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reining in holiday spending?
Are you adjusting your usual spending habits this year?
I'm trying to get us to do that, but I am afraid I'll have trouble getting S on board. We both tend to overspend when it comes to our families, so I understand her desire to get her family the things they want/need. That said, we really can't afford to go hog-wild this year. (And, if we are going to spend thousands of dollars on her family this holiday, I would prefer to put it towards a hearing aid for her mom and small gifts for the others vs. putting it towards a $400 TV for her brother [?!!] and big gifts for everyone else.)
We almost got in an argument this weekend about what our budget should be for gifts for each other. I said no gifts for each other, or maybe have a $50 limit. S really wants to get me something that costs $300. Honestly, I'd rather she put that money towards our new roof.
Annnnyway... If you are trying to cut back this year, are you having trouble getting your spouse on board? Any suggestions for a peaceful negotiation of the holiday budget?
IUI #3 gave us the best 2nd anniv. gift ever: 2 babies! (born 03/09/10)
Peanut and Little Man are getting so big! 2 years old already!
finally blogging again at This Will Be: An Adventure
Re: reining in holiday spending?
Yes, Yes, Yes!!! Back story: K has a huge family and tends to get gifts for everyone. Even the children of her nieces and nephews. We're talking 4 generations of people! Two years ago it took me an entire 8 hour day to wrap all the gifts.
So this year, K says "let's not do any gifts and instead fly home and surprise our families". My thought - brilliant! Her family celebrates Xmas eve so we could suprise them then, and then drive to my parents on Christmas morning. Well between flights home and boarding the dogs we're looking at spending $1,500. That's not budget friendly, but we'd probably spend close to $1,000 on gifts anyway.
Friday K tells me she wants to make photo books for her sisters for Xmas. I clarify that she means only if we don't go home (b/c if we go home we said we aren't doing gifts). Nope! She's getting them photo books either way because "that's how it is". What? And then in the store she starts pointing out things she would like to get her dad. Wait -- if we fly home we aren't doing gifts! I just don't get it. We don't have $1500 to travel plus $500 for gifts! I'm really getting tired of the "well this is the way my family does it" line. For freakin' sake, your sisters are in their 40s. They should be able to appreciate the gift of you being home for the holiday!
Okay vent over. At this point I don't think we'll make it west. If we stay here I don't know what I'm going to get K. I'd like to keep it simple but when we say that we still spend too much.
I guess I'm a little Christmas OCD, buuut whatcha gonna do. Julie and I really tried to cut back this year. However, it's never really been hard. I am pretty lucky with the fact that for Julie's side of the family us kid's draw names, we all pitch in on one gift for her parents.
For my side of the family, I have two younger sisters, and I always pick them up stuff through out the year. They were done in September!
For the other important people, I am really lucky that they appreciate the hand made items. I made my mom, my step mom, my aunt, and my great grandma aprons. I made my dad a pair of thermals for hunting, and a matching stocking cap.
As far as Julie and I go, the first year we were together we set a limit of $100 in December. You can get other stuff throughout the year, but once December hits you ONLY get $100 to spend on each other until the 25th. So far we've both procrasinated on each other, and have only spent $100 on each other. :-)
It works for us.
yeah, $400 for a tv for her brother sounds excessive to me. then again that's probably more than i spend on gifts for my whole family. can you make gifts? that's a lot more personal and usually cheaper than buying big things for everyone. do you keep your money separate? if so and she really won't budge on your gift, then you could just tell her you're still only spending $50. she'll just have to deal with it and you're not going to feel guilty about it.
then again, i'm of the opinion that you don't have to spend the same amount of money on each other.
we do gifts together for our sisters and her parents, and usually something small for my folks even though they always say they don't need anything. we've talked about cutting it back a little although we've never been ones to go overboard. for my parents i'll probably go to michael's with a 40% off coupon and get a nice frame, then print off some pictures from our wedding, honeymoon, and anniversary trip. they don't care about expensive gifts and love presents like that, plus it would be cheap and easy since i can print the photos at home. i leave her parents to her since she's such a good gift and deal finder and she knows what they'd like much better than i do. my family does a secret santa but we don't usually spend much on it and only need to buy for one person. for my neices and nephews we do one gift for each house--a box of art supplies usually.
we've decided to do a household gift this year for each other. our dvd player/surround sound system died, so we're going to get a new one and were also looking at getting a new tv. it won't be cheap overall, but we were going to get it anyway so it's sort of killing two birds with one stone. she just got a bonus from work so we'll be using that, which wasn't budgeted in anywhere anyway. we're still going to do something for each other, but it'll be a few smaller things and stocking stuffers--and of course our annual ornament exchange. i would still like to get her the wii fit, which is a little under $100. i told her i had something in mind and approximately how much it was, and she can decide what she wants to do.
We are on the same page when it come to each other and family. But I have been unsuccesful reigning her in with the boys.
We haven't bought gifts for each other in years. We've either gone to a nice dinner and to see a musical at the Kennedy Center or bought something for us (a couch.) We do do stockings though, which can be 100x as hard since we don't want to spend $$ on crap. So I have to come up with small, creative,and inexpensive items. I am not doing so well!
We buy for our parents and then for the kids on L's side - all of the adults who have kids put their kids names in a bowl and pull out the number of names you put it. So we only have to buy for 2 of the 8 kids. And we have a $20 limit on it. Not too bad.
Now with our kids, it is out of control. They just at that stage of pretend play and L is running with it. Sigh. I think we've managed to dole things out to our parents so we aren't spending so much, but the kids are getting a wooden work/tool bench and ball pit (Santa
), a train table with train (my parents), an easel with paint supplies (L's parents), ipod speakers so they have music in their playroom (L's parents), a drum, piano, 2 puzzles, 1 board game (us.)
I'm the spender in our family. T has to reign me back in constantly. She hates how everyone feels like they have to go into debt when really it should be about spending time together. I spent more on her then i should have (i refuse for the two of us to set a limit) which i'm in a bit of trouble for, but thats it.
For my Mom i made a shadow box full of photos of her and her fiance, and am also giving them a framed family photo. My grandma is getting a family photo as well, and so is all of T's family that doesnt live here. I told my brother that we arent going to exchange gifts with eachothers families and he was cool with that. So all thats really left is a couple gifts for our chosen family here in town whihc there is 6 of us all together, with $15 limits per person (alot of etsy buys) and ofcourse shopping for the kids, which we are going to spend $300 on the boys on black friday and then pick them up some other stuff later on in the month if necessary. We will hit the dollar store for stocking stuffers and that will be it.
Not sure what T will spend on me but i really don't care, my ex never bought my gifts, i had to pick them out and wrap them myself each year. So as long as i have something under the tree that she picked out special for me and wrapped i will be as happy as can be.
We usually agree on spending, though I tend to go a bit over our limit. We have less people to buy for this year so we are cutting back, but not by choice.
We're cutting back on everything else right now, but pretty much keeping Christmas the same as usual - we have a $50 budget for parents and siblings (married siblings get 1 gift per couple), and then smaller amounts for very close friends. We don't really buy gifts for extended family members, sometimes I make candy for people, or we ride on my mom's coattails since she gets something for everybody
We don't have a limit for each other but it is naturally limited by our discretionary allowances, which have been cut by 2/3 this year. So I have no idea what I'm getting her.??