Skip to main content

How gifts go wrong

Image
By
I'm not the first person to suggest that we shouldn't give gifts to adults (they just result in stress and waste) but I can give you an example of why.

The mid-way birth-day

Midway between my wife's birthday and mine, my sister gives us a combined gift. That's a good idea - to cut present stress by half.

So what was it?

As gifts go it was a reasonable thought. My wife and I enjoy board games and the TV series Doctor Who, so the Doctor Who version of Monopoly seemed like a good gift idea. Except that another friend had the exact same idea. Now we have two of the same game.


What to do with the extra gift?

A gift is meant to be an enjoyable experience for the receiver, but here's what happened:

  • We thought of re-gifting it, but can't think of anyone who's a big fan of both Doctor Who and Monopoly.
  • We decided to sell it online. At least that way my sister won't have completely wasted her money.
  • So far three people have contacted us but none have followed through.
  • So the saga continues...
[Update: We have now sold the game for a fraction of its retail price]

It's not meant to be like this

This is not what my sister had in mind. It's not like she set out to find a burdensome gift that would never be played and take months to sell - but that's a risk with store-bought gifts. Even a reasonable idea can result in disappointment (I had to explain why we weren't ripping open the plastic wrap and getting into the game).

The personal touch

My sister is also a pretty good cook. If she'd baked us up a couple of batches of her Anzac biscuits - or a chocolate slice - that would have been a great gift.

It would be appreciated. It would be unique as each person cooks them in their own way. It would be special because she makes it herself.

And if someone else gets me the exact same thing - that's no problem at all :)

Let's not be tricked by all the advertising telling us we have to spend a lot of time and money at the shops to give a great gift.

Let's give them something they really want - even if it's something we make ourselves.

PS. The SoKind Registry is a great help in making sure you get and give presents that are appreciated.

Other reading

On gift giving between adults, see Baby steps to reducing adult gift giving at Christmas and Holiday gift-giving between adults is a needless, consumerist chore. Both have interesting perspectives.
Read more about:

Comments

  1. Laura18 December 2017 at 01:51

    One of my favourite gifts is the gift of someone's time. When they make (or bake!) you something, or invite you to spend time with them. I feel that in today's world there is an unlimited supply of 'things', but time is always in limited supply.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why millionaires don't "feel" rich

By
We're wealthier than ever - so why don't we feel like it? Australia has gone almost three decades without recession. The stock market recently hit a record high. Our wages are record highs. Home loan rates are at record lows. We live in one of the richest countries in the world at the richest point in history. So what's wrong? Comparison Wealth is relative. So what do we compare to? Where we expect to be? "When your wages growth is only 2 or 3 per cent, you don't feel as well-off as when it's going up 10 per cent. That's that nominal distortion that people often suffer from" , says economist Shane Oliver, and that "expectations have grown a lot faster than reality." We're earning more than last year, but we want even more. So compared to our imaginary situation, we see ourselves as worse off. What we see around us? Shane Oliver again. "If you think about it - Australians today are a lot wealthier. They're living far ric...
4 comments
Read more

Where is the best place to live?

By
Where we live determines a lot about our life.  So today I'm going to share a resource that can help you decide where might be a good place to live.  It started with an article ranking Brisbane suburbs from 1 to 260 . That ranking was based on a set of 17 factors. Here are some of them. But all 17 may not be relevant for you. And some might matter more than others. So they developed a tool where you can rank the 5 factors most important to you and it will give you a personalised list of Brisbane suburbs that would be the best for you - based on those factors. There are also  Sydney and Melbourne  versions. On the results page, there's also a map that colour-codes each suburb by star rating, for each factor. For instance here's the map for public transport. Five-star suburbs are in blue. When you click on a suburb, you get the name and the star rating of that suburb - for whichever factor you select. I find this to be so enlightening. I choose not to own a car. Some...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to waste a year's wages

By
A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c...
4 comments
Read more