Am I making too much of this?

Resident

Resident

Resident

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Our daughter is now 5 and at school, making friends which is great, but inevitably the birthday party invites have now started.

She goes to her first birthday party this coming weekend, hosted at the home of the birthday child.

The Mrs has been out and bought our daughter's friend an 'inexpensive' gift & card & the gift has lead to a bit of a heated discussion between myself and the mrs.

She paid £15 for this gift stating it was on sale (I've seen the reciept). It's appears to be one of the special LOL Suprise doll series. Knowing that these things aren't that cheap I googled the gift and found that it retails at £90-120 (retailer dependant).

I've said, despite the purchase price, it's too much to be giving what will be seen as a expensive gift. I don't want to be giving essentially £100 to a child who's parents may not be able to afford such an expense.
I also don't want to be setting some kind of precendence/expectation that future birthday gifts for others will be as lavish.

The Mrs has just told me to stop being tight and that she paid nothing like the retail

Am I in the wrong?
 
You've got a point, unless you're close to the family it would look a bit odd as you've said. However you could just run it past the parents in advance. If they're the sort you allow your kids to have a party with I'm sure they're reasonable enough to understand why you might run it by them first as above.
 
They're typically big prezzies for xmas tbh, despite the daft discount you stumble across in asda and tesco from time to time
I'd not feel comfortable gifting something like that knowing what others could believe, never know could even oneup the prezzie from the parents.

We've normally got a cupboard full of tat for stuff like this amazon/asda/tesco when on offer and if the bairns ever get invited to a party we'd ask the parents what the youngster is into.
Think the biggest one we gave away recently was a Nerf gun I grabbed a few of for about 12 quid, rrp about 35ish

eBay/gumtree/facebook the LOL doodah stock up yer random tat cupboard :p
 
Have a conversation with the child’s parents about if it’s ok rather than a computer parts store Internet forum mayhaps?

I think this situation is far to dependent on the individuals involved, and you aren’t going to get a good general view of opinion from this board, it’s too skewed to a certain demographic.
 
Dup said:
You've got a point, unless you're close to the family it would look a bit odd as you've said. However you could just run it past the parents in advance. If they're the sort you allow your kids to have a party with I'm sure they're reasonable enough to understand why you might run it by them first as above.
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Totally this. Speak to the parents, it's them you'll **** off with a seemingly expensive gift rather than the child who'll forget about it 2 days after their birthday. Sell the present your wife bought for profit :D.
 
Resident said:
Am I in the wrong?
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Yes, she showed you the receipt and a £15 gift is fine. If you're worried the parents will think it's expensive then just tell them you got it for a good price, or leave the price tag on if it has one.

Resident said:
I don't want to be giving essentially £100
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You're not essentially giving them £100 if it cost £15. Most likely the RRP is set ridiculously high that hardly anyone will buy it at, and is regularly "discounted" as a marketing trick.
 
whack the receipt in with the pressie or speak to the parents as has been said :)

plot twist the parents call you cheap and demand a ps5 :P
 
£15 seems reasonable, despite the RRP. Like above, just give the parents the receipt under the guise of they can return it if the kid doesn't like it/already has one.
 
I don't have kids, so can't speak from personal experience.

Having said that I have spoken with friends about the 'kids party' thing and it seems often to be about the parents being seen as it is the child at the centre. Stories of people getting annoyed at the spending of others, friends parents 'bigging up' their present, besting others etc etc

Lego for the win, though to be fair that seems to be around £50 for a brick these days so what do I know.
 
I've bought my daughter various lol dolls. They are very much overpriced tat, but the dolls themselves aren't that bad, your Mrs probably got it half price or something. The 20 quid limit is not a bad idea though, think we probably spend something like that when we go to parties.
 
When my girls were that age there was an unofficial £10 limit which every parent seemed to stick to. The first couple of years of primary will have some hosting whole class parties, but after that the numbers drop to single figures rapidly once the kids make friends.
 
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