On Accepting Gifts
In the last week or so, my fiancé and I have been been presented by two very generous gifts from friends. Only one of which we were half excpecting. Regardless, we are struggling to come to terms with actually accepting them. It would appear that despite our financial state, we would like to think that we should be better people if we did not accept our friends and family’s generous offers.
After spending much of our lives working things out on our own, we have been blown away by the magnitude of the gifts. At the same time, we feel guilty and disinclined to accept. We may not be in the best of financial situations given our geographic location and local cost of living, but we know we are doing well. Better than most of my family in fact.
The first gift was from a college roommate. He managed to overhear some of our complaints about getting lost on several short car trips in the last month or so, and a week later, he showed up with a preemptive wedding gift, a top of the line GPS unit.
After all of the bells and whistles he purchased to go along with it, the thing must have cost him a solid $1,000. My fiancé couldn’t resist looking up the full and fair market value after he had left. She is good at that sort of thing.
The second gift was a check for $2,000 from my soon to be mother-in-law. On top of that, she considered it a donation to the wedding and will be providing an actual wedding gift as well. My fiancé tried not to accept the check, but her mother managed to escape with it sitting on our kitchen table.
To Accept or Not to Accept
We had fewer issues accepting the GPS unit from our college friend than the $2,000 from family. Although, it was kinda hard to since he had already unwrapped it, activated it, and pre-loaded maps for us.
From family, it is a bit harder. My fiancé has a very good grasp on her parents finances. She knows that this gift is a very generous one for them. We would not want to put them in a poor situation from giving us too large a wedding present.
If it were only me, I would accept both with a good heaping of gratitude. Virtually every single one of our friends had some particular advantage starting out their wedded lives. I’ve talked about being green with envy in an earlier post. So when, finally, a family member bestows an advantage on us, even if it is only money, we should be willing to accept it with open arms.
No-one in our family is a real estate broker to help us buy our first house. We have no handy-men who are willing to put in time to fix things around our apartment or (hopefully soon) new house.
But people do have money. And it is their form of saying they care when they give those gifts. If they had other services to give, I am sure they would. For us to refuse them in any way is arrogant and distasteful. It tells them that we are better than them and that we don’t need or want their help.
That’s not the case. We should accept whatever help we are offered. We are not pandering or begging for cash. I would like to make it a point not to get in the way of generous people. I am sure that it makes them feel as good to give the gift as we should to receive it.