The cost of presents for kids these days

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118345271#Comment_118345271

Yep, you need 2 houses these days. One for the crap and one to live in.😀

knucklehead6

Budget of €250 for both kids here, all sorted. Spent a bit more on herself, then a €20 budget per nibling.

biggest expense we had this year was the big grocery shop!!

Jinglejangle69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058223455/the-cost-of-presents-for-kids-these-days

How can they afford rent a mortgage etc and to spend that money when they are on below the average wage?

JupiterKid

Every year, parents on modest or low incomes get into serious debt at Christmas spending money they don’t have (usually borrowed) on very extravagant presents for their children that will likely be tossed aside and completely forgotten by the following Christmas.

MABS are always overwhelmed with calls in January from deeply indebted people who spent a complete fortune on Christmas - and not just on expensive presents for their kids - other family gifts, food items, travel, socialising and nights out, parties, New Years etc. - it all adds up...

Budgeting and how to manage money properly should be a compulsory item on the school’s curriculum at secondary level. So many adults in this country do not know how to manage money at all.

Again, as I opined earlier not having children takes a huge amount of stress, worry and hassle out of Christmas. Looking at my friends with kids and the stress of getting things for them makes me really appreciate this. 👍👍👍

I would be pretty stressed over trying to make sure my child had the present they really wanted from Santa but having trouble sourcing it in time for Christmas. I would imagine some parents in that position would pay over the odds just for the sake of peace.

And then there are the parents who buy a copious amount of toys, consoles etc for their kids to compensate for having so little actual quality time with them. I also suspect some parents lavish expensive gifts on their children because they themselves had very little at Christmas growing up.

There is an opposite side to this coin as well. I've seen both, the parents who went mad and then others who wouldn't spend Christmas (if you'll pardon the pun).

I know one woman who deliberately told her child at age 4 that Santa wasn't real and that she (her mother) had to pay for any presents so don't ask for too much. Child was lucky if they got anything for christmas. Miserly wagon was loaded, too. Money no object when it came to spending on herself, of course.

@JupiterKid

@JupiterKid

I would be pretty stressed over trying to make sure my child had the present they really wanted from Santa but having trouble sourcing it in time for Christmas.

Its not that bad! All it takes is a little planning. And its all worth it, when you see their faces light up on Christmas morning, for the few years the santa phase lasts.

You'd be lucky to find a child who still truly believes in Santa by the age of 8.

joe40

The trick to get Christmas presents of things you will have to buy anyway. Football boots, swimsuits, music stuff etc if your kids are into those sort of activities.

Pasttimes and hobbies are great but use Christmas to fund to a certain extent.

Ficheall

I think the most expensive present I got from Santa was a surprise bicycle (younger brother still believed at the time) eighteen years ago. Brought it in to be repaired the other day and your man quoted me 200e+.. I'll tinker with it a bit myself for a while, but I may have to give up on it soon :(

Still have a dictionary Santa brought that year too. Aside from those, I've no recollection of any Christmas presents I got, either expensive or otherwise 🤔

SuperBowserWorld

Keeping up with the Joneses is expensive. If it was truly Christmas those 1000s of euro should be given to those truly in need. Happy holidays 🙃

Ginger83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346540#Comment_118346540

What a horrible woman

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118346675#Comment_118346675

Better off dragging the Jonses down to your level

Probably spent a little more than usual this year because the general covid atmosphere probably means we will be isolated at home more than before the pandemic. So money we might have spent elsewhere I dropped into this.

But even then I reckon the total bill was 600ish euro over the three kids (kid number 4 still relatively new born so not really included).

Not sure on the total bill as I tried not to money watch this year and just get the things I think they would enjoy. Will probably add it up when all the amazon and other bills finally hit the bank account.

But they each are specifically getting:

• One Practical thing
• One music related thing
• One brain engaging educational thing
• One sporty thing
• One clothes related thing
• One voucher for "coins" for their favorite game/app
• One board game
• One deck of pokemon cards

And then one final thing more individualized for each of them personally. So 9 gifts X 3 kids will certainly make the tree look well stocked on the morning of Xmas.

The stocking fillers though when I told them to design and hang their own socks on the tree - they were quite modest in the sizes they chose so probably won't have to do much to fill them. Some chocolate and those special markers for drawing on house windows will probably fill one of them for example.

So relatively modest I think. Probably would have spent more actually but a few of the things I got excited about vicariously myself were either sold out - or the shipping arrival time was well into next January/February. I really wanted to get them some Ganker EX battle robots for example. But that was probably going to be more for me than them :) Similarly a remote control high speed boat which has cameras that feed back to a VR helmet for the controlling user was probably over kill so I talked myself out of that too :)

Half tempted by a set of 4 "laser tag" type things. But since we would mainly play that outdoors I was not sure what to get so I gave up. They say they work outdoors but I have my doubts - and I would hate to spend 100s of euro on something that ended up being little more than a frustration and a failure to use.

Got some fun things on the list though. I got a few "Stikbots" kits which are a kind of kit for making stop motion video animations on your mobile phone using an app. Relatively cheap and I reckon we will get a few hours out of that over any lock down we get hit with.

Feisar

I'm back in toy shops due to having a wee lad, what shocked me is the price of Lego. When I was a lad the flagship of the Technic line was about £120. The main sets now seem to run for about a grand!

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118352347#Comment_118352347

What sets are about a grand?

The most expensive set in Smyths is a giant Millennium Falcon one for €759. It's in the "adult Lego" range. Disappointingly, adult Lego doesn't involve anatomically correct figures and a branding tie-in with PornHub.

The next most expensive set is a Technic one for €420. The promotional pictures of that show a hirsute man-child, presumably making a "brrrrmmmmm!" engine noise as he plays with his little digger.

https://www.smythstoys.com/ie/en-ie/toys/lego-and-bricks/c/SM060107?sort=price-desc&q=%3AieBestsellerRating%3AproductVisible%3Atrue#

Plenty of decent sets for less than a hundred Euro.

Feisar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118352400#Comment_118352400

LEGO TECHNIC Motorized Excavator - came up as €1,300 on toycentral.ie. But yer right lots of stuff around the 500 mark. Still way ahead of inflation.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118352508#Comment_118352508

But that's a set from 2010 and isn't produced any more. That's collector pricing, not toy pricing. There's a documentary called "Toy Story 2" all about the phenomenon.

Dramatik

I wonder how kids these days would react if when they opened their present of a new iPhone at Christmas it turned out to be a five year old model which their cousin had previously owned. That's essentially how things were for me as a kid, sometimes presents were new, sometimes they were hand me downs.

Honestly it made no difference to me, I was just happy to get whatever it was. Then when I was finished with or grew out of the item it would be passed on to another relation or family friend. At the end of the day getting an item that was a few years old or previously owned was still better than not receiving the item at all.

I guess though these days things aren't really made to last or become un-fashonable or un-cool before their lifespan is up.

BorneTobyWilde

There are kids out there without food, so spending 4k on a child is a bit unmindful to say the least.

Gregor Samsa

Our twins were mad into Sylvanian Families a few years ago. Those things are pricy, especially the houses and vehicles.

We got a load on Done Deal from various sources for next to nothing. They weren't boxed, so we wrapped them up in cellophane with nice ribbons. That year they must have got €500 worth of tiny anthropomorphized bears and rabbits and their houses, cars, campervan and accoutrements - we spent less than a hundred. Still have it all, and it's still played with. They never batted an eyelid about the lack of boxes. Santa's magic.

bladespin

Honestly this year our cost is halved, no idea why but the kids are looking for some pretty straightforward presents instead of very expensive stuff, my eldest wants a Chromebook like they use at school so he can do his homework on it and use it for entertainment, my second wants a couple of PS games and some accessories (again not exactly crazy with his demands), both are big into football and have asked for boots etc which we'd be buying anyway lol.

And that's about it, no matter how I dress it the stacks are going to look small but they're getting pretty much everything they've asked for.

rob316

We were always spoiled at xmas as kids and didn't really get much else during the year. Even then we were always told you can ask Santa for one main present and some smaller items, then we got some stocking fillers on top. That is exactly what my kids are given too, christmas is already expensive enough with all the clothes, food, drink etc.