Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/14/money-saving-gifts-make-recipi.html
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I’ve been given starbucks gift cards throughout the years. Never used one for coffee. I know you’re stressed about your wallet being utilitarian and thin, here’s a stack of 12 plastic cards you’ll never use to fatten it up a bit.
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In summary, there are more ungrateful choosing beggars in the world than we initially thought. Cool.
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Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it seems this is a measure of inherent bias.
We stigmatize poverty, so calling attention to a person’s financial needs as motivation for a gift to them is subtly putting them down.
But we admire industriousness, and being constantly “busy” is a proxy metric. So calling attention to a person’s chronic lack of free time is subtly boosting them.
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“Gift card saves you time” makes not a lick of sense to me.
How is swiping a gift card to pay more of a time-saver than swiping a credit card?
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Seems that way to me, too.
And I didn’t read the full study, but even from the snippets I did read I think the line about people “hating” gifts intended to save them money is a bit overblown. Having “more negative feelings” does not equal hate.
Also, who the hell is giving out $5 Starbucks gift cards? That’s, what, part of a latte nowadays? And it uses a new piece of plastic? Just give me the $5 already, no strings attached.
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Yeah, agreed, $5 doesn’t go very far at $tarbucks.
Probably the people doing the study were cutting their costs by giving the cheapest possible gift card.
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Oh, now. If you gave someone a weight-loss plan they hadn’t asked for? If you gave them an IQ-raising game? There are lots of ways to use gifts to make people feel bad. I would think anyone who has had a family would know that. There’s always one member who specializes in the feel-bad gift. This is just another kind.
The prime example in my family, was my sister who, at the age of about 12, asked for a guitar for Christmas (this was 1962, the Age of Folk Guitar). My father gave her a PLASTIC TOY GUITAR. She fled the room in tears. Was she ungrateful? I would argue he was thoughtless. He made up for it the week after with a perfectly nice used real guitar.
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I think by saving you the trouble of brewing your own coffee? But I can’t imagine that taking longer then standing in line at the Starbucks.
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Exactly. And chances are, given current prices, that $5 gift card requires you to swipe the gift card AND a credit card.
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Right? Being surprised at this seems like being surprised that people felt more negatively about a gift of perfume when the tag said “here is something to hide your stink with.” That’s sad though. Ugh…
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A gift card saves the giver time. I generally hate giving gift cards, unless I know that my friend/relative is addicted to a particular consumerist shrine. If I receive gift cards I often find myself donating them.
Going with someone and enjoying a coffee with them is entirely different than giving them a gift card and saying enjoy a coffee on me.
That said, I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way. We need to gift everyone for every occasion as a matter of course it seems - your kid’s swim instructor, the boss, your second cousin once removed. The gift card has helped to create and fill this niche. They call us a gift-giving culture now, but I’m not sure this is what the ancestors had in mind.
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I had a slightly different take: A $5 Starbucks card does nothing to solve financial problems, so having your attention focused on your financial problems outweighs the joy of the free coffee.
On the other hand, there is a connection between coffee and more time, in that coffee makes you more productive/keeps you awake. So, the gift actually addresses the problem it highlights.
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Someone trying to stay under the dollar limits for giving a gift to a federal employee?
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That’s not really news.
Prior to the 2008 crash marketers had identified time poverty as a concept, and so affordable luxuries were sold as taking time out (for coffee, or ice cream or whatever). I’m pretty sure Starbucks used to cash in on that.
Personally, I quite like gift cards and sometimes I take them for small jobs in lieu of electronic payment.
If I get paid electronically that money will just disappear on bills, mortgage, tax and all that boring grown-up shiz.
If I get paid in cash, I try to hoard it to buy stuff on the second-hand market (tools, motorcycle parts, stuff like that) so I love cash, I but don’t get a lot of of it.
But if I get paid in gift cards which can be redeemed at most of the stores in retail parks, that’s money that I can spend guilt free on things that I can’t really rationalise spending ‘real’ money on.
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“I think a gift certificate is a bad gift. What’s a gift certificate? You take money that was good everywhere…” - Mitch Hedberg
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So is your sock drawer filling up with unused gift cards?
Give them as tips to the mailman, give to the homeless (they can get a cup and use indoor plumbing), ordrop off at your local food bank.
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I’d like the gift of an article I could read for free (because I’d like to know if the research was well-executed/analyzed and actually fits the conclusion).
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So you’ve already disproved the purported conclusion, because that would save you money, but not time. 
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Who the heck does this?
I see gift cards being used mostly as a tip type thing. Even if we feel it is somewhat of a charity, we would never dream of writing such a thing to go with it. What’s wrong with just writing “enjoy the [whatever it is]!”
If you want to help someone you offer in a way that you know they can accept gracefully. Writing this kind of message with a gift card, you might as well stroll down the street throwing dollars out of a basket yelling “here ya go ya poors!” This is basic adulting 101.
The contrast with how we think about money vs. time though is interesting.
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