps, but I know not everyone feels that way!) so I don’t give those, and won’t do 2nd hand unless it’s in pristine condition/packaging.
We also spread our shopping out over the year, esp. since we’re mostly buying raw materials to make things…one of the side effects of making gifts is you have to get a jump on the occasion or you’ll be buried under a pile of good intentions (and half-finished scarves)!
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for years and years a relative gave us a gift card for a summer birthday, to a store where we don’t shop but they liked. Then at Christmas we just cashed in the gift card to buy whatever it was the relative had asked for – the store always had it.
It reminds me of one of my uncles and his sister – they always gave each other a card and $5 for birthdays, and it got to be a running joke that it was the same $5 bill.
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We are not retrictive but careful in our holiday shopping. We usually start the planning well in advance so that we all get to put in thought and are also able to find the most economiccal price for a gift out there.
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Bah, humbug!
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I often send gift cards to my family, who all live far away. The boys get cards for game stores because they love video games, girls usually clothing stores. I try to only give cards to places I know they like to shop. Recently, we’ve started giving airline cards to the adults, then they can come visit! I discussed this with my family first, and they liked the idea.
I usually budget $1000 for Christmas spending, and $600 for during the year spending on birthdays, baby showers, etc. I don’t always spend that much, though.
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I usually spend around $2000 total on Christmas gifts: for my kids ($200 each), parents ($80-100 for both), siblings ($25-40 each) and each of their kids ($15-20 each), plus my boyfriend ($300+, I try to match about how much I think he is spending on me). Birthday presents cost about the same except for my own kids a birthday present would only be $25-50.
Every Christmas/birthday it’s a problem to figure out how much to spend on the person you’re dating. I’d like to match around what he spends on me but it’s often hard to tell. I dated a nice guy who had money problems and we talked about being frugal for the holiday, but then he showed up with a computer! Which I refused, and that made him mad, but I knew he couldn’t afford it and I would have felt weird accepting it. Another year I was dating a guy who gave me a really expensive birthday present, so when Christmas came around I made sure to get him something really, really nice. But he’d only gotten me a book, because he doesn’t believe in giving large presents at Christmas. The next Christmas I got him a DVD and some candy, but (of course!) he had gotten me expensive jewelry. Which was really nice but Aaarg!
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For the four years I’ve been tracking my spending, I have spent just under $900 per year on all the gifts I buy. That’s Christmas and birthdays for five adults, plus mother’s day and father’s day, plus any and all one-off gifts (weddings, baby presents, something for a sick friend).
Fortunately I knit so I can make a baby hat or a hat for a friend having chemo for about $10, not counting my time of course. I’ve also been making things like jams and fruit-infused liquors and gave some of those away, but didn’t track it as a gift expense. Still, I’ve got to be under $1,000 per year.
However there aren’t any kids in my immediate family, most of my friends are already married so my wedding attendance is low, and I don’t usually give gifts to friends.
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We spent approximately $1000 on gifts in 2010. Thats less than 1% of our income.
It was mostly Xmas gifts for our siblings, nieces and nephews and parents. There was also a $200 wedding gift for a friend. I figure my wife might give around $100 in gifts to her friends for birthdays and/or xmas.
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