Budget for a family cousin gift exchange.
Drawing names is what makes a large cousin exchange affordable, and the arithmetic shows why. Without it, everyone buys for everyone else — that is n times n minus one gifts across the group, so eight cousins means 56 gifts. Draw names and it becomes eight, one each. Your own cost drops from seven gifts to one, and the group spends an eighth as much while each person still receives a present. The other advantage is that a single recipient justifies a larger per-gift budget, so a name draw at 30 dollars gives a better gift than buying for seven people at whatever is left over.
Cousin Gift Exchange Budget
Cost per gift = budget + shipping; gifts you buy = 1 when drawing names, otherwise cousins - 1; your total = gifts x cost per gift; group total = your total x cousins
Fifty-six — each of eight people buying for the other seven. That is why exchanges above about five participants almost always switch to drawing names.
Because everyone buys only one gift, the budget can be set higher than a buy-for-everyone arrangement — 25 to 50 dollars is common, and everyone spends and receives the same amount.