Okay perhaps a taboo question, but with Christmas fast approaching.... how much do you spend? Do you manage to get out of December with only spending a couple hundred pounds, or do you have a huge extended family that seems to become more expensive every year?

I'll be the first to admit I spend way too much, but I try to keep it to ??75 on each of our daughters, and that is the limit on what oh and I can spend on each other. We try to limit it to ??10 per person for the rest of the family because oh has six siblings, and I have four and then with various spouses and a dozen nieces and nephews, and then both sets of inlaws, and both of us are lucky enough to have grandparents still around. It tends to come to around ??600 just on gifts! ............Perhaps this year everyone can just have cards...lol.
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i done really well last year. kept everyone to ??10 doing the 3for2 specials and because lo was only 3 weeks we spent ??50. this year i have said she will get ??100 and we have cut a lot of present because we are only doing children. so i dont have to buy for sil and bil x2. hoping to get away with about ??400

I used to go all out for Christmas and spend an absolute fortune - hundreds of pounds on gifts. When I first got togetehr with my husband, he was gobsmacked at how much I used to spend because his family (far better off fincially than me and mine) never used to spend anything like as much on each other, even when he and his sisters were growing up.

I got married this year, so last year, I said that was why I would be cutting back. I told everyone of this, and they said 'Oh yes, that's very wise, Christmas is getting over the top now' and they said that they would be doing the same. When it came to Christmas, I stuck by what I said, and although everyone still had nice presents, they were not as extravagant as previous years. Yet despite what they all said, everyone else gave me even more expensive gifts! I felt bad, but it was too late by then.

This year, I have decided to stick with what I did last year. I don't want to spend more and more on Christmas each year, and as our baby is due in early January, we will need to buy other things. We are also moving house in 3 weeks time, and so there wil be plenty of things for us to be spending our money on.

My husband and I will spend no more than 50 pounds on each other. We spend about 100 pounds on each of our parents, and about 75 pounds on each of my two sisters in law (I am an only child). My husband's grandma (only living grandparent between us) has a gift of about 30-40 pounds. The other gifts are for friends and friends' children, and I make sure I buy things on 3 for 2 offers, or reduced price through the year on those. I look out for an evening where my local Boots do a 'spend 50 pounds and get 1,200 extra points' offer, and some shops do a 10% off night in November too.

I have already started - one of the luxury chocolate shops in London have reduced their boxes of truffles, and I have bought 7 boxes (reduced from 10 pounds to 6 pounds) as presents for friends. Me in this posh shop going through all the boxes trying to find the ones which were best before March 08 was a most amusing sight!

Christmas does get a bit out of hand - love the chocolate idea, might pinch that. With family we all agreed on a limit years ago on what we would spend so everyone keeps fairly near to that and we all splurge a bit on neices and nephews.

What with all the baby stuff I think my husband and I will get each other stocking fillers but thats about it this year - its been a busy year with a wedding, a house move and a baby due at the beginning of Jan so I don't think there will be much spare money for christmas!

Just wanted to say that last year I saved a fortune - I went onto a website called vistaprint and they sell things like desk calendars and magnets etc which you can upload your own pics too. With LO being due any moment I will do this from grandparents and rest of the family as its a personalised gift that I know they will love. The very best bit is the offer on the website was to pay for postage only (this is standard for them). So it's well worth a look if you are wanting something cheap, personal and very special.

We tend to just buy for the kids, and only immediate family. Cousins, cousins' children, aunts, uncles etc only get cards, but parents, siblings, neices and nephews and obviously our own kids gets presents.

We will aim to spend around ??50-100 on our son, and as the new baby will only be 2 months old we will only buy him a cheap rattle or something - he won't know! We spend about ??20 on each neice/nephew, and for parents I tend to use my Boots points that I've saved to get them smelly stuff on buy one get one free, and 3 for 2 offers - so about ??5-10 on each of them at the most. We try not to spend more than ??200 approx.

We don't really buy each other anything unless we can afford it - that goes for birthdays too. We are too poor!

i spent about ??250 last yr on my daughter (bloody teenagers) not much less on my 10yr old, less on oliver as he was only3m
trying to spend less this year though, i start mi xmas shopping in jan sales for little stocking fillers and in sales throughout the year, got loads of toys in the boots summer sale. xx

i have 8 brothers and sisters and and 9 neases and nephews alone so just imagine how much i have to spend,i have a huge family,plus my partners family.and i like to spend at least ??150+ on my daughter.i have to start in july at the latest or i couldnt afford it lol,i also shop at the sales in jan.