As a youth, I remember often getting checks as presents for birthdays, graduations, first communions, etc. This was always kind of annoying, since in those days I didn’t frequent the bank or anything. So I would hold onto the check until I wanted to spend it, which of course annoyed the person who wrote it, since they couldn’t balance their checkbook.
Well, now that I have reached the level of money-giver, I wonder why those people just didn’t give cash directly. It’s just as easy to slip a $20 into the card, and it ends the transaction right there, without any complications.
If the card is mailed, putting cash in the envelope is not recommended.
I’ve received my share of cheques as gifts. Money is useful and appreciated; but IMHO giving money as a gift shows a lack of thought on the part of the giver. Not that I’d say anything to him or her about it; and as I said, money is good. But I try to think about what the recipient wants or needs, or I try to be at least a little original when I choose gifts.
I don’t know that there is a right or wrong answer for this, but I’ll give me .02 for what it is worth.
I think some of it depends on how the person who is giving the gift handles their money. If they tend to use checks alot, they probably just write a check to give to someone for their bithrday, and vice versa for cash. It could also be to do with the fact that checks are harder (not impossible) to steal. If you send a $20 bill, for example, and someone got hold of it, they could take it into a shop and it is gone.
I have never had occasion to do put a check in a card, so I am not totally sure why people do it. The one time when I did give money rather than a present, I put a 10 in the card (but I hardly ever write checks).
Another reason to send a check could be bookkeeping. The person sending the gift might want to have a record of where the $20 went.
Just thinking “outside the box”, the giver might also want to know if the gift was ever used. Send a check and it gets cashed and no thank you note or call, cross that ungrateful SOB off your gift list for next year!
A grandchild of appropriate age has fun doing his/her own shopping.
Because I think a check is a pretty tacky gift, I always also include something else. Even (especially) someone who needs a couple of extra $$ also needs something fun and “gifty”.
It’s a gift to my niece or nephew, and I’m short on cash
It’s a wedding. Both my Italian family and my husband’s Chinese family generally have large weddings, and both families give cash or checks.It’s mostly checks, because no one really wants to have thousands of dollars in cash until they can get to the bank, where it’s going anyway. The same think would apply in our families to Communions and graduations although it’s only a couple of hundred dollars. I wasn’t going to let my 7 year old keep a couple of hundred dollars in her room, so most of it was going to the bank, check or cash .
Doreen
I couldn’t disagree more. Giving a check can be thoughtful. When I was married, my wife and I received five - count’em - FIVE crappy sets of candlesticks. These were walmart-type, phony crystal, crappy-looking candlesticks. They were tacky. We also received checks from some of our younger friends in amounts as small as $20. They were great and we really appreciated it, as we were young and poor at the time as well.
We didn’t register for gifts and frankly didn’t expect gifts from many of the people that we invited, so please don’t misunderstand me, almost any gift is thoughtful. But on the thoughtfulness scale, getting someone a crappy gift that they don’t want is certainly tackier than sending a check. IMHO.
Torus,
had I been invited to your wedding and known your situation, you can be assured that you’d have received a check from me - AND - a “gifty” something that definitely would not have come from Wal-Mart. It would have been something small but related to something in your life. Gift giving requires forethought. When it’s approrpiate (especially for my kids and grandkids) the gift attached to the check is a toy or something equally impractical. It’s my way of saying that although the check is useful or even crucial to your financial survival, everyone needs something that’s just for fun. I will tell you that my family looks forward to getting toys from Mom/Grandma as the case may be. And, believe me, I don’t send a $10 check with a $10.
Sounds like you received obligation gifts: “We were invited so we MUST provide a gift so what can I pick that I don’t have to spend too much time thinking about and that looks like a wedding gift. I hope they serve decent food at the reception.”
In some cultures, checks for life-cycle occasions are the norm. My Russian ex-boyfriend’s family ALWAYS gave checks for birthdays, weddings, etc. (I hate giving checks, especially for a birthday; seems impersonal.)
OTOH, they tended to have celebrations for these events at extremely tacky but expensive Russian restaurants; those of you who have been to a Russian Restaurant will know the type I’m talking about. $50-75 and up per person, tacky wedding-type band, lots of mayonnaise-laden food and too much alcohol. As my ex explained, it’s almost a given that one should give enough (cash or check is OK) that you at least cover your own meal (which the host is nominally paying for), plus extra as a gift. Gift registries are not at all a Russian concept.
In our family, cash or check is always the gift of choice. I dunno, it’s what we’ve always done. Take the money and buy something you really want. To me it’s the perfect gift because I get what I want with the money.
While some people may have the fine art of gift giving down, they are way more out there who give a gift just to give something. I think of my sister who one year got a pair of pierced earings. She doesn’t have pierced ears.
I give checks, always, just cuz I never have cash laying around, although I might start giving cash for immediate family only.
I thought the not-sending-cash-through-the-mail thing was a pretty good answer. If I had thought of it, I probably wouldn’t have posted the question in the first place!
