What Christmas costs, and what to put aside each week

Gifts are barely half of it. The weekly figure below counts the real days left to 25 December, so it goes up every week you put it off.

Common questions

Why does Christmas always cost more than planned?

Because most people budget for gifts and nothing else. Gifts are usually a bit over half of it - the food, the travel, the wrapping, the cards, the one outfit for one party and the tips quietly make up the rest. A budget that only counts presents is short before December starts.

When should I start setting money aside?

The weekly figure above answers that better than a date does: it is the amount you still need divided by the weeks actually left, so it rises every week you wait. Starting in September makes it a small weekly habit; starting in December makes it a credit-card decision.

How much per person is normal?

There is no normal, and chasing one is how budgets break. What helps is deciding the total first and letting the per-person figure fall out of it, rather than deciding per person and discovering the total in January. Tiers help too - close family, then friends, then colleagues.

Does this track the actual gifts?

No. It gives you the shape and the weekly number. It does not remember what you bought for whom, what you actually paid, what has arrived or what is still to wrap - which is the part that stops duplicate presents and forgotten people. That is what the full spreadsheet does.

Want the version that does all of it?

The calculator above is deliberately simple. The full spreadsheet does the whole job — every recipient tracked from idea to ordered to wrapped, budgeted against what you actually spent, and the rest of the season alongside it. It opens in Excel and works just as well in free Google Sheets.