What is your present arrangement with family ?

Once you had children, did you cut back on gift $ or gifts for adults/children within the family ?

My sister has 4 children, I have always been MORE than generous towards them with gifts. But now with 2 in daycare, money is tight and it is literally every other month with them, plus communions, confirmations, etc.

I was thinking of seeing if she would go for cancelling gifts for adult bdays & possibly setting a $ limit on kids bdays.

DH pointed out yesterday when I was looking for a shirt for BIL, that I was spending so much & she sends me a $25 check for my bday. It's always been unbalanced, but now Im thinking it's time to readjust the scales. I think they still look at us as the "double income, no kids" family.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

with my siblings and DH siblings, we cancelled all adult gifts (except for Christmas but we pick names out of a hat so you only have to buy for one adult sibling per side) and only get gifts for the children. We also have a cap on how much per child.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

There is just to many of us in the family to buy for everything. We do birthdays, for all. At xmas, its kids only. The kids never get the short end of the stick, just their parents

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

I am one of 5 kids, and 4 of us are either married or engaged, and there are 4 kids already with 2 more on the way. So it can definitely get out of hand! A few years ago, we started picking names out of a hat for the adults for Christmas so we only have to buy for one person. The rest, we still get gifts for everyone though. Christmas just got to be too much buying for everyone all at once.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

In my family, adults really don't get big gifts.

For birthdays we spend about $20 on each adult. I would get my sister a box of chocolate or my brother some scratch offs.

No limit on the kids though, get them what they ask for and I DO NOT try to balance it out. We got my nephew a $200 dinosaur one year, and definitely didn't try to even it out with the other kids.

Christmas is $20 per adult couple, just a little token gift. Same thing for all holidays.

For Father's day, me, my brother AND sister split a gift which ended up being about $50 total LOL

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

In my family, my sisters, brothers and my birthday are in the same week. Me and my sister have kids, my brother does not. I always give gifts to my niece and nephews and my sister gifts my dd's. Me and my sister do not exchange for b-days, but we alwayd buy for our brother. He does a lot for us. At christmas, we pick names, between us. Including my bil and my dh. It works out for us. My dh's family is another story. His brothers didn't want to do secret santa last year, don't ask me why they are both in the upper 20's. But they buy for the girls. Neither of them is married.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

I would never repeatedly spend way more $$ on my siblings than they ever spent on me. I'm not tit for tat in the sense that I'm counting every gift b/c it's nicer to get the "right" gift- but imo that trend year after year would NEVER fly.

We have a zillion parties and tbh it friggin kills us. We must have spent $500 this month on envelopes (the spring is always bad though).

For xmas we really only buy for the kids- maybe $25 each and I exchange with my sil just bc she always buys me something.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

Only kids get gifts now since there are 20+ nieces and nephews in the family. Adults are no longer getting gifts though we chip in to get gifts for the parents to balance things because they usually spend so much on the kids!

For Xmas, we do the white elephant game on which is a big hit and fun too!

We have a cap of $20-30 on children's gifts and are debating whether kids over 18 should even get gifts anymore...

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

No adult gifts, only cards for birthdays. Parents still get gifts.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

We only gift the kids and grandparents in our family.

For the kids...we gift until they graduate college with it starting off clothing - then toys and clothing - then toys - then cold hard cash.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

for my family, DD is the only child so far so everyone buys her gifts for birthday and christmas. We still also do adult gifts for christmas but not really for birthdays (maybe something small for birthdays but nothing too crazy).
For DH's family, 1. they live overseas so the shipping on gifts is outrageous and 2. he has 7 brothers so I have 7 SILs and 19 nieces and nephews on that side!
there is no way I can do christmas and birthday gifts for them all. So I usually do just my MIL and then any new baby gifts and 1st birthday. thats it! I dont usually even send cards because I cant keep track when it is someones birthday like every 2 weeks!!!

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

Kids gifts only.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

We cancelled all adult gifs (if you have kids...one sibling has no kids so they still get gifts)
We buy for the kids with no limit. we spend what we are comfortable with. I adjust depending on the event etc. For instance I spent more on my niece's sweet 16 gift than I did on her sister's 8th birthday.

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

No gifts for adults. We buy presents for nieces and nephews according to what we can afford (and vice versa).

Re: What is your present arrangement with family ?

we have a teeny tiny family....though we just came up with an arrangement...

adults - 50 dollar limit for ANY holiday (including birthdays, mothers/fathers day, etc.).

kids - 100 - spoil the little ones :)

it used to be a 100 dollar limit for everyone, but we realized that was too much once the kids joined the family. (my entire local family is only 6 adults & 2 kids).