When Are Gifts Considered Cheap?
If you’ve been around the web lately, you’ve probably run across Dog Ate My Finance’s post about what she perceived to be a cheap wedding gift. According to Dog, a wedding guest should expect to give a gift in the equivalent to the cost of their plate. In other words, if a bride and groom spend $50/ head for each guest, then they should expect to receive $50 in either cash or value of gifts from their guests.
I had never heard of this rule myself, and neither have a lot of other people. But, poor Dog took a lot of flak for this point of view. In light of the discussion there and over at Living Almost Large, it begs the question: is there such a thing as “cheap” gifts? If the economy were doing better, would Dog’s remarks have a more accepting audience?
Every year around the holidays, my grandparents send me a check for $10. They’ve done this for as long as I can remember. They’re not terribly well-off, but they are at least moderately comfortable. They are more generous towards the grandchildren who live there, but in my opinion, I’m just glad they remember us here in Texas. I don’t begrudge them how they choose to spend their money. The ones closer probably keep in better contact than I do. And frankly, $10 is $10 more than I had. I don’t think they’re being cheap in this regard, though others in my family seem to think they are.
There’s also the argument that giving a gift card is cheap and people would rather get nothing at all than to receive a gift card. I don’t understand that. Sure, gift cards are impersonal and they are a bit of a cop out, but they’re not cheap gifts, especially if it’s to a store that you shop at. The thing with gift cards is that they’re unimaginative and so people equate them to being another chore marked off the to-do list. The reality is that in this day and age we’re so consumed with instant gratification that when we want something, we get it. It makes gift buying somewhat difficult. And nobody wants to be embarrassed by giving a gift that someone hates, so a gift card assures that the receiver will get exactly what they want.
But, irrespective of the type of gift, let’s talk amounts. What dollar amount is the magical mark that makes someone cheap. $10? $20? $30? I recently wrote about how much it costs to be a good friend. A few comments mentioned how cheap my friend’s friends were because they didn’t want to give me $20-30 for the bachelorette party. I’m more inclined to believe that these people just aren’t very good friends. They seemed content to let me do the planning and some of them did nothing but complain about things. For me, it was more a matter of them being bad friends than about them being cheap.
In any event, I don’t think receiving a $20 gift card to a store was a cheap wedding gift. They could show up with a pack of underwear from Wal-Mart and I’d be happy that they thought of me…though I’d hope nobody would do that, it’s kind of tacky. Anyway, for me, a wedding is a celebration that is meant to be shared with friends and family. In my opinion, it’s not a forum for the bride and groom to make judgment calls based on the gifts they receive (not talking about you Dog, just making generalizations!).
Another friend of mine getting married this summer weighed in on this subject. She said she thinks it could be generational. Generations past used to get married really young so it was sort of a given that guests would give gifts to help the new couple establish their homes, or cash to help cover some of the wedding expenses. Things aren’t really that way anymore. First of all, couples are living together prior to marriage, so they’ve usually got everything they need for their homes. Secondly, most people have accepted the fact that they have to save for their weddings. They set a price for their weddings and don’t expect their guests to pitch in for that price. My friend thinks weddings are about celebrating together and whole-heartedly disagrees with the gifts needing to cover the giver’s plate. And she’s going to have an open bar.
Frankly, I would never call someone’s gift cheap. Whether or not I felt that they put a lot of thought into it, I would still appreciate the effort. My personal thought is that if I call someone’s efforts cheap, it makes me seem ungrateful because I didn’t get what I wanted. I also don’t presume I know where everyone stands financially. Perhaps they can only afford a small amount. In those cases, I’d hate to condemn them as cheap when I don’t know the whole story. Their business is none of mine, and the fact that they got me a gift at all would make me feel appreciated and loved. Unfortunately, we as a society can often get too wrapped up in the material value of the gift that we lose sight of the fact that it’s the thought that counts.
So, what do you guys think? Is there a dollar amount on gifts that make them cheap? Do you believe that it’s the thought that counts and appreciate everything you receive? Remember to play nice! We all have different views on this one.
Related posts:
- Gifts vs. Charity: The Fine Line
- Forgotten Wedding Gift Solved
- 10 Things I Would Never Go Cheap On… Again!
- Holiday Season Expectations
- The Cost of Being a Good Friend
I don’t think that a dollar amount really matters for cheapness. You can sometimes get really good deals on things, if you buy a $50 item on clearance for $10 that makes it cheap but not necessarily “cheap” quality.
but if you buy a poor quality item for $10 and it falls apart then that’s double cheap.
As for “its the thought that counts” I think its great you are thinking of me but I don’t want cheap crap. I’d rather someone just give me $5 then spend it on some random item. Or if you can’t even afford that just don’t give me anything! Recently I got some presents that looked like the person just went through their house to see what they had, a paperweight and an ugly picture frame. I can’t use either so now they just take up space till I donate them. I guess that makes me un-appreciative of the gifts, but I find it hard to appreciate junk.
I do think that those people who didn’t want to spend the $20-30 were not very good friends. Even my very cheap husband would chip in for something like that to have fun.
It depends. A home cooked meal as a gift would be lovely. Personally no gift is too cheap, and I did have some lesser priced gifts. The problem that still pisses me off? No gift at all. Like we were too unimportant to remember giving a gift too.
That bothers my DH till today. He says, what would happen if we went to his best friend’s wedding one day and never gave a gift in reciprocity like he did to us?
Yes and no. I traditionally always say that it is the thought that counts and sometimes people are very strapped for cash. I think sometimes too it becomes the question of if they don’t need anything, should you still give. My parents and stepparents don’t need anything and my father is so darn picky and he will tell you if he doesn’t like it. I at least get a card and sometimes one small token gift, but I don’t think that I have to spend a $100 on my 89 year old grandmother who does not need anything. For her I will get her a bottle of nice lotion (only $15 or so) or I will stop at a bakery on the way to visit her and bring some homemade bread.
That said there are times where I think people have been tools. We had a very small wedding and kept it fairly low-budget (20 people including us and $7000 including professional wedding photos that were $3000 and renting a cottage so people had a place to sleep for the night). One of our friends came with his partner (the one who he told us he was going to break up with). They ate very well (people could choose from 6 different appetizers, 10 different entrees, wine/beer/coffee/soft drinks and choice of 2 cakes)… What does he and his partner do? Order fancy drinks that WERE NOT on the menu (at least 4 costing way more than the wine) and then they stayed in the cottage eating more food and more alcohol. When they left, we didn’t get a card! Too me that was beyond crass. In total we probably spent $200 on him and the partner and while I would never have expected him to give us $200 (we make significantly more money than him), I could not get over his rudeness that he and the partner had the audacity to show up, binge eat and get drunk and not even offer a token gift. I could even have understood if he had pulled us aside, told us that things were financially tight, given us a card and drank moderately. In the end we felt used and exploited.
I see your point… but based on cultural perceptions I don’t think Dog specifically was pissed off about the cheap gifts as it was that her mother considered it to be an insult and the slap in the face that THEY shelled out all this cash for others’ weddings and for them to reciprocate with a gift NOT equivalent to what they gave, was an insult.
In my culture, money = shows of love and affection.
You can call it materialistic, shallow.. whatever. But it’s the only way they’ve been able to see who loves who the most.
That being said, it has a lot to do with shaming and equality in the culture, and making sure that you cover your plate, aren’t cheap, and show that you find it to be an exceptional circumstance to be invited to a wedding to celebrate their special day, and should appropriately gift with the proper amount to show your love for the couple.
I wouldn’t give $500 or $1000 a person just to show off, but I’d at least give $50, or if I couldn’t afford $50 a person AND a flight ticket, I wouldn’t go. I just wouldn’t. I’d send a card and $20 instead saying I am sorry I couldn’t make it but that I was happy they invited me. Or I’d take the $20 and buy items to MAKE something and spend the effort in creating something to give to them so they wouldn’t be able to say it was a cheap $20 gift, because the time and effort put into utilizing that $20 the most is something that would matter to ME, versus a gift cards.
No gifts at all is the biggest slap in the face – I can’t believe LAL and her DH experienced that. I’d be pretty f*cking pissed… some people take these things for granted.
I think your friend is right. Different generations, different backgrounds, cultures.. and the fact that we all don’t think the same, and I felt it very unfair (and stood up for Dog a lot) when she got slammed for saying it was cheap. I saw where she was coming from, but others just said she was being materialistic without taking into account the whole perspective of where she was coming from when she said that.
Personally, I DO think $20 for a family of 4 is a cheap gift. I do. I would have at least given $100, or $20/head. And for the weddings I go to, I give them very thoughtful, beautiful gifts (like silk albums that matched their wedding colours) or at least $50/head if they requested cash.
However, it is not as bad as NO GIFT at all, like LAL said. THAT, is worse, and sort of an unspeakable deed.
All very good points :)
I think often, it’s not the gift per se, but the underlying message, kind of like LAL said. My husband went all out for his best friend’s wedding. He felt that, as the best man, he should throw a big stag party (which was expensive and time-consuming to organize), take time off before the wedding and travel to the city where the wedding took place to lend a hand(when he worked contract, and didn’t get paid if he didn’t work) and buy an expensive gift. When his best friend was his best man, he didn’t both to organize anything for the stag, and didn’t give us a gift. He explained that he had an emergency with his car, and couldn’t afford to bring the gift to the wedding, but said it would be forthcoming after his next paycheque. He made a big fuss about how great it was and then it never came. My husband was really hurt because his friend didn’t prioritize him in terms of time or effort. I really don’t think it was the money, it was that he couldn’t be bothered to organize a stag or follow through on his big promises. We’ve been married almost 8 years, and my husband still bristles at the subject of wedding gifts for this reason.
That’s not what I said.
I said you should cover your plate or, if you can’t afford it, DO/BUY SOMETHING THOUGHTFUL. The $20 used for the gift card could have been something thoughtful.
To actually engage this topic, it’s not fair to compare birthday gifts to (first) wedding gifts. Wedding gifts are special, one in a lifetime things. People remember them years later. Heck, people on my blog remembered cheap gifts 25 years later!
A wedding gift means something. For starters, they just shelled out money to food/booze you at the wedding. A wedding gift also reflects your well-wishes, your feelings about the couple. That’s why it would be very hard not to take a pack of Wal-Mart underwear personally.
I got a lot of practically free gifts that I cherish — art, a poem, an album of old photos. But it’s still hard for me to imagine a universe where $20 gift cards are OK for weddings. I would never show up to a wedding with one. Heck, I would never send one to a wedding I skipped.
I try to avoid being cheap when I’m the giver.
But when I’m the receiver, I don’t really care. When I got married, I was happy to have friends there to share the occassion. Some of the friends were people I see less than once a year. It was nice that they decided to give us gifts, but it they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had any negative feels toward them – it was just great to have them at the wedding. I have always considered gift giving to be a completely voluntary act, and not tied to anything else.
I was actually pretty stunned at the gifts from some guests – they weren’t $500 gifts or anything, but in comparison to income, they were very generous.
I’m also a bit “it’s the thought that counts” person. One of my all time favorite Christmas gifts were personalized address labels from my parents one Christmas (no, that wasn’t the main gift). I had just graduated from college, and it just hadn’t occurred to me that I could avoid tedious writing with address labels. A good book is also something I greatly enjoy.
I think you misinterpreted what Dog was saying. It wasn’t about the dollar value of the gift, but the personal investment in it.
She was looking for thoughtfulness and consideration, not just a whack of cash.
I’m sure we’ve all gotten some pretty amazing gifts over the years. Some were probably expensive, and others probably didn’t cost anything at all. (My examples would be a pair of diamond earrings [expensive] and a set of shed deer antlers found in the woods [free])
What makes those cheap AND expensive gifts the best? The thought behind them!
I would be just as offended if someone gave me a gift that cost thousands of dollars but had absolutely no thought put behind it. I think this is the heart of the matter.
“Cheap” is just a catch-all phrase that most of us default to. I don’t think any of us that are referring to “cheap gifts” use the word strictly to denote dollar value.
I hate giving cash — especially for wedding gifts. I tend to NOT get gifts off of the couple’s registry because I don’t want them to know how much I spent on the gift — especially if they are close friends. I have found great items on sale and things that are thoughtful that have saved me money. For instance — I hand embroidered a set of pillowcases for a friend for one wedding. I have also created a “basket of goodies” like wine, jams, etc. from Maine for people who don’t live here. They love that stuff. You can’t put a price on a homemade gift because it takes time and effort — and usually (if you’re MY friends and family) you appreciate it more anyway!
Coming from a different culture where a small wedding means 500+ guests and a large wedding means 2000+ guests, I have a different take on wedding gifts. If everyone came with a gift for these weddings where would you put hundreds of gifts, you would need a separate room just to accommodate these.
To deal with this we specifically mentioned on our wedding invitations “Not to bring any gifts”. That worked out very well as we received only about 10-15 gifts.
I commented on this on Dog’s blog and I am still surprised at the negative comments she received. I honestly have NEVER heard of a person giving a giftcard for a wedding present, it makes me wonder if they regifted the giftcard. In my neck of the woods, giftcards are only acceptable at showers and even then ONLY if the bride is registered at the store.
Tina
p.s I enjoy your blog, lots of info!
I think it depends on the social norms. At any Chinese-style wedding thrown for a Chinese couple (even in America!), guests are usually expected to bring cash as a gift, enough to cover the cost of the dinner banquet ($50-$100 per person is the standard). If the guests can’t afford it, they send some cash as a “best wishes” type of thing, but don’t show up for the dinner.
If a guest is non-Chinese (a white coworker, for example), it’s different. No one thinks the non-Chinese guest is cheap if they don’t bring any cash, because they are from a different culture, and don’t understand the “customs”.
They DO care if it’s a Chinese guest who does that, because the Chinese guest should know better.
Re my comment about the Chinese weddings – I should add that guests aren’t expected to bring more than then standard $50 unless they are really close friends to the family. If you’re some friend of a friend, and you put in more than the standard, that’s considered weird and somewhat tacky (as in, the automatic assumption would be that you want something from the parents/newlyweds, and are trying to buy your way in).
Tina’s comment really surprised me – around these parts gift cards are more common than actual gifts now days for any occasion – weddings, birthdays, you name it. As one who was married, I got plenty of gift cards. I loved it because it meant I could pick out something to our tastes. Sometimes when people go off registry they mean well, but they get items that just can’t be used. Those turn into the equivalent of big, bulky gift cards.
I’ve heard the saying before that a wedding a gift should cover the cost of the plate. But… how do you know?? Seriously, for example, my wedding was catered by a very high end restaurant, but because we had it in a small beautiful annex off the back and we went with all appetizers and small plate items – including the cake, we were able to set our budget at around $20 a head. (I’ve been told it was the best reception food some folks had ever had, so in this case it paid to let the chef have a free hand.) If you ate at this restaurant though, you would expect it to be $50. On the other hand, I know many “banquet rooms” (with all that implies) around here charge twice that, but the meal may seem more like $9.95. How can you possibly plan on that ahead of time without asking, and that seems rude.
Personally, I appreciated all the gifts I got – the handmade ones, the small gift cards… even the gifts I ended up having to return. I could see how in the examples above, where someone put a lot into someone else’s wedding then were shafted in return, how that would be frustrating though!
What a great subject to stir up. Personally, I feel that if you are going to gauge the “cheapness” of a gift from a certain individual, you need to take into account their overall financial situation. A $25 gift from a younger attending guest is certainly not cheap. Where as a $25 gift from a well-established professional couple could kind of tilt the tables in that direction. Either way, people should just be appreciative that they are receiving any gifts at all!
A gift is a gift. If someone is inviting me to their wedding to help recoup some money they spent on their own party then I’d just as soon not go. I mean, I’m inviting you to an important event in my life, isn’t you just showing up and maybe a card with well wishes really all I should want? Call me naive but a gift is by definition something without obligation.