Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Seems that alot of you don't need to or just aren't. No biggie, spend what you can, I normally say

But I am totally curtailing my presents list. Instead of 2 gifts per immediate family member, they're getting one. And I am not spending more than $100 on each. No more for my cousins or aunts (I hardly see my cousins as it is, we exchanged our 2002 gifts this past APRIL for heaven's sakes). I'm not getting anything for any friends this year either. (I never really wanted to anyway they sorta just started it one year!). The only person getting more than 1 gift is FH. And that's because he got his gift last night (tix to a concert we saw last night) and I don't want him to feel like I'm not giving him anything on Christmas Day.

I'm not a grinch, but we just can't afford it. I even told FH not to get me what I originally wanted - it's not a necessity and I'd rather be able to have that feeling of 'we have enough in the bank for the wedding' rather than freaking out in March because we don't. I think he is going to anyway, I really hope he doesn't. I hate having that guilty 'I really shouldn't have this' feeling.

I'm just wondering if I am in the minority?

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

I'm cutting my spending down tremendously this year. Saving for the wedding has been super easy...but we're saving for a home also and at this point in our lives, our future overrides gift giving.

We bought a new printer so I've been insisting that that was our b/day gifts to oneanother (he's 12/22 & I'm 12/24) and we weren't going to exchange Christmas gifts this year. We'll see who caves first.

For the rest of our family and friends...the limit of $100-200 has gone down this year. Considerably. I'm talking $25 max.

It's kind of nice - no shopping stress.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

BIG TIME!!! We have cut our X-mas budget tremendously.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Yes! We usually go overboard at Christmas and then have a spending hangover. This year we have been very careful.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

FH and I are not exchanging gifts. We have re-done the guest bedroom in the house to make room for FH's trains. He moved in with me, so he felt like he didn't have his own space. We took out the queen size bed and put a daybed (with trundle) and opened up the space for him to put his trains. This was our gift to each other.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

I'm with NJ42305....BIG TIME!! It's hard with FH having 6 siblings and we can't convince 1/2 of them to do a secret santa. It just gets out of control after a while. Two of his sisters are newlyweds so they see this our way, the rest are still single with no real financial commitments yet. I love giving gifts but I want the wedding of my dreams so we have to cut back.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

We are spending about $30 per person expect the parents..and eachother. I spent $240 on FH..more than I planned.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

we're cutting back a bit. However, the biggest cutback is we are not exchanging gifts with each other- wedding rings, honeymoon and possibly dance lessons will be our gifts to each other this year!

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

Three years ago, for the one holiday season during which I was engaged, we cut back for the first time. Not that drastically, just here and there. Ever since then we've maintained the slightly reduced level of gift giving. Not only are there are so many other things we need money for-the house, my masters, the list is endless-I've found that the most thoughtful gifts truly do not cost a lot. For example, DH's stepmother once commented that I always come up with good recipes, so last year I made a homemade recipe book for her with a gift bag of some of the offbeat ingredients they require that she might not already have had. It was a hit and it cost me less than $30, maybe even less than $25. Be as creative as you can and you won't even feel like you're cutting back.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

We cut back completely.

I bought something for my best friend but it was because I was supporting a co-worker's son's school fundraiser.

Jim keeps seeing stuff he wants to buy for so and so and I am stern about this.

Nothing for anyone period.

We might not even get cards. I know it sounds horrible, but I have to first explain we don't 'do' the gift thing a whole lot to begin with.

It has a lot to do with our odd religious beliefs and basically we've never been rolling in enough cash to afford more than one gift a person at best most of time (and even then only for those closes to us). Extended family never got/gave gifts.

So other than immediate Mom/Dad & siblings both Jim & I have a low gift count. This year it was basically 'Sorry, you know we're paying for our wedding, we just can't this year'. We are making the effort however to think of each of them and call to tell them we are sorry, plus we'll call on Xmas of course. We've heard no complaints (who would?).

Gifts for each other is also been pretty much eliminated. Prehaps at most one gift each. Max spending is $100 each, maybe if that much. We used to spend hundreds on Xmas.

We also plan not to spend much next year either as we will be moving into our own place.

By Xmas next year we'll be sending out Thank You cards from out wedding.

I know we sound like cheap bastards, it's just we both have tendencies to buy very extravagant gifts for friends or family. We have the idea that we wont buy it for you if we wouldnt buy it for ourselves. So.. Gold charm clarinet that took us weeks to find and a prefect thin gold chain for a 13 year old was just one of last year's gifts. We used to spend at LEAST $500 on my nephew alone!!!!

We just realized we can't do that, it's not practical.

It has been HARD not buying stuff.. but we are hanging in there.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

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Posted by Jenn P

For example, DH's stepmother once commented that I always come up with good recipes, so last year I made a homemade recipe book for her with a gift bag of some of the offbeat ingredients they require that she might not already have had. It was a hit and it cost me less than $30, maybe even less than $25.

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I like this idea a lot!

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?

I'm with Xelindrya -- nothing for anyone. Pretty much. We told everyone not to get us anything that we can't afford to get anyone anything either. We'll probably just get a LITTLE something for my mom, my brother, his goddaughter, and his parents but that's IT. He's got three sisters we are spending the holidays with so it will be tough, but they all cry poverty every year anyway so they don't get us anything either and we are perfectly fine with that. Our spending limit on these gifts is $20 MAX. Yep, we are pretty darn broke.

Re: Is anyone curtailing holiday present spending in light of wedding finances?