Children and Budget Holidays
For families on tight holiday budgets – either by circumstance or choice – it can be difficult to balance children’s wants with budgeted spending. I’ve developed some suggestions that might help.
The youngest children are still establishing their sense of what gift giving/receiving is and are often less put off by fewer gifts. Suggestion: pretty much any toy, any price, and any number will do. If only we could all hold on to this phase throughout the years of gift giving (note: many families do hold onto this phase).
Young school age children have often established a baseline of expectations, often set by peers and media, and may have an “I want more” mentality. Suggestion: to combat the higher expectations of these children, you can go for quantity versus quality. Dollar stores offer a lot of items that will help children with the need to open another gift without putting a large strain on the wallet. However, you must be careful about this method – it could set you up for overspending in later years.
Older school age children have a balance of wanting a fair share of gifts but also want better things. Suggestion: This is the point where the previous strategy backfires. They now have established an expectation of many gifts and now want better gifts. Many times you can just explain how the better gifts mean fewer gifts. Little stocking stuffers also go over well with this group and helps balance expectations of quantity and quality.
Teens are often more focused on the bigger ticket or main interest gifts and less concerned with how much they get. Suggestion: establish a per-child budget and buy what you can of what they want.
Now, the above suggestions are on the slippery slope of producing consumerism drones. Each of these suggestions should include honest discussions about the meaning of giving and tied into family values. In our family, gifts only come twice a year and we use those opportunities to meet some of the year-long wishing for things and to maintain the holiday magic for the daughter.
Also, some suggestions for how to outline conversations about holiday spending include:
Phrase budgeted spending in a positive light. Say “Think about a couple of things you really want this year and we’ll see what we can get” versus “We’re really tight on cash this year, so there won’t be as many presents to open”.
Educate children about why you establish a holiday spending plan – you can explain your financial goals and talk about how creating budgets helps you reach those goals. Again, the point is to avoid giving the impression that your goals are creating a loss for them, i.e. “We look forward to enjoying holiday season while keeping our goals in mind” versus “We’re trying to buy a house so we’re not going to buy many presents.”
Not Made Of Money : Minimizing Commercialism At Christmas
November 13th, 2006 05:00
[...] Donna at the Weight of Money had an interesting article and helpful ideas on children and budget holidays. I like the idea of employing different methods based on the ages of the children. [...]