Really resonating with the comments in this thread. Ever since I graduated college and got my first real person job, I have more than enough money to buy what I need and even what I want. Anything else, unless someone manages to come up with something I really like that I wasn't aware existed, is just useless consumerism and likely something that will just sit in my closet collecting dust.
This has in turn made giving physical gifts to other adults very difficult for me; I figure anyone else who isn't living paycheck to paycheck might feel similarly. So I kind of just tend towards experiences and time spending now. I'll take my parents out to dinner at a nice restaurant instead of giving something they don't need. Stuff like that.
Also, unwritten rules like "for X occasion, getting a gift around $Y is the norm" can go get fucked. It's all so tiring. My brother asked me once what I was getting my cousin for her wedding and then got irritated when I told him. Nothing fancy, just a check for a lot more money than he expected. The notion that people do this shit to keep up appearances and play the game instead of because they genuinely love the person and want to help them is so foreign to me.
I am single, so no wife and kids to spend on, and my expenses are low. So in my opinion there's nothing wrong with spending some extra money on family members I love, even if it makes some people butthurt that I'm breaking unwritten rules and making them look bad. I wrote my little cousin a fairly large check and wrote a very heartfelt note to her for her graduation party, and hearing separately from both her and her father that she cried while reading it and her telling me I'm like the brother she never had is worth infinitely more to me than some extra money sitting in a bank account.
I'm only in my late 20s, but I feel like I'm becoming a grumpy old man already. Just consistently frustrated that most people can't seem to get their priorities straight and focus on things that really matter.
Really resonating with the comments in this thread. Ever since I graduated college and got my first real person job, I have more than enough money to buy what I need and even what I want. Anything else, unless someone manages to come up with something I really like that I wasn't aware existed, is just useless consumerism and likely something that will just sit in my closet collecting dust.
This has in turn made giving physical gifts to other adults very difficult for me; I figure anyone else who isn't living paycheck to paycheck might feel similarly. So I kind of just tend towards experiences and time spending now. I'll take my parents out to dinner at a nice restaurant instead of giving something they don't need. Stuff like that.
Also, unwritten rules like "for X occasion, getting a gift around $Y is the norm" can go get fucked. It's all so tiring. My brother asked me once what I was getting my cousin for her wedding and then got irritated when I told him. Nothing fancy, just a check for a lot more money than he expected. The notion that people do this shit to keep up appearances and play the game instead of because they genuinely love the person and want to help them is so foreign to me.
I am single, so no wife and kids to spend on, and my expenses are low. So in my opinion there's nothing wrong with spending some extra money on family members I love, even if it makes some people butthurt that I'm breaking unwritten rules and making them look bad. I wrote my little cousin a fairly large check and wrote a very heartfelt note to her for her graduation party, and hearing separately from both her and her father that she cried while reading it and her telling me I'm like the brother she never had is worth infinitely more to me than some extra money sitting in a bank account.
I'm only in my late 20s, but I feel like I'm becoming a grumpy old man already. Just consistently frustrated that most people can't seem to get their priorities straight and focus on things that really matter.