Personally, I would rather not receive gifts at all, particularly from someone who is not familiar with my tastes and needs. I have certain relatives who were terrible about getting me gifts that I a) completely did not like or b) I already had.
One year those relatives sent me a Visa gift card. It was great for me, because I just tossed it in my wallet and saved it to purchase something that I actually wanted and needed (in this case it was a set of blackout curtains - I tend to sleep during the day). Those relatives never would have thought of that.
There is also the fact that I just have too much stuff. I’ve pretty much stopped buying physical media, and I don’t really want a physical copy of something that I can get digitally.
Some have made good points. However I don’t accept the “I would just spend money on bills.” You are a free adult. If you need the money to spend on bills and you freely choose to do so, then that is the best use of it. You clearly needed to pay your electric bill instead of having dinner at Olive Garden.
I do agree with the using cash back awards from a credit card to buy gift cards strategically. That’s actually brilliant and I will start doing that.
But I stand by my basic point. If I have a $100 bill in my hand, I can purchase $100 of goods and services from any merchant, private person, drug dealer, prostitute, etc. It’s literally good everywhere in the world. So why would I take that $100 bill and buy a Home Depot gift card? I’ve now devalued that $100 by making it only worth $100 for purchases at Home Depot to the exclusion of everywhere else in the world. There should be a discount for doing that.
I also understand the “I know you like South African restaurants, so I bought you a gift card for one.” The person can still take money and go to the South African restaurant. Or pay bills with it. I can’t help but think it’s like the old “I’ll buy you a meal, but I won’t give you money because I think you will just buy booze with it.”
I can’t speak about anyone else, but I’m not talking about needing the money to pay bills nor really freely choosing to do so. I’m talking about there’s an extra hundred in the checking account so I pay an extra hundred toward the mortgage without realizing that the money was my Christmas gift from my parents. I didn’t freely choose to do it if I don’t even realize I’m doing it.
I’ve never gotten a giftcard to Home Depot but I do get cards for Amazon and I love it. Then I can get myself some new books and movies without hitting the library booksale. The last Amzaon card I got bought me an mp3 player and some music.
But whether you remembered that it was from your parents or not isn’t the point. The point is that instead of using the $100 for a nice dinner, a trip to the nightclub, lumber at Home Depot, music off of Amazon, or a tune up for your car, you decided that the best use of that $100 was to pay down your mortgage.
And wouldn’t your parents, when giving you the gift, have wanted you to make the best use of it that you saw fit? Or would your parents think, “I know** doreen **would like to pay down her mortgage, but damn it all to hell, she WILL buy books from Amazon instead!”?
Maybe it’s just me ( but probably not) , but I don’t just take $100 to splurge on myself just because , whether I can afford to or not. So there will never be a time when I’ll just decide that $100 that wasn’t a gift is best used on a trip to Bath and Bodyworks. Or a massage or books or anything else that isn’t necessary and benefits only me.
You don’t get it - I wouldn’t like to pay down my mortgage instead of buying books from Amazon. But that’s not the choice i’m making when I’m writing the check. The choice I’m making is “Do I want to pay this extra $100 toward the mortgage or the car payment or leave it in the checking account?” Books from Amazon isn’t one of the options. And no, my parents would have wanted me to spend that money in a way that I enjoy- and for some people that’s paying $100 extra to the mortgage- but it’s not to me, and my parents know it. Maybe it would be how you would enjoy spending the money- and if so, I’ll make sure to only give you cash gifts.
You know, nobody’s saying you have to like to receive gift cards or that you have to want to give gift cards, but you’re making assumptions that are unwarranted- like that spending the $100 toward the mortgage means I have decided that was the best use of the money and I would have spent it on books if I decided that was a better use while in reality I would never take $100 of household money out of the checking account to spend on books and assuming that my parents would want me to make the best use of the money rather than that they would want me to spend it in a way I enjoyed. Of course you’re not going to get the concept of gift cards if you can’t get that other people feel and act differently than you do.
I mostly think gift cards are kind of annoying because they usually take up space in my wallet for quite a while.
The exception is that there’s at least one restaurant that I like that my wife is lukewarm on, so getting a gift card to that restaurant gives me a lot more leverage next time we’re choosing where to eat!
I never thought of it this as preventing someone from spending my gift money on booze and hookers (I’d generally consider that money well spent for a birthday gift), but rather I’m somewhat able to nail down that they’ll spend that money on something they’ll enjoy , via the mechanism of a gift card.
For example, if I was to get a Wal-Mart card, I’d likely spend it on whatever crap I usually buy there- soap, batteries, cheap beer, etc… and I probably wouldn’t really enjoy it much, or not any more than I currently enjoy Irish Spring or Rayovac batteries.
A gift card to say… a high-end liquor store or video game store would be much more appreciated- there’s little chance I can spend that gift money on something practical or mundane- I have to buy expensive liquor or a game for myself.
jtgain, I agree with you almost entirely in principle. I agree with your point that exchanging money that’s good everywhere in the world for money that’s only good at a limited place, is inherently irrational.
But not everything that’s irrational is socially bad. It’s also irrational to ask how someone is doing when you don’t really care how they are doing, and they know you don’t really care how they are doing, but you’re just being polite. It’s irrational to say Bless You after someone sneezes. Hell I’m not even religious but I still say it, just to be polite.
So, it’s irrational, yes. But some people like them. Some people see that limiting of choice where to spend the money as a good thing. Sometimes limiting choice is desireable. If you could move any piece on the chessboard to any other space, it wouldn’t make a very fun game, would it? Well, spending money is kind of like that for some people. You give $100 bucks to someone to spend anywhere they want, and they’ll end up spending it on something they didn’t really want to spend it on. Sure it may have been the “best” use of the money but it may also have just been a thoughtless use of the money that got bundled in with all the other money they had. You give $100 in Gamestop giftcard money, and suddenly that person appreciates it more because now they have a few new video games they’ve been wanting.
That’s a perfectly reasonable use of a card. I hope they have a nice time.
I’m just saying, of all the best gifts I’ve ever given or received, none have been gift cards (or cash). They have been things that the recipient ended up enjoying greatly, but would not have chosen for themselves for one reason or another. It’s not just the thing itself that’s the gift then, it’s the expansion of frontiers, if you follow me.
This is not only the most relevant single sentence in this entire thread, it’s broadly applicable in most threads where SDMB denizens are struggling with the concept. These nearly always seem to be dominated by people interested in maximizing the efficiency of getting the precise goods they desire. :rolleyes:
You’re right of course – and I try hard to get people close to me something I know they will like that indicates I have been listening to them. But like, even for my father at Xmas I got an amazon gift card so that he can rent movies on his Roku that he can’t get on Netflix.
So how come you’re so upset by someone restricting what you can buy with a gift card, but not upset when someone restricts what you can get by actually giving you a normal gift? If I give you a music box, I’ve just prevented you from using the money it cost me to buy that music box to pay your bills or whatever.
Gift giving is not a financial transaction. It is a method of showing someone you care about them. And one way you can do that is to show that you understand their interests. A gift is worth more than its monetary value.
All gifts restrict the recipient if you look at them financially. Cash may give you more choices, but it also communicates less understanding of your interests. People give cash to impersonal entities, but they only give gifts to people they actually care about.
You seem to be struggling with the concept that some people suck at choosing gifts. Maybe you have far more thoughtful and attentive relatives than I do, but I have received plenty of doubtless well-intentioned gifts that reflected basically zero understanding of my lifestyle, personality, or interests. Sure, it’s the thought that counts, but if people want to spend their money on me then I’d prefer not to receive it in the form of material goods that I do not want.
Deeply personal gifts are nice, but it’s not always a possibility. I’m not going to be able to pick out a perfect gift for my second cousin that I see once a year, and that’s not because I’m a terrible person, but because it’s just a reality of our relationship. Likewise, sometimes I am able to spend hours looking for the perfect gift, but sometimes for very real reasons I’m limited to what I can grab in ten minutes from the drugstore.