photo credit: edwardlegerA few weeks ago, my wife and I planned out the list of family and friends that we were going to buy gifts for this holiday season. We decided to cut out gifts for each other which knocked $250 off our budget. It’s a lot more fun to buy for our children than each other anyways. We also decided to cut out my sister and her husband and my wife’s brother as well. This saved us another $100 from our budget. We also decided that we would reduce the amount we spent on our parents and children this holiday season which will save us another $100 – $150. Grand total, we are cutting out almost $500 just from last years expenses. A lot of this cutback is a result of the economy. The other reasons for the cutbacks are because it is time to focus more on the children and not so much on the adults for the holidays.
Just when we thought things were going along well with our budget, we hit a couple of snags. My wife and I are the kind of people who feel awful when someone purchases us a gift and we don’t give one in return. Maybe we shouldn’t feel this way, but we do. We would rather give than receive. A few months ago, I had a conversation with my sister about buying gifts for the holidays. They have a new baby girl this year, so I suggested that we only spend money on the kids this year and cut out the adult gifts. I also tried to tie her down to a budget to spend (as she can get carried away at times) and thought that I was successful. Come to find out, she has spent a lot already on our two boys and has actually purchased items for my wife and I. When I found out the news, I wasn’t too happy but my wife and I are sticking to our guns this year. We had an agreement with my sister and her family about gift purchases and we are sticking to it, as hard as it may be.
The other situation is a little harder to deal with. We have become good friends with a couple down the street who have two young boys close to our sons ages. The boys have all become close friends as well. We recently found out that these neighbors are purchasing gifts for our boys for the holidays. Now, we don’t believe these are extravagant purchases, but we were not expecting this. My wife and I are now compelled to shop for the two neighbor boys to return the favor. This is a very nice gesture by our neighbors and one that we appreciate, it just can make for a difficult situation when you are trying to stick to a budget. We are now going to add back $50 to our budget so we can pick up some gifts for these boys.
Both of the examples above pointed out unexpected gifts that we had not planned on. In one case, we decided to stick with our budget and not return the gift. The other case involved children and we buckled a little with our original plan. It can be very hard trying to decide what to do when you are faced with these types of situations.
How do you handle unexpected holiday purchases as the ones I mentioned above? Do you give in or do you stick to your budget?
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I have a “friend” who for years would buy me a present – even though we hadn’t seen or talked to each other for the whole year previous. Every year I wished she would just stop… but I still felt obligated to buy her something, because I hadn’t talked to her enough to tell her we should quit exchanging. Finally I started buying her gift cards for places I love and shopped, so that if she stopped buying me things on her own, I had a gift I wanted for myself. It worked out – last year she didn’t bring me a gift – and I got a gift certificate to lovely spice store I love.
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I am the same way! I also feel obligated to get someone a present when they give us one. It’s tough not to feel we have to “measure up” and just say “thanks” to who gives us the gift. I am not sure if they are wanting something in return or are just happy with giving away presents… at any rate, it’s a lovely gesture we try to return each year. So we keep to simpler gifts and a strict budget for this sort of unexpected purchase.
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