Reduced spending this Christmas

L

liaconn

Registered User
Messages
531
There's an article in today's Irish Times which predicts that a lot of people this year will confine Christmas presents to family only and will cut out sending cards to people. Just wondering if people on here have major plans to scale back the Christmas expenditure?

We've agreed a lgreatly reduced limit spend on presents in my family and I will also be selecting nights out carefully. I think I'll still be sending cards and buying presents for friends' kids but will probably spend a bit less.
 
My Family is quite big so we do a Chris Crindle for the adults with a limit of €50.

For the Kids we have 10 spilt over 7 Familiy units. Each family unit gives €145 and of this €100 is given to each childs parents and is spent on the Child. This means that we're not all trying to get presents for all Nieces/Nephews and €145 covers all presents. This works out fairly well as the grandparents are spending average of €15 on each of their grand children but the €145 allows the present to be more substantial then a €15 gift would seem.
For instance a games console or IPhone/Ipod can be purchased for the older kids from all Uncles/Aunts/Grandparents or multiple presents surrounding one theme (Starwars) for the not so old. We do this as part of the cris crindle and the kids love it. Works for us we've been doing it for years only changing the amount donated as the family increases.
 
yup, my wife wants to cancel xmas altogether... I think she'll get over that and well just get modest gifts for key people. One of our rellies has already said, they expect no gifts and are giving none this year
 
In was in a NI border city yesterday and its full of RoI cars, buses and shoppers. All you could hear were S.Irish accents in the shopping centres, and they seemed to be buying plenty.

And the local Smyths toy stores have been open to 11pm every night since early Nov, and its car park is jammed every night.

I think people will still spend plenty this Xmas, but I fear for the Irish towns and cities just south of the border. They are going to have a miserable Xmas with so many heading North.
 
liaconn said:
There's an article in today's Irish Times ..
Click to expand...

If you're referring to something written by Orna Mulcahy, I get the sense that her 'research' involves talking to her mates, or eavesdropping in the queue at Cavistons :rolleyes:
 
That's the one Tarfhead. She quoted this time from some piece of research done by a British think tank which is why I took it a bit more seriously than her usual Sion Hill past pupil (or wherever she went) ramblings. She also brought up the issue of tipping the binmen and buying presents for the kids' teachers and I was wondering if people will be cutting back on that type of stuff.
 
I think the days of tipping the bin men are nearly gone. With all the private operators now it is a different scene from years ago. This racket of buying teachers present should end ( especially when you see them going on strike), I have seen teachers going home with bottles of wine, cosmetics, vouchers etc. The of course the lollipop man or women must get something.
Where does it end?
 
We confine the tipping to our postman, we give him €10 at xmas because he's very good for letting parcels or large packages in our shed when we're not at home to sign for them and so we avoid having to go to the postoffice to collect them so I think the €10 is a small price to pay for that.
 
Leaving parcels in a shed? What happens if it is stolen, or the dog gets at it and tears it apart? The postman you give €10 to is breaking all the rules.
 
oldtimer said:
Leaving parcels in a shed? What happens if it is stolen, or the dog gets at it and tears it apart? The postman you give €10 to is breaking all the rules.
Click to expand...

ah get over it - you're not in Great Britain.:rolleyes:
 
One great thing about where I live, post office parcel center opens at 7am so you can go on your way to work.
 
Yorrick said:
IThis racket of buying teachers present should end ( especially when you see them going on strike), I have seen teachers going home with bottles of wine, cosmetics, vouchers etc.
Click to expand...

It does seem to have got a bit over the top. When I was a kid you just brought in a box of after eights or something. A friend of mine is a teacher and she gets some fabulous stuff from the children.She said some of it is one upmanship among parents and can be embarassing.
 
oldtimer said:
Leaving parcels in a shed? What happens if it is stolen, or the dog gets at it and tears it apart? The postman you give €10 to is breaking all the rules.
Click to expand...


Our postie will leave parcels for us & our neighbours each side of us at which ever house has someone in and leaves a note in door at empty house to say so rather than us having to go to parcel office. That's probably breaking the rules too but saves us a lot of hassle.
 
Firehead said:
We confine the tipping to our postman, we give him €10 at xmas because he's very good for letting parcels or large packages in our shed when we're not at home to sign for them and so we avoid having to go to the postoffice to collect them so I think the €10 is a small price to pay for that.
Click to expand...

We are in the same situation Firehead How exactly do you tip him/her? We are never there to do so - do you go to the PO itself at some stage over christmas or what?
 
Caveat, my parents have the same postman as us and they're usually at home when he delivers their post so I just give them a card to give to the postman when they see him during Christmas week.

As for the leaving parcels in the shed for us, we've never had any problem and it would usually only be a book or dvd or something like that in the package so it's not as if they would be worth much to anyone if they were to even find them, we live in a very rural/isolated area so the chances of even a couple of cars passing our house any given day are fairly slim!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top