[jbm]

On a side note, I've come around on cash gifts. I used to think they were gross, as they seemed to put a number on a relationship.

However, life is short and I would much rather give my kids 20-40 bucks to gift to a friend than go shopping for a toy. Moreover, I'd rather get something I wanted instead of 10 things I didn't really want; cash presents make that possible.

[account42]

As a kid I preferred cash gifts because it meant I could buy the things I actually want. As an adult I have enough disposable income that 20-40 bucks does not make a meaningful difference to what I can buy - I much prefer getting an item that I didn't think about buying, something that the giver has invested time into creating/slecting or that has some other personal meaning.

Of course that doesn't work out for situations where people just buy a random item as a token gift because they (feel they) are expected to provide one. In that situation the best solution is to remove that expectation - if nothing else works by forbidding gifts.

Or to sum it up: I think cash gifts only make sense if the amount is menaingful for the receiver and they are not expected to just gift the same amount back (i.e. the relationship is asymmetric in terms of gift transfer).