money management

Give the gift of experience

Gift Giving Just Around the Corner:-)This year, The Hubby and I are trying something different for our gift giving: whenever we can, we’re going to try to give people the gift of an experience instead of just another piece of stuff that will clutter up their house.

Ever since we realize how many toys our niece and nephew get that they’ll never really appreciate, we realized that we’re the same way with adults on holidays and birthdays. We try to show how much we care about people by giving them things, when sometimes the best gift you can give is a memory or an experience they’ll always be able to treasure.

So, we’ve been trying to brainstorm some experiences we can give to the different people on our shopping lists, and so far, we’ve came up with the following:

  • A massage or spa package.
  • A mani/pedi gift certificate.
  • Tickets to a musical playing in our city.
  • Tickets to a local football or baseball game.
  • A movie and dinner gift certificate bundle.
  • Cooking lessons.
  • A wine tasting trip.
  • Cookie kits or hot cocoa kits, where you put all the ingredients into a mason jar with a cute spoon.
  • I.O.U.’s for a few nights of babysitting so new parents can have some alone time.
  • Skydiving lessons. (We have some adventurous friends!)
  • Certificates to a local photo studio so our families can finally update those family photos that show us all 10 years ago. (Good thing my family doesn’t know about this blog!) 🙂

Have you given (or received) a great experience before? What other suggestions would you add to the list?

 

~Heart,

Em

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photo credit: Kasia

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3 Comments

  • I love the idea of experiences instead of “stuff” but boy are some of these gifts expensive! It’s always a challenge to find experience gifts that are great but not $$$$. 🙁

    Some inexpensive ideas I can think of: Paying for a friend’s skate rental/hot chocolate to go ice skating together, books/cookbooks (that is sort of an experience gift), taking someone bowling or mini golfing, offering to spend an afternoon helping someone with a home or personal project.

  • Those are great ideas but pricey if you have several to give to. I always like the idea of giving experiences like “Homemade Cookie Bake Time Together”, etc. or taking kids to places that the parents are often too busy to take them. If you live near a bigger city, its fun to find the ‘well kept secrets’ of the city especially with the help of the internet. I also gave my dad a few “tickets” to go places with our family that he had not been to in years…botanical garden, nearby grotto, blueberry farm, etc. And dated them at different times of the updoming year.

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