One can spend too much on gifts unless they know exactly how much money they'll spend on gifts. There are birthday gifts to buy for kids, friends, family, valentine's gifts and gifts for lots of other occasions. Whilst budgeting you allocate a specific amount of money for the gifts and once you've spent that money spend no more until the next year. Do you do this or do you buy gifts no matter how much you spend as long as everyone gets a gift?
Definitely, gifts should have allocation. With the list of names I make for Christmas, it is a long one with a corresponding amount or gift item. Yesterday we were at the Duty Free shop buying food items for giveaways to my husband's colleagues in their office. He had a list already but when we passed by the perfumery section, he suddenly changed the items for his female colleagues to that of beauty products - one package costs much less than the food items he planned to give. In other words, he had saved from that change of gift item.
I will always have a budget when I am buying things for people, because if I don't, I will always spend much more money than I can really afford to, which is not a good thing at all. You should never go shopping without a plan, because that is how overspending happens, and money only ends up being wasted that way.
Well I don't have a specific budget but maybe I should start. I really hate spending any money...I am going to try to do a bit better this year though than I have in years past,,,because truthfully I haven't given much as Christmas gifts...this year I have slightly, I repeat slightly, more money to spend so I will buy accordingly...
I always set a budget for gifts, individually and cumulatively because I tend to go a bit overboard without limits and there are far too many members in my family to allow myself to do that since if I did I wouldn't have any money left. I also like to give myself a present every Christmas so budgeting helps me balance what I want to spend on my self against what I am willing to spend on others. Some years I've had to cut back on my own gifts so the kids in my family could have better gifts and even though I know they will forget about the toys within a few days or weeks I still think it's a better choice since the experience of opening toy gifts as kids will never come around again whereas I have the rest of the year to work towards my own items.
I always have a specific budget whenever I am buying a gift for someone. I think not having a budget limit will be detrimental to your pocket, so it's best to have a budget on everything that you buy so that you won't overspend.
