How much should you spend on your kid’s birthday presents?

As a budget-conscious parent, you may find yourself wondering how much you should spend on your child’s birthday presents. Striking a balance between getting everything that they want and staying within a budget can be a challenge.

In this post, I am going to give some practical tips and considerations to help you navigate the world of kids’ birthday gifts. In brief, you can do this by setting realistic expectations, focusing on thoughtful choices, and exploring cost-effective options, you can celebrate your child’s special day with meaningful presents without it having an impact on your pockets.

Long gone are the days when we could get away with buying our children a few gifts on their birthdays and them being happy with it.

Now they look through catalogues with a felt tip pen in hand and circle everything they want and then there are the ads in between their favourite television shows.

Set a realistic budget

Before setting foot into a toy shop or logging onto your favourite retailer, it’s important to understand and assess your finances.

It can be too easy to get wrapped up in the idea of giving your children what you never had or worrying whether you’re spending as much as their friend’s parents are, but you need to get away from this mindset and focus on what you are comfortable with spending.

Throughout the year, I put money aside in sinking funds and allocate £100 to each of our kids. We came to this amount as it was what we felt we could reasonably afford taking into account our income, and expenses.

Understanding your child’s interests

As our kids get older they form their own interests, regardless of what we might push them into and it’s having some consideration around these interests that will help you not only come up with a present that is thoughtful but also within budget.

Like most little boys, our little man is into construction, superheroes and music and our youngest is interested in unicorns pink princesses and doing everything that her little brother does.

It’s only because of these observations that we have been able to determine before even handing over any money what we might want to buy them, then make a list of what they might like and then shortlist the items to ensure that they do not exceed the budget.

Be more thoughtful

I alluded to this above, but spending more on a gift doesn’t necessarily mean that your kids are going to enjoy the present any more than they would have done if you had taken the time to consider their hobbies and interest.

I don’t think that as parents any of us have gathered around on a birthday or Christmas day only to have them open their presents have a little play and then spend the rest of the day playing with the boxes they came in.

Do your research

Once you have decided what you want to buy, don’t just default to buying them from your favourite shop or online stores as you might not be getting value for money.

Put in the leg work and look out for discounts, sales and promotions and wherever possible look to see whether you can get any cashback through sites like Topcashback.

Also don’t forget to look through charity shops and online marketplaces to see if you can find the same items in nearly new condition at a fraction of the price.

Set realistic expectations and teach them about financial responsibility

It’s important to have conversations with your kids about your budget to set realistic expectations early on.

It will no doubt be a difficult conversation to have and you might not feel that they are ready for it, but teaching them early is not only something that you have to do for you, but it is something that they can learn from too.

When our children have any money in their money boxes or are given money from relatives, we allow them to explore our nearest toy shop and decide what they might want. Kids being kids will naturally be attracted to the biggest and shiniest toy, but this is then where we have a conversation about their budget and get them to look for something else that is within budget.

This might mean that we are in the shop longer than we would normally hope, but I think that little moment out of our time to teach them about the value of money and what a budget can and cannot get you is a life lesson best taught early, not only that, we use it as an opportunity to teach them about numbers and basic maths.

Conclusion 

When it comes to buying our kids’ birthday presents, it’s important to find the right balance between getting what they want and staying within your budget.

Setting a budget that is realistic and having some thought about your child’s interests allows you to focus on gifts that have meaning to them rather than focusing on costs.

It’s important to research affordable options, which will also mean buying from charity shops, online marketplaces and using cashback websites, while at the same time teaching your kids financial responsibility.

Save throughout the year using a sinking fund and if you know that you aren’t that good at saving, let an app like Plum or Chip do it for you.