I wrote "£620" on the fridge whiteboard on Monday night, in green marker, under the shopping list. By Tuesday morning Rob had added a question mark and then, after a pause, rubbed out the question mark and drawn a very small Christmas tree instead. That's as close as he gets to saying he approves of a number.
We have always had Christmas. What we haven't always had is a figure written down in advance. Last year I didn't write one down, which is how you end up not knowing what you spent, and I'd have gently pointed that out to a customer. This year I did it in November, with a pen, before the adverts started and before the presents began to arrive in the hall.
Where £620 comes from
The Christmas pot is a separate savings pot that has had £35 a month since January, so after October's payment it holds £350. The other £270 comes out of November and December pay. I like to know that in advance, because it means the budget isn't a hope. It's a transfer.
The £620 splits like this, and each part has its own envelope:
- Presents for Isla and Alfie: £240 (£120 each, stocking and anything from Santa included)
- Presents for everyone else: £120
- Food: £160, on top of the usual weekly shop
- Extras: £100
I took four brown envelopes from the drawer by the phone and wrote the totals on the front. I know it's old-fashioned. But a card can be tapped on a whim at 9pm on a Tuesday, and an envelope that goes thin is much harder to ignore than a number on a phone. The one rule I've made myself is that the envelopes don't borrow from each other. If Extras is empty, Extras is empty, and anything else has to wait or go without.
What each envelope has to cover
The children's £120 each is one number rather than a list. I tell them it is Santa, the stocking and our present together, and I keep the stocking at about £20 each from the middle aisle at Lidl, which leaves £100 for the big present. Isla has asked for a set of paints and "a real book with a spine, not a paperback from the supermarket". Alfie has asked for a Tyrannosaurus rex, a football and "a surprise". I'm told the third is the most important.
The £120 for everyone else goes on the grown-ups: £30 for the pair of my parents, £30 for Pat and Keith, £30 for Hayley, Jordan and Ivy, and £30 for Rob and me to buy for each other, £15 each. Jean next door gets a tin of biscuits out of the extras. It's tight, and I've written the names on a list to make sure nobody is counted twice.
The food envelope is £160. December's groceries are always a lot higher than a normal month, and £160 is the sum I've allowed above the £105 a week. That covers Christmas Day for six (Mum and Dad are coming to us), the chocolate orange that nobody wants and that somebody always buys, and my share of Boxing Day at Hayley's, where I'm bringing the trifle.
The extras envelope, £100, is the one that leaks. It has to cover the tree, cards and stamps, wrapping paper, advent calendars, a few bits for the table, and whatever costume letters the school sends home, which they always do.
The panto question
This is the one I haven't solved. Hayley found tickets for a family panto on the Saturday before Christmas, £12.75 each, which is £51 for the four of us. It sounds modest and it is, but it isn't in the £620, because there is nowhere in the extras for £51 to come from without something else going. It would be lovely. The children would love it. I'd be sitting in the dark enjoying it as well.
I've left it open, and I've told Hayley I'll know by the end of the month. I know myself well enough to guess how this might go, but I'd like to see the other three envelopes full before I decide.
I filled the Food envelope first, because it's the one I'm surest I'll overspend.
