How much will xmas cost you?

LegacyUser

Hey, as you probabaly all know by now, I am ridiculously excited about Christmas, I love the holiday season and wouldn't swap it for anything.
However, with 2 weeks to go till pay day, I cant help but notice that my piggy bank is almost empty, and I was wondering, have I spent far to much on Christmas presents, or is my pressie spend completely normal?

I have included a poll on how much money we have all spent on Christmas Presents, but it doesn't include Christmas parties and lots of lovely christmas party clothes and shoes.
I have spent approximately €2.2k since the start of the month, on presents, nights on the town, new clothes, taxi's, booze, etc.
What is it about the holiday season that makes us go crazy with our cash?

Sandals

€500 - €800

That is crazy,, I am a student and cant afford to go out on christmas party as have presents to buy.

petes

Will spend a feckload that I don't have:D

meditraitor

I was only thinking about this yesterday and I will spend at least 2k before christmas day and god know how much during the holiday. I have 2 weeks of so this will be bad for the pocket, my publican loves to see me come through the door...

dahooligan

Hmmm... I've to get a overdraft, or a loan or something to get me through. Just got word from the higher-archy that we're not gettin paid till the 31st of Dec - bollox! So now I'm properly starting to worry about it.. if I don't get the overdraft/loan then I'm fcuked, won't be able to go to the christmas party and will have to wait till new year's to get one last present for me missus.. God the pressure!! I dunno what I've spent, dunno what I will have spent at the end of it all.. I know it's gonna be a few dollars though

drdre

2 grand:eek: .i donot even celebrate christmas.i am so lucky as i would be broke for like.as i donot even have 1 grand to spare:D

skywalker

€500 - €800

Are you asking how much weve spent on presents, or how much will we have spent over the festive season? 2 very differant figures? Should your present to yourself be included in the present figure?

Sandals

€500 - €800

Hey,Nonsense.

RobEire

Christmas presents ASIDE, Christmas will come in around €1000 as there is considerable travel involved this year.

Oral Slang

€800+

I've the added fortune of having my brother, mam, dad, uncle, aunt & sister in laws birthdays between Christmas & the 7th of January... What fun!

Yeah, Skywalker, was thinking that myself. I'd spend between €500 & €800 on pressies, but if I was to add in my Christmas party, going out, clothes etc. I'd spend €800+...

LegacyUser

skywalker wrote:

Are you asking how much weve spent on presents, or how much will we have spent over the festive season? 2 very differant figures? Should your present to yourself be included in the present figure?

The poll is for presents, but feel free to throw out your overall spend.

This is my first year out of college, so maybe I am going a bit nuts with my money, cos I am not used to having it, but by the time I go back to work on Jan 3rd, I reckon I will have easily spent €3k overall, including presents, going out etc.
Thats madness!

Pighead

€100 - €300

Pigheads folks told him not to buy them presents this year. They say that every year though so i'm going to ignore them and buy them gifts to thank them for their wonderful parenting during the year. Never let it be said that Pighead is tight.

Mam: Shes a bit health conscious so I got her a gift of roasted, seasoned seaweed. Seaweed is packed with antioxidants and is delicious to boot. The health shop in Phibsboro's selection range between 1.50 and 8 euro.I got her one for a fiver.

Dad: Was going to get him a boards subscription for a year but reckoned that as hes already an administrator he probably gets that for free anyway. Ended up getting him a 10 euro Paddy Power voucher. The lady behind the counter said it was potentially worth millions.

Sister: My sis is an anti capitalist at heart. She was watching a news report about the sweatshops in Thailand last week and she tutted and shaked her head. With this in mind Pighead headed to Georges arcade last week.A recent haul consisted of a pair of brand-new straight-leg corduroys for 9 euro, a pair of black boots for a fiver and an acrylic jumper for 6 quid. No evil materialistic labels for my sis.

Total spent: 35 quid.
A fair bit of money alright but it'll be worth it just to see their little faces light up on Christmas morning.

japanpaul

I spent E500 on presents for girlfriend, parents, sister, her husband and nephew. It's the socialising that gets me. Another 6 or 7 hundred over the 3 weeks on dinners, partys and drink!!

Setun

The best way to not spend money is to not have any. I think I'll have to take a leaf out of Pigheads book and spend money on the cheap and cheerful. Now excuse me while I search the back of the couch...

Scraggs

€100 - €300

Sandals wrote:

That is crazy,, I am a student and cant afford to go out on christmas party as have presents to buy.

That is crazy I am a student and cant afford to buy presents as I have to go out and christmas party

skywalker

€500 - €800

Probly spend in the region of 3 or 400 on presents. Overall christmas could easily come to 1.5/2K

Tobias Greeshman

Reckon I'll be spending close to €800 on presents and not including socialising over xmas. So prob well over a grand by the time I hit 2006...

Branoic

€300 - €500

I spend about 300 on presents.

100 for the significant other
50 each for my parents
and the final hundred across various other family members

Angels

€500 - €800

sillysausage wrote:

Hey, as you probabaly all know by now, I am ridiculously excited about Christmas, I love the holiday season and wouldn't swap it for anything.
However, with 2 weeks to go till pay day, I cant help but notice that my piggy bank is almost empty, and I was wondering, have I spent far to much on Christmas presents, or is my pressie spend completely normal?

I have included a poll on how much money we have all spent on Christmas Presents, but it doesn't include Christmas parties and lots of lovely christmas party clothes and shoes.
I have spent approximately €2.2k since the start of the month, on presents, nights on the town, new clothes, taxi's, booze, etc.
What is it about the holiday season that makes us go crazy with our cash?

I've done a really silly thing, i went xmas shopping last Monday & bought everything via Visa now i think i've spent round 500 quid never expected to spend that much at xmas bere in mind this was spent on just presents alone .

Oh god im fecked!! argh

Steve_o

€300 - €500

Christmas will cost me upward of €300 but to be honest all the presents are for family and reallyclose friends so i don't mind spending it!!! The drink on the other hand will cost about the same and thats hard to do but worth it i suppose!:D

djkeogh

well presents for the missus is setting me back between 400 & 600 i think. Presents for 5 neices and nephews totalled about 70 and then present for the folks was 150. Add 200 for spending on myself so far haven't bought clothes yet. It's not looking good!!!

xzanti

Round the 1000 mark id say.. Thats inclusive of my partying money and baring in mind that Im going away for a few days after Xmas so will probabley spend a couple of hundred then... Not too bad really...

robinph

€100 - €300

The total spend over xmas will be nearly a couple of grand I'd expect, but this includes several xmas partys, stag do, wedding and more flights to get away over xmas weekend itself. The actual spend on presents though will be the grand total of 0.00 euro's though, unless I get myself something.

LegacyUser

robinph wrote:

The actual spend on presents though will be the grand total of 0.00 euro's though, unless I get myself something.

Your not buying presents for anyone?? how come?

fischerspooner

It's a sickening part of our society. A guy I live with is 1000s in debt, has to pay child support, but is still going to spend 1000 euro on his girlfriend (who he cheats on sometimes).
In Germany they have a Kris Kindle between families, and another between friends etc. It's a lot more sensible.
The whole xmas rush, money spending thing is a disgusting part of our society and a reveals how ireland has lost any trace of soul or spirituality it ever had. I'll be spending about 200 euro on gifts, that covers my family and girlfriend, I don't think that's too bad is it? Lucklily I earn more than I need but it seems to me that it's the people from dodgy areas and with less money who go mental spending on gifts and get themselves in debt.

LegacyUser

fischerspooner wrote:

it seems to me that it's the people from dodgy areas and with less money who go mental spending on gifts and get themselves in debt.

WTF? What are you basing this on?
I have, admittedly, spent a ridiculous amount of money this christmas, but I put it down to the fact that this is the first christmas that I have earned a full time salary, previously I was in school or college, and money wasn't plentiful, so I decided to splash out this year, as its the first time I have been able to do so.

It certainly is not because I come from a dodgy area, or have less money, thats just not the case.

OLDYELLAR

I couldnt put a round sum amount on what I spent just yet , too much thats all i Know

Wouldnt change a bit of it though , this is the first year Ive had a job all year so I just spent and spent and spent.

Feeling the pinch now though with another 2 weeks to pay day , I suppose getting the christmas bonus afrer christmas has advantages and disadvantages.
Think this was the 1st year I just kinda went out and spent without thinking about it and bought people stuff I knew they`d love even if they were kinda dear.

The look on the bf`s face when he opens the xbox 360 will be worth it though:D

Suaimhneach

€100 - €300

I am spending very little, as I am a student and generally broke. I think it's madness getting into debt, if's not practical. You can still have a fun Xmas without wasting money.

AN ENGINEERING PERSPECTIVE ON CHRISTMAS

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world.

However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the population reference bureau).

At an average (census) rate of 3.5children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming there is at least one good child in each. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get onto the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second -- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized LEGO set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself.

On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds.

Even granting that the "flying" reindeer can pull 10 times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them -- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

600,000 tons travelling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would adsorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip.

Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 mps in .001 seconds, would be subjected to acceleration forces of 17,000 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. Merry Christmas!

A smile is all I can afford to give...

bug

So far christmas has cost me 644.25.
Thats a sum, considering I f**kin despise and hate it.
Its also cost me patience, 1 relationship, sleep deprivation and having my favorite coat puked upon once.

Its due to cost me at least another 300 Euro by the end of this week and at least 2k in therepy, although I havent decided whether I should allocate that particular one as a gift or not.

Beer is Life

€500 - €800

About 500 bucks for me and all i'll get in return is a few pairs of fvcking socks!

RoundyMooney

Approx €3k give or take... shouldn't rise much more as all the bases are cover ed by now thankfully.:eek: