Re-gifting: Yay or Nea?

A little mini-trend I've noticed: stories saying it's okay to save money and reduce the clutter in your house by regifting.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term: "regifting" is when you take a gift you received but didn't like, rewrap it, and pass it on on to someone else. Proponents cite its convenience; economists thrill to its efficiency:

Six in 10 people between the ages of 25 and 34 report they have regifted before and plan to regift in the future, according to the Tassimo survey. Nearly three-quarters say they regifted because they felt the item was perfect for the new recipient. Three in 10 say they lacked money to buy a gift or simply ran out of time. The survey, conducted in early August, interviewed 1,505 U.S. adults ages 25 to 55.

Regifting serves to make gift-giving -- a highly inefficient custom, economists say -- a little more economical. "People choose the wrong things for gifts. From the recipient standpoint, gift-giving is a terrible way to allocate resources," says Joel Waldfogel, chairman of the Business and Public Policy Department at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

-- "Regifting: a Scrooge Move No More," WSJ, Dec 19, 06

Personal-finance types laud it as a smart budget-saving move:

The fact is more people are finding regifting an acceptable practice, according to a survey by Money Management International, a consumer credit counseling agency ... and only a third do it to save money ...

"When done carefully, regifting, combined with other saving strategies, can help keep spending under control," said Cate Williams, vice president of financial literacy for MMI.

-- "The Do's and Don'ts of Regifting," WaPo, Dec 17, 06

And apparently, regifting is no longer considered rude: according to "As Regifting Catches On, Some New Websites Make It Easier to Do" (Marketwatch, Jan 3, 07). Emily Post now has rules online for how to do it.

What was interesting about all three articles was how they all, at one point, cited surveys that found more people re-gifting. It's sort of the "everyone's doing it, so it's now okay!" premise. What's also interesting: not a whole lot of feedback from the recipients of regifts.

What do y'all think of regifting? Do you have rules for when it's okay? Have you been on the other end of regifting?

Comments

[Amanda]

I don't regift because I certainly do not have room in my apartment for a "re-gifting closet" as the WaPo author does. But, beyond that, I don't get enough trinkets nor have opportunity to give trinkets for it to matter much. In previous years my mother-in-law has showered my husband and I with gifts at Christmas (she's very into quantity) but the items which I did not want to hold on to, I either returned or donated. And, actually, it has felt pretty good in the past to take to a homeless shelter bags of brand new clothes with the tags still on. Her excess is someone else's good luck.

I guess I don't really have a problem with re-gifting. However, I find it somewhat unlikely that a gift intended for one recipient can work for another, unless neither gifts were well thought-out in the first place.

[Roger]

Oh, wow. I completely misread your summary the first time through. I read, "stores saying it's okay to save money..." And I'm thinking to myself, "Stores? Wouldn't they want you to buy new instead?" Oops.

Anyway, regardless of the press (and when have I ever let the press rule my opinions?), I'm still deadset against it. It's not that I'm against the regifting part, per se, but the fact that people are giving each other useless or unwanted gifts in the first place. C'mon people - don't give gifts simply because you're expected to. Regardless of their cries of economic doom if we don't all spend, spend, spend, and because it's our patriotic duty, and similar tripe, we really don't need to feed the retail machine with frivolous purchases. They'll survive just fine without us. Give people things they really want and can use, or just plain abstain altogether.

Ok, I lie. I do let the press determine my opinions somewhat. If they're all gung-ho about something, I'm generally absolutely against it - or vice-versa - contrary curmudgeon that I am.

[Uh, Not William Safire But Clearly That's Not Stopping Me]

I am abstaining on the vote, but I do think that it's tacky that Michelle Singletary in the WaPo article not only didn't cite the coinage of "regift" as a verb -- which was a Seinfeld episode -- and instead allows the implication to ride that the term has simply been around forever.

And, she also calls the item itself a "regift," as a noun, which is double-tacky. It's still a gift. What's being discussed is the practice; whether it's appropriate to give the item itself a name that reflects a lesser value is up to the recipient, not a journalist.

Unless she's trying to coin, which would be quite ironic.

[Polly]

I have regifted, and I have been the delighted recipient of gifts I knew full were regifted. It is 100% OK with me--usually it happens because a friend is complaining about an inappropriate gift, and I say, "Oooooh! I've always wanted THAT!!" and lo and behold, it is mine come Christmas or a birthday. Works great for me. As my friends will testify, I am actually more likely to get upset if they received something they know I want badly, and then they don't regift it but instead just get rid of it somehow.

I will also point out that an open mind regarding regifting make receiving inappropriate gifts a lot easier. For example, this Christmas someone gave me a book that I have already read. No problemo--I'll just make sure it doesn't get dirty, and it will wind up in the birthday presents of someone who I know hasn't read it yet and will like it. Sometimes a good chunk of my delight in receiving a gift is because I know exactly who I'm going to give it to.

[kip]

If I receive a gift that isn't right for me but is exactly what someone else wants or needs, I just pass it on to them -- I don't save it up to give to that person as a formal "gift". In my mind, if I am going to give a gift to someone, part of it is thinking about that person and then expending some effort or expense on their behalf. A true "regift" doesn't satisfy that requirement for me, but I am more than happy to pass on unwanted stuff that someone else can get some use from.

[Sheila]

I'm with Kip -- if I think someone else might want something, I'll tell them I got one but it doesn't work for me because [whatever] and have they any interest in it. And clothes I just take to Goodwill, as I can't imagine the "I would never wear this in my lifetime, but it seems like it fits right in with your taste!" conversation. But I would feel weird and guilty giving someone a present that I had only because someone else gave it to me and I found it undesirable and it was sitting there unused.

...Except that, for some reason, wine is an exception to this rule for me, at least sometimes. I won't bring wine to a party that I actually want to drink my ownself, because I know I won't get much of it, if any, and who knows if I can find it again. (Oregon wineries are small and the wines tend to have a correspondingly small window of availability.) So if it's for a big, crowded party, I will sometimes bring wines we've already got that I'm not particularly craving...which tend, of course, to be wines that other people have given us. And if those wines themselves were already regifts, it actually wouldn't bother me a bit. I don't know why i have this weird special rule with wine and parties, but I just do.

[Polly]

I would argue that there is a certain level of effort involved in regifting. I (and apparently most regifters, if those surveys are to be trusted) don't just blindly regift--it's a matter of matching the gift to the person. If I can't do that, or if the gift is really just crap, then I dispose of the gift.

But I don't hold it against a potential gift that I didn't spend all kinds of time and money to get it, because that sort of effort can't actually be perceived by the recipient. If you have a thing for cashmere, and I give you a cashmere sweater in your size and color, it's not going to make a lick of difference to you if I paid full price for it, picked it off the clearance rack, or got it from my Auntie Mel last year. Sure, I'll know the difference, but it's not about me, is it?

[Alexandra]

I don't mind the thought of re-gifting. I don't think I have done it yet, but if the opportunity presented itself I might. I would only find it acceptable if it was done discreetly, with a kind of "six degrees of separation" thought to the connection between the original giver and the final recipient.

[Amy D]

I pretty much do what Kip does--if I get something I won't use, I think of who might like it and give it to them immediately, or if I can't think of anyone who would like it, I take it to Goodwill. Where I differ from Kip, though, is that I don't have a philosophy about what a gift should be. I regift immediately because I don't want crap piling up in my house, not because I think a birthday gift should be something I've chosen myself for a specific person.

The only thing I keep around, like Sheila, is wine. Most wine that's ever in my house is wine that was given to me, and if I don't drink it right away, it goes with me to the next party I'm invited to.

[drunken monkey]

I'm with Kip too -- if I get something and truly think that it's not right for me but perfect for someone I know, I'll usually just give it to them. It's still a gift, but feels a little better, to me, than saving it for a formal gift-giving occasion as a money-saving measure. That doesn't make a lot of sense, when I think about it -- if it's an unused item and the recipient will like it either way, what's the difference?

I can't really think of many times I've done that though; often a "bad" gift -- and in my books, almost all gifts are at least a little bit good, because they're gifts -- is one that was given with absolutely no thought. My friend isn't going to like heinous-smelling bath salts any more than I do, most likely. Do many people really get that many regiftable gifts -- gifts that somebody they know will truly appreciate -- that they require an entire closet to store them? I doubt it.

(Full disclosure: For Christmas, I gave my mother an iPod Shuffle. She has wanted one for some time. I got it from a friend who received it from her employer for free but didn't need it; I traded her a bottle of wine for it. I feel a little guilty about it, even though the iPod was never used and still in its box, I wouldn't have been able to afford to get her one otherwise and Mom loves it.)

I found the reference to gift-giving as inefficient kind of depressing. Of course it's financially inefficient to spend money on something for someone else when you could be putting that cash against your debt or in a savings account, but that doesn't mean there's no value in it. I love getting people gifts -- find that one thing that will be perfect for them. Knowing I've found something that will please somebody I care about is "worth" the money I've spent on it.

[Brona]

I've been on the receiving end of some truly rotten re-gifts, mostly from the same acquaintance: things like a digital-clock-pen where you couldn't set the time, or bath products that were dusty from sitting on a shelf somewhere. Of course, they were such good conversation starters that they did have a kind of value.

Having said that, I have no problem with the idea of re-gifting, as long as the gift would be received with pleasure.

[Bureinato]

I’m in the it’s ok to re-gift in limited ways camp. For example, the big office xmas party gift swap is designed for regifting that weird something.

If I receive something that I think a friend would like, I call them up and ask if they want it. If they do, I give it to them the next time I see them. It’s not wrapped, and it’s not an official gift.

But I’ve been on the receiving end of weird re-gifting. No, I do not have any use for a dated hallmark ornament from 3 years ago. That went straight to goodwill where it belonged in the 1st place. I was irked at the time, but now I think of it as less clutter in my house.

This year my friends in town all jumped on the shopping from our storage areas bandwagon. I did give a friend w/ a toddler a doll cradle that my grandfather built for my mother. Mom played with it, I played with it, I’m never having kids, so it’s time it went to a little girl’s home to be played with. We gave each other cookbooks we don’t use, but thought the other person might. We did think about it, and we did discuss beforehand what we were doing.

[Amy D]

I forgot to mention this fun regifting we just did in my bookclub. The person whose book suggestion we took for last month got regifted a picnic backpack. Next month, I have promised to bring my brand new 1000-piece New York City jigsaw puzzle as the book-chooser reward.

[hannah]

I'm with Kip, too. I gladly pass on duplicate or not-for-me gifts as pass-alongs- in which case I will say, "Hey, I got two of these, would you like one?" or "I know you love so and so, do you have their latest CD?" But I feel weird passing along extra stuff as a gift.

[Maggie]

I don't know that I've ever been the recipient of a re-gift. I couldn't tell, anyhow. And the closest I've ever come to regifting has been to reuse a gift basket for someone else. I put all new stuff in it and everything.

Oh-- there was the gag Xmas gift I got for my boyfriend that was a re-gift. It was a weird photo of myself in a totally cat-lady frame that I had never used. (I'd shown it to him before.) But I got him a couple of serious gifts too.

[Julie]

Now that I have kids, I do a lot of regifting of duplicate gifts they receive. The way I figure it, what difference does it make if I return the duplicate Dora game to Toys R Us, get the $15 back, then a month later go back to buy a Dora game for one of my toddler's friends? I don't see it as scamming the recipient--in fact, I only pass a gift along if I know they'll like it.

Regifting is only taboo when someone is blatantly just trying to get rid of some crap they don't want. In that case, they need to discover eBay.

[Jen]

I'm generally with Kip. This Christmas, I received a cool book with all these adventure trip ideas from around the world. Very interesting, but I think it's safe to say that I'll never go running naked in Antarctic or on a 300-mile bike race in Morocco. So I'm trying to think of someone who might actually use it. They'll know where it came from, but hey, it's still a cool book, and out of the blue at that.

I have done straight out regifting though, at Christmas parties. The best year for this, I was subbed out to another company, and we had a weeklong Secret Santa thing, with planted $1 and $2 gifts daily during the week, and then a $20 gift on Friday. Lucky me, my final gift was a beige sweater, sequined in silver and gold Christmas tree decorations. And matching earrings. My actual company had their Christmas party that afternoon, and I had totally forgot to get a gift for the exchange, so I put the sweater and earrings in. A grumpy coworker ended up with it, and was quite put out. But then his wife apparently loved it, so yay! I, in return, ended up with a coffee-table book of American National Parks from the 1970s. You know, with all the weird printing and slightly lurid colours? Well, all was not lost - a few days later, I was home for the family gift exchange. The book ended up with a cousin's new wife, who realized the pages were also textured and she thought that was very, very cool. And I got a $5 gift certificate to Tim Horton's. A successful season!