You can obviously choose a gift whose price is well publicized, you can inadvertently leave the price tag on or you can overshoot your budget to ensure proper credit but these all suck in their own right.
I for one am not a big birthday gift-giver mainly because I wouldn't want anybody to feel the need to reciprocate and buy me some piece of junk when my birthday comes around. One of the reason's I hate it is because when you buy a gift for an event there always seems to be a lot pressure to get something worthwhile and also to make sure it falls within an acceptable price point.. I have to go through the misery of shopping at some retail store and sift through a ton of junk and deal with endless crowds to try to find something meaningful within a certain price-point Then when that is done comes the perception dilemma, does the crappy gift I bought look as expensive as it is?
Now I am not the kind of Ahole who will try to find a gift which looks expensive when it is not to make me look I was being overly generous but I also don't want to look like I skimped when in fact I spent a pretty penny.
The worst spot though are places where you are expected to spend a certain amount. With weddings for example there is a pretty standard rule-of-thumb which relates your gift to the price of the plate or roughly $125-$150 per head.
Now you know the TOR rule about wedding gifts especially when you stray from the registry so I would never show up to a wedding with a toaster, fridge or a blender but I realize not everybody subscribes to my theory.
The main reason I don't give a store bought gift is because I'm well aware that the couple prefers cash but that isn't the only reason. If you go with the registry gift you will get stuck giving 6 long-stem glasses, a cheese plate and a fish bowl which seems like a gigantic waste of money and if you go off the registry you have a an entirely different issue: Try to find a gift as a couple which is both useful, within budget and looks like you spent $250 on it.
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i keep a list of my guests at my own wedding and what gift they gave me or how much $ they gave me. and then when it's time for their wedding, i go and dig up the list and give the same amount. is that really really tacky or what? cash is so much better than registry gifts. i registered at bloomies and one guy decided to go there and get something really expensive that wasn't even on my registry. it was like some gigantic $400 candle holder that i would never use in my life. i returned it and went on a little shopping spree.
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