First time you give them a gift ask them to guess what it is. All the wrong answers are now gift ideas for next time.
Is it a house? A spaceship?
🎶 It’s the highway maintenance vehicle! 🎶
For friends and family try listen to their problems/annoyances. Usually people tend to complain until they fix it by themselves and if not, it’s your chance to shine.
If you want to contribute something to a hobby, ask first or gift cash. Most of the time the gift will be not needed or already surpassed with better/more expensive gear.
This, combined with another post saying buy something they want but can’t justify spending that much for an x is the best recipe for gift success.
There’s a number of things I want, but I’m like, I dunno if I’d use it $x worth to justify it, so those are the things my GF buys me.
She’s a spender, but she’ll say, dang I could really use an x, but then she forgets about it, but I don’t, so that’s what I get her.
Also, no need really to wait for a birthday or holiday. Just get people stuff if you like them and feel like it. We typically give each other gifts like a month early since the point is to see them enjoy them.
Depends on my relationship with them.
If they are not my close friends or family, something generic like wine, nice tea, chocolate, baby plant is fine.
If they are close to me, I love giving them something I know they can use for their favorite activity or hobbie but never related to their job or school. For example I would not gift my kid something for school, that is a need and not an actual gift.
I ask them to use wishthis.online (FOSS)
Just ask them. Seriously. Don’t overcomplicate things.
That makes for bad gift giving imo because then they could’ve just gone out and bought something for themselves.
Soap
If the person you want to give a gift to is a weightlifter or work out enthusiast, buy them a shirt.
If the shirt is too big, they will be flattered, and if the shirt is too small, they will wear it.
For the last several decades now I have asked my wife or others “guess what I got you for Christmas?” (Birthday or whatever…).
The first thing they guess is the real thing they want as a gift.
To add to what others have said…when you know a little about the person/their likes or dislikes, ChatGPT can be a good starting point. Don’t provide any personal info, but ask if for gift ideas based on the criteria for that person. It might just spark an idea you wouldn’t have thought of. :)
