Be original: give cash for Christmas!

Are you looking at the calendar in horror and wondering how in the world you’re going to manage to get all your Christmas shopping between the year-end wrapping up at work, the scheduled happy hours and sea of consumers hijacking the local mall? You might be tempted to resort to the usual gift card: a quick and easy fix that shows you vaguely know what a person likes while also being generous (books on Amazon, clothes from Gap or years’ worth of Starbucks coffee maybe?). But is a gift card truly a good idea?

Cassie Werber, writing for Quartz, doesn’t think so. She says that gift cards are not only a waste of moneyFrom the Latin word moneta, nickname that was given by Romans to the goddess Juno because there was a minting workshop next to her temple. Money is any item that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular region, country or socio-economic context. Its onset dates back to the origins of humanity and its physical representation has taken on very varied forms until the appearance of metal coins. The banknote, a typical representati... More given that “a vast proportion of the value that’s given is never spent by recipients because they forget to use them, lose them, or because the cards go out of dateThe year in which a medal or coin was minted. On a banknote, the date is usually the year in which the issuance of that banknote - not its printing or entering into circulation - was formally authorised. More”. In fact, in the US alone, $1 billion are lost each year due to unspent cards. Isn’t that good for retailers though? Contrary to intuition, unspent dollars are actually a problem for shopowners because they have to count that money as liability and not as income (you never know when the cardholder will show up to redeem his money). There is another advantage to a redeemed gift card: consumers simply spend more.

But in an era where we all worry about our impact on the environment and the looming threats of climate changeThis is the action by which certain banknotes and/or coins are exchanged for the same amount in banknotes/coins of a different face value, or unit value. See Exchange. More, there are other advantages to offering cashMoney in physical form such as banknotes and coins. More for the holidays.

There’s a strong environmental argument to giving cash:

• When you give cash, there’s not need to wrap the gift in extravagant paperSee Banknote paper. More or boxes, you can easily slip it into a Christmas card
• If the person doesn’t need your gift, the resources used to manufacture it (only for it to collect dust for a few years in the basement before being thrown in a dumpster) are much higher than simply giving cash – which can be used anywhere to purchase something the receiver really. And I hate to say this, but you might actually be doing the person a favor by saving him the embarrassment of acting like he’s happy with the gift.
• With the exponential growth of online shopping – and the negative impact shipping has on the environment – your cash gift will actually make the postman’s truck lighter, and the environment happier.

There is definitely a negative stamina associated to cash gifts in the Western hemisphere. “The gifting of money between peers is seen as somehow distasteful and embarrassing in the West. Gift cards are a socially acceptable alternative,” writes Cassie. But in other cultures it’s completely normal and even expected given the circumstance, like in China during a wedding or in India for a birthday or Diwali.

Still not convinced? You think that it’s not aesthetic to give a wad of cash? Be creative! There are many fun ways to give cash as a gift beyond the usual HallmarkOfficial mark struck on items made of precious metals, such as platinum, gold, silver and in some nations, palladium, mostly to certify the content. In a more general sense, the term hallmark can also be used to refer to any distinguishing characteristic. More card – it could start from stuffing some bills into a Christmas decoration or concealing it in a box of chocolates!

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