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One grandmother has found a way to ease the financial burden of taking the family round for Christmas: charge them all for dinner.
Caroline Dudridge devised a tiered fee system for her relatives which brought in around £180 this year to help cover the cost of the turkey and all the trimmings for her five grown up children and their families.
“There are a few people who think I’m a bit of a Scrooge but my friends think it’s a great idea,” Duddridge, 63, told BBC Radio 5 Live.
She said she got the idea after her husband died in 2015 and she had only half the household income to live on. She initially asked relatives to withdraw small amounts regularly until the end of the year, but the administration became too cumbersome.
“I said to my kids, ‘Well, it costs a lot of money, I’m going to do a little kitty jar so you can put £2 in starting in September’. It sounds good, doesn’t it? But of course it all got a bit shambolic, trying to keep track of them and there were a few stragglers.
Instead, the teaching assistant from Fairwater in Cardiff decided to charge her two sons £15 each and her three daughters £10, while her four grandchildren aged five and over would pay £5 each and her two three-year-old grandchildren £10. decided 2.50, with a one-off fee to be transferred to his bank account.
She explained that she charges more from her sons because they work full-time, while her daughters work part-time and take care of their families. And she joked that those who don’t cough have little sentimentality left.
“If you don’t pay by December 1, you’re not going to come. Obviously, there was a bit of moaning and grumbling that I had a few kids, but at the end of the day it’s not really my problem, is it?”
Dudridge said half of the money she raised was spent on meat that she said she “doesn’t even eat”.
She has said in the past that she “always ended up with hundreds of sausage rolls and bags of potatoes but not much” because her relatives would bring food. “At least this way, I’ve got some autonomy over what I can buy. It saves food waste which is another important thing.
But, as she weighed the costs, she concluded: “Why should the host bear the entire financial burden? I hope people don’t think it’s a terrible thing and think ‘hmm that’s a good idea’. It is very fair. I’m not out to make a profit, I’m just doing it to help a little with his expenses.
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