Money saving mum's TikTok sparks debate after she shares budget for Christmas gifts

A money saving mum has sparked a debate online after she admitted to spending £400 on her children at Christmas.

Hannah, known as Noturbasicmama on TikTok, has defended her choice to spend £100 on each of her four children for presents this year. She explained her reasons and her gifting budget in a video to her 509.3k followers.

She captioned the clip: "How I budget £100 each for my kids at Christmas".

She began by saying: "I'm starting my Christmas shopping today and I'm going to tell you exactly why. So I've set myself a budget of £100 for each child, I have four children. [The youngest] she's gonna be eight months old on Christmas, I also have a six year old, a 12 year old and a 13 year old.

"And I know a lot of people are like, 'oh my god' but I've already kind of like elaborated on it, and I will do it again if you need me to, on why I am setting a budget and I'm not going over that with my kid. We also do a lot of family based stuff leading up to Christmas because I don't do the advent calendar, I like to make memories of my children rather than them just having an advent calendar with chocolate in. Right, let's get to it.

"I'm gonna show you how I stay in budget. Shopping last minute is probably the worst way to keep in a budget, I also use places like Vinted, eBay. A lot of my older children, um, like branded stuff if you go into Vinted, you can actually select brand new with tags, product.

"And I managed to get last year, cause I can talk about last year, I managed to get Nike pro leggings and Nike pro shorts that [my older daughter] wanted for £10 each. So I've already saved a lot of money and got two of the things that she actually wanted, they're brand new with tags. It was no different than going in and buying them from the shop, but I just saved money."

The money saving mum continued: "Black Friday deals is another really, really good way of saving money just before Christmas. So I've got a plum account which I have money that gets saved, I can elaborate more on that if you guys want me to, which add a little money pop.

"So when it comes around to the 24th of November, I'll have that money put back to buy things that would have cost usually a lot more money but because they're in the Black Friday sale, I'm saving money. So I make sure, I've got money put back ready for Black Friday, also, charity shops and car boot sales are never really good kind of find for little bits and pieces."

She went on to show off some of the things she'd bought for her children's stocking including stationary and activity books. The mum then revealed some items she'd bought for Christmas Eve boxes, including writing letters to Santa and activity books - she added that she didn't count these in her £100 budget.

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TikTok users were divided by the budgeting video. Shelbs replied: "You can get an advent calendar for a pound? That ain’t stopping no memories just makes mornings exciting id say." Louise commented: "I think its a smart idea plus you could get loads with that by buying from vinted or charity shops/carboots. It's what we do, we do get new as well."

Tegan Knight added: "Charity shops and Vinted are great at the moment as everyone’s clearing out before Xmas too! And I always think birthdays are for bigger gifts too." Naomi put: "I'm so ashamed I haven't even started mine yet". Charlie77 wrote: "I've no budget as such but I refuse to buy expensive things."

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