How Much Are You Spending on Christmas?

[amastewa93]

We are doing homemade gifts and Christmas cards with a family picture this year. In total, for both of our families, we will only spend about $500. I was super happy with this considering most people spend at least $1K around Christmas time. How much are you all spending (if anything)?

[msomnipotent]

This is one of our cheaper years since I'm not speaking to any of the adults on my side of the family and my husband and I are not exchanging gifts. His side of the family decided to change the $100 grab bag to $30, so that is $60 instead of $200 for us. I have spent just under $1,000 so far and I still need to get one grab bag gift and a few smaller things for my daughter.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

$500 gifts for kids and parents, but another $500 on cards, tree, teacher gifts, cookies to friends, etc.

[Singuy]

Jesus too much.

My wife ended up maxing out her Target credit card of 2k all due to the 20% off coupons we gathered.
I think I spent like 8k just on some Dungeons and Dragons terrain stuff and I never played before..lol. Plus a lot of misc stuff for the kids like some lionel Disney Xmas train and diorama stuff. I'm thinking we hit 12k just on gifts and other nonsense.

On the plus side I sold off about 3k worth of collectibles this xmas. Must sell more things but now I'm getting lazy.

[scfr]

$402 so far (gifts, food to bring to work party, poinsettias, candy canes). We are also planning to spend a bit extra on food (sushi tray from the grocery store, and maybe a meal out).

[disneysteve]

We celebrate Chanukah personally, which has already ended. We gave DD $500 toward a convention she's attending and then just a couple of little things (maybe $30-40 tops).

The only other spending is I will give gifts to my staff. I think I've got 10 techs plus the manager. I'll give the techs $15 gifts cards and the manager a $25 card, so $175 total.

[Thrif-t]

I have 50 bucks a pay deposited into a christmas club so that gives me $1200 for the season. 3 kids @ $300 per kid, leaves another $300 for everything else. My family just does a little $15 gift exchange and the rest is usually spent on food for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Both days are celebrated in my family :-).

[kork13]

I haven't tracked exactly how much we've spent, and some of what we've spent for Christmas has been spent over the last 6 months... But we've probably spent a bit more than normal this year. Probably $400 on DW's gifts, ~$100 or so on gifts for our sons (1 & 3 y/o, so they're pretty easy), and around $75/person for my dad, 2 brothers, and sister-in-law. I don't think we've bought them yet, but we're also buying some theater tickets (~$75) for DW's brother for her family's gift exchange rotation. We're also flying to Oklahoma to spend the holidays with my dad & brothers, which must have cost $2k or more... ugh...

Normally, my rule of thumb is $50-$100 per son, $75 per sibling or parent, $100-$150 for spouse, and $25-$50 for extended family members.

[Keshet]

We spent about $600 on Chanukah.

[QuarterMillionMan]

$50 niece #1
$50 nephew #2
$50 niece #3
$50 niece #4
$100 mom
$100 dad

Total: $400. BTW done already. Envelopes sent in the mail.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Cash gifts $520.
Wrapped gifts about $120.
Cards & mail --don't know how much. (Purchased last year.)
Air B'n'B-- $180?
Home grown, preserved food gift baskets-- don't know, but suspect Amish farm stand value would be around $275.
Cold foods, nuts, sweets from local ethnic store $80.
Celebratory meal-- $40
Alcohol-- whatever we serve, it was all purchased earlier this year at 40-60% discount.

[cypher1]

$850-900 gifts, +50-80 for foods. Thats for my parents, GF+her 2 kids, 5 nieces/nephews, aunt/uncle, secret santa for sibling, roommate. A couple of the people I add more for birthdays at that same time.

[TexasHusker]

$3-4K-ish which is about our usual. $400 tree, $1000 for new lights/circuits for front yard tree, bought my wife a $900 mckenzie childs christmas deer, etc.

[corn18]

Just went to the Air Force base and paid off $500 of layaways for other folks. Figure I'd help out some troops directly.

[bjl584]

I'm just about done. I spent around $500 this year.