Gift-giving occasions pop up everywhere, and in an ideal world you’re able to select the perfect gift for the recipient and have it wrapped in a pretty bow just waiting to be opened. But sometimes the gift ends up being cash. This can happen if it’s a last minute gift, if the recipient is hard to shop for, if you know the recipient could use some spending money for an upcoming event/expense, or if it’s just an occasion that lends itself well to cash (like graduation). Regardless of the reason, cash is sometimes the gift you end up with. The question is… how do you make it fun?
- For birthday gifts, my favorite way to make cash fun is to give a dollar per year. Give $6 to a six-year-old, and $48 to a 48-year-old. This is a great rule of thumb to follow for folks of all ages, and fits most people’s spending guidelines. I especially like to give dollar bills to children, because it helps them visualize how many years old they are, and they love having a matching amount of dollars. For an older friend who you want to tease harmlessly about being “over the hill”, a pile of 50 or 60 ones can really bring the point home!
- For graduation gifts, I like to send a check that matches the year of graduation. For example, when my friend’s daughter graduated from high school last year (2006), I wrote her a check for $20.06 to match her graduation year. If you want to give more, depending on your relationship to the graduate, you can expand the gift amount to $120.06 and in the memo line, write “You’re #1 in 2006!”
- For cash gifts that will be invested immediately in a large purchase, trip, or event, try to find a way to make the gift amount match something related to what it will be used for. Think of all the numbers related to the occasion and find a way to match them up to suit your spending limit. Going on a 7-day cruise
to 5 countries? Give $35 (7×5)! Saving up for a 52″ HDTV
? Give $52! Celebrating a 28th wedding anniversary? Give $28 (or if you want to give more, try $56 — “28 years x 2 people”)!
The key here is to turn a practical and “boring” gift of cash into something fun. Remember that you can use the same techniques with gift cards, too. Lots of stores these days offer gift cards
2 comments so far:
My family has taken a whole bunch of bills and taped them together and then rolled them up and stuffed them into a tissue box. This way, you pull one out a time when you need some cash. Ideally you want the binding loose enough to easily remove a bill but strong enough to pull up the rest of the roll.
If you make the first one an actual tissue, you can delay the joke a bit longer for comedic effect.
Rippy, I love that idea! I can see that really being fun for an “over the hill” birthday, as they keep on pulling that long chain of ones out of the box. And a tissue to start it out? Perfect!