George
Now we are a couple of months into twenty twenty-four and the gifting of Christmas is over, the gifting of birthdays has already begun. I have three birthdays to buy gifts for in January and one in February; which is a tall order given that January is always a seven-week month when it comes to managing finances. It isn't like they aren't significant birthdays either as these are for my Dad, Brother, Nana and one of my closest friends. They are also all so incredibly hard to buy for as they are all people that when they see something they like they just buy it. This results in me getting sent links of something specific to buy, like a PSP film, that they just haven't gotten around to purchasing yet. As I was clicking all the links and buying the various gifts for my January and February birthdays I had a thought, is this what they all do for me? I'm an avid reader (shock, I know, as I am a writer) so I normally have a backlog of books that I want and just send them links around my birthday. It suddenly clicked that we were just clicking (pun intended) each other's links and it made me sad to think that gifting had been reduced to this. This is just clicking links and hitting buy instead of thinking about that person's hobbies and interests, and what special item they would enjoy but would never buy themselves.
I can't help but feel that more thought went into gift selection and giving when I was younger. For example, when I was a kid my parents would buy me a video-game that I had said that I liked or a new teddy I'd been cuddling every week in the local toy shop. This was special as they had paid attention to me and what I was taking interest in and reflected this to me via a gift. It also helped me acquire the items I wanted, as I had no money myself yet at the age of eight. When I grew up a bit more this changed slightly as the things I wanted got a bit more expensive. I got my first paycheck at sixteen, but most of that money went on pointless teenage endeavours such as parties and skincare that I had no idea how to do. This meant that larger items of interest to me were definitely out of my teenage budget, so when my Mum surprised me with a leather jacket I'd been looking at for a month for my nineteenth birthday it was incredible. It was like being a kid all over again. This made me realise that I don't expect to receive gifts of that high value now as I'm an adult so can afford items like that and should buy them myself. However, that doesn't change the fact that the feeling of waiting so long for something that seems out of reach and then finally getting it on a special occasion is now absent from my life. So I wondered, how could I change that and get the feeling back?
To get the feeling back I first needed to answer another question. If I wanted a video-game or leather jacket now, how would I get it? I would probably want it, know I could buy it, but then convince myself it wasn't essential and sadly forget about it. Truth be told last year I saw a beautiful pink overcoat that I wanted for one hundred pounds. This is of course far too much to ask for a gift from anyone for me, so there was no point dropping hints about it as my birthday approached. But, as per my statement above, I also couldn't justify spending one hundred pounds on a coat just because I liked it and didn't need it. That is when the answer hit me. Why don't we buy gifts for ourselves?
It is a simple idea really whenever it is a birthday or a holiday that you celebrate, get everyone the gifts that they want and send out the links to the gifts you would like, but also buy something extra for yourself. Something that you have been eyeing up but haven't been able to justify spending the money on. Something that will give you that feeling of finally getting a treat item after wanting it for so long. Something that brings you joy. Just get something. At this point, we do have to discuss the feared term 'affordability.' To this I say, just budget it in. For example, if you have a five hundred pound budget for birthdays in the year, it is now five hundred and fifty. If you can't afford to do this, then just get yourself something silly like a chocolate bar as the feeling and the sentiment will still be there just on a smaller scale. Most importantly remember: it's okay to buy yourself a gift and more of us should.
