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Gift Giving-What do you do?
Currently DH and I buy gifts for our parents, siblings (and their spouses), nieces and nephew for birthdays, Christmas and mothers/fathers day. Other people like close friends, neighbors or extended family may get cookies for Christmas or a card for birthday, anniversary, etc
I really want to find ways to cut back in this category. Even with keeping everyone at a $20-40 limit for Christmas that still adds up to roughly $300. Which is a lot for us this time of year considering there are things like snow tires, heating oil etc that we need to start thinking about right now. Not to mention the baby!
I'm curious what everyone else does for gift exchanges throughout the year. Do you buy gifts for mothers/fathers day, birthdays, Christmas, etc? Who do you buy for? Do you make your own gifts? Do you Have a budget limit for each person? Any tips, ideas, suggestions, etc are appreciated!
Re: Gift Giving-What do you do?
We buy for each set of parents and our siblings for christmas, birthdays, and mothers/fathers day. We limit each person to $50 at christmas and it varies for the rest of the "holidays" but no more than $50. When there are spouses of our siblings we will buy for them too as well as any kids.
Close friends/neighbors get cards at christmas and that's it. We've never been big into celebrating birthdays so not a huge deal...if we do anything its just a party with friends and we are all just happy to have each other as company.
Our every year gift to our parents is a new picture of Josh framed for them - we are getting family pictures done this year so we will add a picture of the 3 of us to the mix
Its a tough time of year for many people so I'm sure people will be okay if you have to cut back.
For Christmas (Our biggest expense), we no longer buy for adults in the family. We do a yankee swap with a $40-$50 limit. We do buy for all the niece's and nephews (between both families 7 kids total). I have friends who also draw names vs yankee swap. This works well for everyone and saves a lot of money.
Birthdays - Again, only kids get gifts, otherwise if it is a parent, we usually take them out to eat. Ex. My sister and I meet up with mother and take her to lunch. She loves that it is quality time with just the 3 of us.
Mothers Day/Day - Mother usually a nice card and flowers, and dad gets a nice card, and usually a g/c somewhere.
Our families tend to be understanding and especially now with having the boys, we just can't afford to go all out every holiday like we used to.
The past few years we haven't really given parents anything for Christmas, maybe little things or home made but they know we've been building, baby etc and they don't want anything. We do host Christmas here so I feed 8 people,plus champagne etc adds up. DH is an only child but in my family you get couple gifts, I'd that couple has children them they get gifts and the adults don't. Still adds up since I have 8 nieces and nephews. Once they get past like 18-20 they really don't get anything from me, birthdays they do. They're older and could care less.
Birthdays - kids get gifts. Adults get card and lunch/dinner out. Mother's/fathers day same thing. DH and I's first mother/fathers day we went all out, last year regular vids and from now on I think we'll just stick to an outing and keep it at that. We're not that big into holiday gifts
We buy Christmas gifts for siblings and spouses, parents, DH's god-daughter, and a couple of close family friends. We don't have any nieces or nephews yet, but we'll buy for them when the time comes. We've also been required to participate in gift exchanges (each person draws a name) with DH's extended family members in past years, so that's four more gifts (one each from me and DH on both his mom's and dad's sides of the family). Our holiday shopping list is insane. I try to keep the cost to $30 or less per person and I shop year 'round to make it happen.
We buy gifts for our parents for Mother's/Father's Day and their birthdays. All the sibs buy gifts for these, so it would be weird for us to stop.
I stopped buying gifts for siblings/spouses for birthdays and asked them not to buy for us after Helen was born. DH's brother/SIL and sister/BIL exchange gifts amongst themselves. My brother never routinely gave me a birthday gift so I'm not sure he even noticed that I stopped buying for him after he turned 30.
ETA: Me, DH, DH's brother, DH's sister, and DH's sister's husband all have birthdays within a month of each other. It was practically like buying for Christmas all over again in March!
There are no kids on either side of the family (yet) but we do have a complicated situation with my family because we're so close to one of my aunts and her family. Our budget is pretty strict with Matt being in school but people have been really understanding about it.
Mother's day/Father's day - Our parents get a gift, max of $30. My aunt gets a card and brunch most years. My uncle gets a card. He really doesn't care about father's day.
Birthdays - parents, siblings and their spouses get a gift of up to $30. My aunt and uncle, and two cousins all get $20 gifts.
Christmas - parents, siblings and spouses have a gift max of $40. My aunt and uncle share a gift, max $30. My sister, two cousins and I do an elf exchange, max $25. We also do stocking stuffers with parents, siblings and spouses. I'd say the total budget for that is $100. My grandmother usually gets a joint gift from my sister and me; we each chip in $30. We also do a big extended family elf exchange with MH's family, max is $20 for each "unit." We raise a few eyebrows because most of the family goes in the hat as individuals but Matt and I go in the hat as a couple so we receive a joint gift and only end up buying one present. We're not close to his extended family, especially after the way I was treated at the holidays last year, so we're not interested in exchanging $40 of gifts with them.
Christmas - all the kids get something (there are only 3) and the adults do a name swap on elfster with a $75 limit (really the best gift is having us all together eating good food)
Birthdays - obvi the kids get stuff but the adults just have cake and ice cream and a card.
Just curiuos.....So do you swap names for elfster as couples or individuals? So for example could you and Seth get each other? I'm thinking elfter might be a good way for us to go with all the adults, just wondering since some couples (in our families anyway)exchange gifts outside of the "family" exchange if it would be weird to get a spouse as an elfter gift too.
We do the same as Brianne on Elfster for my husbands family. $75 limit for adults, you set limits so you can't pick your spouse, and also the option so you can't pick who you had last year. We all buy for his mom and dad (his moms argument is she's going to give a gift to everyone, so we all buy for them and they get something for all of us.) It simplifies and then you can suggest things you want.
BUT we do have a more complicated piece that you buy a $20 (limit) gift for everyone else. So it's $75 for one, $20 for everyone else. It's lead to some heated debates, but at the end of the day, MH's siblings think it's important to give EVERYONE a gift. So what should have been simple has gotten more complicated (and slightly annoying, it's hard to find a meaningful gift for 8 people under $20). Even more complicated is the $20 is from MH and me, but we each have a $75 to give. Add that up and it's a lot of money.
My family does one $50 gift for sibling or spouse (whoever you draw) and something for my mom. Done.
Siiiiigh.... family and holidays :-)
Christmas: We buy for each other (when we can) and of course Taylor. We buy for his parents, his brother and his brother's wife. We also buy for my parents (but not my brothers), my neice, and for my best friend's two kids.
Birthdays: We try to buy for his parents but not his brother. For whatever reason, we just dont buy for my parents for birthdays. My father is a long haul truck driver so he is never home on his birthday. I do try to spend time with my mom for hers though.
Mothers day and Fathers day: We buy for his parents but not mine, mostly for the same reasons as birthdays. For us, we usually buy a big combo gift (last year it was a recliner, this year, I cant remember)
Christmas: We are fortunate enough to be able to splurge on our parents. So we spend more than I'd care to mention. (Last year my parent's got a new couch and recliner set that my cousin bought with us and his parent's got a new sound system for their TV.) My sister always get something, but this year its complicated because she's living overseas and will be back in August. So we might just send her a gift certificate or something. The only other person we sometimes get something for is my cousin or my nephew, but only if we find something that suits them.
Birthdays: Our parents and my sister. We don't generally spend more than $50, but we also don't budget or keep track of it. I have a stash of gifts that I buy on clearance or on super sales and just pull from that. I have my mom taken care of for 3 to 5 gifts at this point and his mom for a couple, too.
Mother's/Father's Day: Inexpensive. Generally a card and less than $20 for the gift.
We do each individual. You tell Elfster the people that should not be matched up so that I'm not buying for Seth.
What's the sense in drawing names if you have to buy everyone a gift? I'm with you in thinking that's crazy.
I just stumbled across this conversation so I hope you don't mind my joining in, but I work for a startup and we just launched a site to help people share gifts together.
So basically instead of spending $20 or so per person and getting a small gifts from everyone, you can all put the money together and everyone gets one big thing they really want.
We're still working on making it brilliant! But please have a look - I'd love your feedback and thoughts even if it's not something you'd use this year. We're at www.shareagift.com if you're interested :-)