Why do we buy presents?

We received our Riverford box this week and the message from Guy was about waste veg.  Having been responsible for the waste contract of a large restaurant and pub chain I’m always interested in what’s next and how we can reduce waste as it’s scary what volume is thrown away on a regular basis.

This then got me thinking about gifts (tenuous link I know) and how gifts can be wasted.  Why do we buy gifts?

It’s Easter which means chocolate.  I know Easter doesn’t mean just chocolate but unfortunately that’s the first thing that the commercialised world thinks about.  Back in the day I was given a CD from someone instead of chocolate and now my tiny human is given cash.  Don’t get me wrong, this is lovely but how has it got to this, why do we feel the need to buy presents.

Birthdays and Christmas are difficult.  How often do you get too close to the date and panic about what to buy people.  There are some people who you will find easy to buy for – everyone thinks they are easy to buy for but they are wrong, some of the time anyway!

When you have that panic, what do you buy?  How much thought goes into it? Maybe you resort to a voucher?  To me a voucher is a bit last minute and to some of my friends, thoughtless but just think you can literally buy anything with an Amazon voucher and when I say anything, something you actually want.

This is the problem with gifts, some of them become clutter straight away in your home.  I’m not ungrateful but, think back to what gifts you have received which you don’t like or have never used.  I come across this so often when working with someone, they want to keep something just because they were given it – they don’t even like it but feel guilty about throwing it away.

My suggestion to this is to try and sell said item and use the money to buy something you love then, there’s less guilt as technically they have bought you something you would use and enjoy and you have less clutter in your home.

My advice to the gift buyer, if you’re not sure what to buy someone should you be buying them a present?  Controversial question?  Not really.  When I spend time with my friends and talk to them – face to face or facetime to facetime I get an understanding of where they are, what they’re up to and what they need.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not the perfect gift buyer (I’m envious of those people) but I like to buy people what I think would be useful to them.  If you’re buying for the sake of buying then would a card or other gesture be fine instead?  What would you like to receive?

Alternatively, buy someone an experience.  We’ve started this in our family and we are off gliding in the Summer – when would you have ever done that?!