I mentioned the group gift my husband's siblings are getting my mother in law in another post. Things have changed. The item was to be a media console that looks like a fireplace and is a heater. The picture I was shown and price given initially was $250. Although there are seven siblings total, only five are participating. So that would be around $50 each.
The youngest sibling showed the picture to my mother in law who said it wasn't big enough. There were not enough spaces for her dvd player and cable boxes. Another sibling went looking for other options and found a $400 one. It was decided to ask my husband's mom again if this one would work. It turns out she wants the money so she can shop for one herself.
The question then was how much money the group should give her. In the end it was decided we would give $350 as a group. We had all been willing to put in nearly $90 a piece. This new amount would be $70 each. Of course, this is still above the original $50 we thought we were going in on!
We usually spend $35-40 on my mother in law, so we are spending nearly double our budgeted amount. This comes down to a reason I don't like group gifts. They don't turn out like you expect them to.
Now, I'm not mad at how it turned out. But it does confirm my desire not to participate in the future. I'm not really thrilled that my mother in law requested a large gift and then changed it to cash. I do think she will buy the item and I would guess she will like it. It is so different from my parents who could care less if they get a gift and often tell us we don't need to get them anything. My mother in law is on a fixed income, and usually we get her a bottle of wine, nice soaps or lotions and some quarters for her condo washing machine. Quite a difference, huh?
The other unfortunate outcome of the gift discussion was one sister getting mad at a brother when he was upset about all the group texting. The brother's wife even indicated they had limited texting. The sister was trying to get everyone's advice and do us all a favor in doing the shopping. She felt shut down by their responses. We were later asked to contact the brother to tell them our decision on the gift. This was fine with us and easy in the end because he didn't answer his phone and so we left a message. Just yucky communication between some family members for something that should be enjoyable.
We won't be visiting this side of the family this year, so in the end we are just going to write a check and send a card to my mother in law. It feels a little odd, but if she is happy that will be the most important thing.
Do you think we should have handled the group gift differently? What do you think of someone asking for a gift than changing it to cash?
The Group Gift Revisited
December 15th, 2014 at 02:53 pm
December 15th, 2014 at 04:12 pm 1418659922
December 15th, 2014 at 04:20 pm 1418660441
December 15th, 2014 at 04:26 pm 1418660771
December 15th, 2014 at 06:38 pm 1418668717
If someone asked me for cash rather than the gift I was going to get them I probably wouldn't get them the gift or the cash. If they told me they were having money problems I might do it, but just cash for the sake of cash I wont do.
December 15th, 2014 at 09:28 pm 1418678938
December 15th, 2014 at 10:27 pm 1418682441
December 15th, 2014 at 10:30 pm 1418682620
And requesting cash after someone has hinted at the gift you'll be receiving? That's tacky.
December 15th, 2014 at 10:36 pm 1418682966
December 16th, 2014 at 07:34 pm 1418758456
December 16th, 2014 at 07:39 pm 1418758755
December 17th, 2014 at 12:47 am 1418777266
I hope she gets what she wants after all this trouble!
I do want to say though that I get why the brother/sil with limited texts spoke up about the group messaging. I have definitely seen that people with unlimited texting don't have any/very little concept of how texting - esp group texting - can eat through limited texts super fast. I'm lucky in that my brother and mom both have iPhones, so all our texts don't count against me. If they did ... yikes.