Backstory

Over the past few years, my brother has been living with my mom.  He is married, but separated from his wife.  He has also been planning on going forward with a divorce, but has not saved up enough money for an attorney.  He had met with an attorney and discussed his situation and the attorney quoted him how much it would probably cost.  One of mom’s last concerns was for my brother and where he would live once she was gone.  I always tried to reassure her, that he could live there as long as he wanted to, despite what her will said.  I was not going to force him out of the house and neither was my sister.  That seemed to ease her mind some, but I know it was always a concern.

What to do with the house?

As the end began to near for my mom, I discussed mom’s financial affairs with my wife.  We talked about mom’s outstanding bills and how the family would be able to take care of them and what I was thinking with regards to the house.  My initial feelings were that my brother could stay there as long as he wanted and if he wanted to sell the house, that I would not seek to recover any of the proceeds from the sale.  My wife and I are in decent spot financially right now, probably the best I have ever been in.  Now, that does not mean I do not have room for improvement.  It does mean, I am not really living paycheck-to-paycheck.  My other consideration is that I earn more money than my brother, about 2.5 to 3 times more than he does.  My thinking, if my brother was getting a divorce, he would likely have very little left after the divorce.  By foregoing any claims on the house, I could help him out and put him in a better position financially.  My wife was onboard with the idea.  Again, it is not like I could not find uses from the proceeds of the house.  Truth be told, I would pay off my wife’s student loans and probably take a trip with the money.  It is just that I thought the extra money would make a larger difference in my brother’s life than mine.

What has changed?

With all of that said, things maybe changing.  It appears that my brother now may not be getting a divorce after all these years.  Along with that, I am not a fan of his wife.  Am I wrong for dividing up the proceeds of the house if he does go back with his wife?  Should I follow through with my initial intentions and allow him to keep the full proceeds from the house?  I’m torn.

In basic terms, homogamy refers to the mating of like with like, but I like the definition Murray gives in the book:

“…the interbreeding of individuals with like characteristics. Educational homogamy occurs when individuals with similar educations have children. Cognitive homogamy occurs when individuals with similar cognitive ability have children.”

Homogamy, Murray claims, is why it’s tougher than ever to do things like get into a top college or university or land a stellar job; in fact, it’s a major obstacle for climbing the ladder of upward mobility in general.

Murray’s theory goes like this:

The theory of “like attracts like” goes beyond the stereotypical laws of physical attraction. While it’s true that you rarely saw an ugly guy date a hot girl in college, it’s becoming increasingly true that brainiacs date – and ultimately marry – brainiacs. How is this possible? According to Murray, as America’s top schools work overtime to attract the nation’s (and the world’s) best and brightest, those with the highest IQ scores are becoming isolated – at least during the dating and mating years – at elite universities, high-ranking law firms, and other high-profile professional settings.

I can see this in my own life, and in the relationships around me. Most of my friends married people they met in college, grad/professional school, or at work; the result is that their partners are, in most cases, equally as smart as they are, and that they usually have similar interests. My friend Amy was thrilled when she found the perfect guy, who just so happened to be a lawyer and a fan of college basketball, like her; of course, it was a far less surprising match when you consider they met at a law school mixer at a sports bar.

The fact is, you’re probably a product of homogamy yourself – I know I am. My parents, both flower children of the 60s, met on the campus of what was then a very free-thinking, liberal party school. Their union largely determined who I am: as the child of two college-educated parents, it was almost preordained that I too would get at least a bachelor’s degree.

But I think there’s a dark side to homogamy, one that Murray doesn’t mention in his book: boredom. Think about it – while meeting a potential partner with a similar background, similar interests, and similar goals may make for smooth sailing in some respects, it also takes a lot of the excitement out of a relationship. I’d venture to say that some of my biggest personal growth has come from learning about my husband’s upbringing – which was very different than mine – lessons I would have missed out on in a truly homogamous marriage.

Think about your own marriage or (if you’re not married) romantic relationships: do you see the power of homogamy working in them? Was this something of which you were aware, or, like me, is this a new concept to you?

This year’s incorrect 1099 is a different story, though. Instead of severely over-reporting my income, this year a (completely different) contractor grossly under-reported what they’d paid me in 2012. My records showed I’d invoiced the company for about $8800 worth of services, under two different job titles. However, when the company’s accountant put my 1099 together, they only listed my income for one of those two positions. The result was an income of just $3600 listed in Box 7 of my 1099 instead of the full amount.

Why I Almost Didn’t Report The Error

To be completely honest, my first thought was not to report the error to my contractor. After all, they had all the same information I did, and could have come up with the right number. I knew that if I got the mistake fixed, it would mean the difference between a very small refund on my 2012 tax returns and owing the government a couple hundred bucks.

Why I Did Report The Error

Ultimately, though, honesty won out. Honesty and, I must had, my own selfish motives.

My father is a CPA, and has done taxes professionally for my entire life. He’s always taught me that honesty is the best policy, especially when it comes to the IRS. When it came down to it, I wasn’t going to risk what equated to lying on my tax returns in order to save a couple hundred bucks.

My other motive had to do with my family’s financial situation. We’re planning on making a big move this year, and when we do, we’ll have to apply for a new mortgage. As someone who is self-employed, I know that lenders will only count verifiable income when considering my loan application. When I did the math, I realized that the missing $5200 on that erroneous 1099 would take $37,000 away from what we could qualify for on a home loan. That’s a big difference.

Getting The Problem Solved

As I learned last year, getting a mistake on a 1099 fixed is pretty simple. The first step is contacting the finance department of the company with which you’re working and alerting them of the problem. Next, be prepared to show them exactly how much you made. I was able to send them all my invoices for 2012, and pinpoint the exact cause for the discrepancy: the exclusion of the payments I’d received for one of the two jobs I’d done for them. The company accountant looked over everything and let me know my numbers checked out; they emailed me a copy of the corrected 1099 within 24 hours.

Have you ever had an error on one of your tax forms, like a 1099 or a W-2? Did you bother to fix it? Why or why not?

Incoming search terms:

• employment in the 20s

1. When I was a teenager, I worked as a lifeguard for a local recreation center. While basking in the summer sun all day may sound like a dream job, it was far from it. Rather, I spent 10-hours a day sweating in the sun, watching kids (many of whom couldn’t swim a lick) splash around, knowing it was inevitable that I’d eventually have to jump in to pull one of them out. At the time, the federal minimum wage was $5.15.
2. In college, I took a job waitressing in an off-campus restaurant. I made less than minimum wage, thanks to an exemption that allowed my employer to pay me less with the assumption I’d make enough in tips to bring me up to minimum wage. The restaurant was a POS, and we didn’t do a lot of business during my late afternoon shift. I was still making $5.15/hour.

Thankfully, my parents were still supporting me during these employment stints. These part-time jobs were designed to supplement my spending money and give me a sense of the real world and the responsibilities that came with it.

But for some people, minimum wage jobs are a lifeline – a shoddy lifeline, but a lifeline nonetheless. Unfortunately, someone working full-time at minimum wage – which today stands at a federal minimum of $7.25 an hour, although many states and municipalities have mandated higher hourly wages – makes $290 a week; that comes out to just over $15,000 a year.

The poverty line for an individual in 2012 $11,170; for a family of two, it’s $15,130. In other words, a single mother supporting a child on minimum wage is living below the poverty line.

Are you ok with this?

Why doesn’t s/he just get a better job?

This is one of the things I often read when people speak out against increasing the minimum wage. I think this is a snobbish, elitist statement. Just as Rick Santorum once blasted President Obama for publicly saying he wanted every child to be able to attend college – on the basis that not everyone has the chops to do so – neither does everyone have the ability to get a higher-paying job.

On top of that, during the recession, America lost more middle- and high-paying jobs than its gained back in the years since. According to the National Employment Law Project, 79% of the jobs lost during the recession were middle- or high-paying; yet, they represent just 42% of the jobs added to the marketplace since then. Low-paying jobs represented 21% of those lost, but a whopping 58% of new jobs. In other words, someone who lost their well-paying job four years ago might not be able to find a position that pays as well. Their alternative? Take a lower-paying job – at least in the interim – just to get by.

Raising the minimum wage won’t make much of a difference to workers.

Currently, nearly 3.8 million Americans make at or below minimum wage. To them, $7.25 an hour compared to $9 represents a difference of $3600 a year; it pulls a single mother of one above the poverty line. It gives that person more of a cushion to pay for things like adequate food, shelter, and child care; it gives that person more opportunities for growth through things like education and job retraining. What would you do if someone offered you a $3600 annual raise? I don’t think you’d scoff at their offer and say it wouldn’t make a difference to you, your family, or your life.

A minimum wage increase will lead to inflation.

Economists don’t agree on this topic, nor do they agree on another key issue surrounding the minimum wage debate: whether or not it will kill jobs. Whenever you pump more money into the economy, you always run the risk of inflation, but you also create some economic stimulus. The key is establishing that fine line where stimulus turns into inflation.

But if you want to consider inflation, consider this: in 1968, the minimum wage was $1.60/hour. In today’s dollars, that’s equivalent to $10.59/hour, or 46% higher than today’s federal minimum wage. In other words, today’s minimum wage workers are making substantially less than those in equivalent positions were 45 years ago.

So what is the answer?

I’m not an economist, nor am I a politician – I don’t suppose to have all the answers. But I do have an idea that I think might be fair(er) to all involved.

When I was weighing my first job offers in journalism, the difference between the salaries varied greatly from market to market. The differences were tied to the cost of living in these locations. You know the old story – it costs more to live in New York City than it does to live in a rural community.

I think minimum wage should be tied to regional consumer price indexes. Anyone with half a brain knows that $7.25 an hour will take you much, much further in Siler City, North Carolina, than it would in Alexandria, Virginia. The minimum wage shouldn’t be the same for workers in these two locations. Lawmakers in many states and cities have already realized this. In San Francisco, the city raised its minimum wage to $11, reflecting the fact that the city by the bay is one of the most expensive places to live in the country.

Tying the minimum wage to regional CPI would do two things. First, it would eliminate regional discrepancies and create a more even playing field for employers and employees alike. It would also lead to automatic increases in the minimum wage – much like the automatic increases we see in Social Security payments – and eliminate the need for lawmakers to involve themselves in it at all. And any time we can eliminate politicians from decision making these days, the better.

What do you think of my idea? What would you do to alleviate the plight of the working poor in this country?

Incoming search terms:

• minimum wage is like a lifeline for some people

Then you have the parents of “M,” a lifelong friend of mine. He grew up with spendthrifts for parents. On a whim, his father bought a hot air balloon. A later splurge added an in-ground pool to their backyard, which just happened to be so far up north that it was only usable two, maybe three months out of the year.

The third family is my best friend, “J”‘s. To this day, he’s not really sure whether his parents were savers, like mine, or spenders, like M’s. His parents shared precious little about their financial habits with their children.

Of course, I’ll make the argument until I’m blue in the face that my parents’ money lessons gave me the best chances of financial success. They led by example, often bringing me along to the bank or the broker’s office in my teens to show me the importance of having a strong nest egg and diversified portfolio. But the question tonight is, whose parents did them a greater disservice: M’s or J’s?

M’s Finances Today

Today, M’s financial situation is largely the inverse of his parents’ example. He drives a modest car, lives in a modest home, participates in modest hobbies.

On the surface, he may appear to be fairly secure with his finances. He has a big emergency fund, his debt is under control, and his credit score is high. But beneath the surface, I see problems others might not.

Why is M’s emergency fund so large? Because he’s terrified about putting the money elsewhere, so he continues to build his rainy day savings bigger and bigger.

Why is M’s lifestyle so modest? Because he’s afraid to do anything big or bold, for fear of being labeled a spendthrift or living above his means, like his parents.

Instead of living life to its fullest, I’d argue that M is living his life to its smallest. He’s taken what he learned about money from his parents – which, at its core, only represents what not to do – and turned it on its head. He’s doing everything right, but not for the right reasons. Rather, he’s making these choices out of fear.

J’s Finances Today

When I met J, he was clueless about money. Whereas I knew how to handle the onslaught of credit card companies peddling their wares on my college campus – because my parents had prepared me for their presence – J was overwhelmed. M knew not to apply for these cards because he’d seen his parents rack up big debts; J, on the other hand, was eager to take advantage of this “free money.” Why? He simply didn’t know any better.

By the time J was preparing to graduate from college, he’d taken on tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. Terrified by his high balances, he went cold turkey on debt. He used his high-powered career and $80,000 salary to pay down all his credit card and student loan debt in two years. Good for him, right?

Not so fast. After eight years of failing to use a credit card or take on any type of debt – good or bad – he wasn’t any richer. He’d simply started using cash instead of his credit card to pay for an increasingly lavish lifestyle. He had little savings and even fewer investments. Plus, when he decided to settle down, get married, and buy a house, his credit score was too low to get him access to the best loans and interest rates.

Whose Parents Did Better?

If you just heard the money lessons M and J’s parents taught them growing up, you’d likely think J was in a better place to make wise financial decisions. But when you see the impact those money lessons had on their grown sons, I think it becomes clear that M learned from his parents mistakes – and, perhaps, is overcompensating for them – while for J, the absence of financial input from his parents led him down a path of poor decision making due to lack of knowledge.

What lessons about money did your parents pass on to you? What is the legacy of those lessons?

Incoming search terms:

• 20s finances
• hot air balloon intext:financial
• mid 20s finances

Yet, despite appearances, at times, I can be absolutely obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses, whether that fictional Mr. or Mrs. Jones is my cousin living a glamorous life on the West Coast, the neighbor down the street who actually managed to sell her house in a slow market, or a friend who blew my entire yearly clothing budget in one afternoon of shopping while on a trip to New York City. Sometimes, I think I cling to all my old stuff – stuff that, by rights, I do use every day, or at least on a regular basis – simply so I can make the excuse: “I’m frugal, I’m looking for a good deal, I don’t need that new, shiny stuff when my old stuff works perfectly fine.”

My Needs

My needs are the basic things I absolutely require to survive. They’re simple things, like:

• Shelter
• Food
• Clothing
• A job
• Health
• Transportation

But even my needs can have me comparing myself with those Joneses, because when you get right down to it, most of our wants begin with our needs.

Sidenote: there’s this great program called www.musicmagpie.com that can help you satisfy your wants for new music/dvds/games by giving you cash for your old of the same.

Wants vs. Needs

Each one of the needs listed above is simple enough. For my family of four, shelter could mean something as simple as a two-bedroom apartment; heck, it could probably mean something even simpler than that. We could live off PB&J sandwiches, wear our clothes from last year, take public transportation. Doing all those things technically meets our needs – we don’t need anything more than that to survive and in reality, most of the world doesn’t have any more than that; in fact, most of the world’s population survives with far less than that.

But how do you think your friends or family would respond if you asked them if they actually wanted to live in a small apartment? What about if you asked hem if they wanted to eat basic, and often unhealthy, foods? What would they say if you asked whether they wanted to take the bus every day?

I’m betting they’d say no.

The fact is, even my own so-called “needs” reflect my obsession with keeping up with the Joneses. I don’t live in a minimalistic apartment; I own a three bedroom house in a suburban neighborhood, a home I’m often overheard saying isn’t big enough for my family. I don’t take the bus; instead, I buckle up in an SUV I purchased brand new, albeit a few years ago. And my family and I definitely don’t subsist on PB&J or ham and cheese sandwiches; we routinely buy seafood and steaks at the grocery store and like to eat out a few times a month. In other words, my “wants” have infiltrated their way into my “needs.”

Why Do We Want What We Can’t Have?

When I’m being honest with myself, I can admit that I wish my “basic” needs were met even more luxuriously. For instance:

• Shelter – My husband and I are actively looking to sell our current home and move into one with another bedroom, a separate office, and a playroom
• Food – If I eat Hamburger Helper one more time, I may hurl
• Clothing – I’m coveting a new Michael Kors handbag I saw at the mall last month with my mom
• A job – My husband is jonesing for a job with a more impressive title
• Health – You could live healthfully by eating well and taking regular walks outside… yet I live at my gym, and desperately want an elliptical trainer at my house, too
• Transportation – I have more than a small obsession with the Infiniti FX

These wants vs. needs have grown exponentially in extravagance as I’ve aged. When I was in college, I simply dreamed of having a job or owning any car; when I had my first job, I looked forward to buying my own starter home and eating out whenever I didn’t feel like cooking. Now that I’m a little bit older, my wants are grander than ever, and I’m pretty positive how they got that way: by comparing myself to others.

As humans, are we programmed to always want something more, something new, something better? Are we designed to constantly compare ourselves to those who have what we want?

Reader, how do you work on feeling content with what you have? How do you stop comparing yourself – and your possessions – to others?

Incoming search terms:

• budget for mid 20s
• keeping up with the joneses car
• mid 20s budget
• our obssession with comparing with the joneses
• wants versus needs in car selling
• when you live next to the joneses

But when you put the numbers into perspective, rising postage rates aren’t all that much out of step with what inflation’s done to other day-to-day expenses. Consider…

• In January 1963 – an even 50 years ago – the cost to mail a first class letter rose from $0.04 to $0.05. Today, we pay $0.46 to mail that same letter, a 920% jump.
• The median home price for a new house half a century ago was $18,000. In 2012, the median price on new home sales was $248,900, a change of 1383%!
• Gas prices in 1963 averaged $0.30/gallon across the country. According to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report, today’s averages are closer to $3.35/gallon – a difference of 1117%.

When you look at the numbers in that context, the United States Postal Service’s first class postage increases don’t seem all that out of whack with the rest of the economy. Actually, the USPS is increasing its postage rates at a slower pace than housing prices and gas prices have risen over the past 50 years. If postage rates had climbed at the same pace as the median home price, we’d be paying $0.69 for a first class stamp; if postage rates matched gas prices, that same stamp would cost us a dime more than we’re paying today.

Incoming search terms:

• has postage gone up yet this year
• why has postage gone up yet again

I’ll be even more honest – I was one of the Americans who could be overheard (in certain circles) saying, “Let the payroll tax holiday expire! We need the extra income to support Social Security!” When Congress’s ultimate deal to resolve the so-called fiscal cliff didn’t include a renewal to the payroll tax cut, I was pretty satisfied. I thought it was the right course for our country.

So this post is going to sound like a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, a lot of buyer’s remorse, a lot of whining… because it is.

All my grandiose ballyhooing happened before I saw my husband’s first paycheck post-fiscal cliff deal. (As a freelance worker, I’m responsible for taking out my own payroll taxes when I submit my tax returns; in other words, the end of this tax holiday won’t affect my paychecks or tax-home pay for some time to come.) As soon as I saw the drop in my husband’s paycheck, I started to feel a twinge of regret that I was so eager to see that tax holiday end.

My husband’s gross biweekly income is in the neighborhood of $1400. Our family’s health insurance policy is through his employer; so is our dental policy. We contribute to his employer-sponsored 401(k), as well as a state employees’ pension program. When all is said and done, after you take out for all these optional expenditures as well as state and federal taxes, his gross earnings of $1400 results in a take-home pay of just under $800 – and that was before Congress and the President allowed payroll taxes to go up from 4.2% to 6.2%. Now, we’re getting just $755 – a difference of about $35 – every two weeks. It’s abysmal.

Yeah, I’m whining.

The fact is, $35 every two weeks – roughly $70 a month, about $900 a year – isn’t going to make or break my family. We’re fortunate to have two incomes and a lot of wiggle room in our budget. It’s more of a mental factor. Seeing my husband’s take-home pay drop, not because of something he did (like get placed on suspension, or get demerits leading to a salary decrease), not because we’re contributing more of his paycheck to our retirement accounts, feels wrong. I’m sure those earning more than $400,000 ($450,000 jointly) feel wronged when they look at their paycheck after the new income tax hike, but if you’re grossing $15,000 every two weeks, you’re going to be hard-pressed to get my pity.

The end of this tax holiday especially feels wrong because this is a tax that affects people in my tax bracket more than the rich. This tax only applies to income under $113,700, presumably because if you’re earning more than this you won’t need the support of Social Security.

So here I am, wishing that I hadn’t spent so much time wishing lawmakers on Capitol Hill would end a tax holiday I thought was ill-timed in the first place. Bah-humbug.

A lot has changed since those days. Now, I’m a mother of two with a scatterbrained husband and a slew of jobs – and contractors – whose work assignments can’t be overlooked (or overbooked). And while I still don’t keep a daily planner with me or use a smartphone app, I have started managing, scheduling, and organizing my life using a simple wall calendar (it’s decorated with pictures of my kids, taken over the past year).

Put The Calendar Where You’ll See It

If you don’t put the calendar in some very obvious location, it won’t do you any good. In fact, the first year I actually made the effort to buy a calendar, I didn’t want to put a hole in the wall to hang it; instead, I stuffed it in a drawer, where it went virtually ignored (and unused) the entire year. Instead of helping me save and organize time and money, it was a complete waste of both.

Now, my calendar is hung next to the cupboard where we keep our coffee mugs. Why? I can’t avoid looking at it every morning as I grab a cup for my tea or my husband’s coffee. For you, this may mean your calendar has to go in your bathroom or even in your bedroom closet! I have a friend who keeps a small calendar taped to the dashboard of her car.

Make Mine Color-Coded

Each family member has a certain color on my calendar. My husband is black, I’m purple, my daughter’s red, and my son is blue. However, I am the only person who is allowed to write on it. Why? Because nobody else has handwriting neat enough to be read clearly by anyone else (my daughter’s four and my son’s one, so they get a pass; but, sadly, my daughter’s handwriting is actually better than her father’s).

Even from across the kitchen, I can see who has something scheduled that day based on colors alone.

(This brings me to a quick aside – keep your pens somewhere accessible, so you can easily grab them to jot down new appointments or changes to your schedule.)

What To Add

Of course, you’ll add day to day activities and appointments, like your child’s parent-teacher conference or your next trip to the dentist. But I tend to add just about everything to my calendar, such as:

• Pay day reminders; I also jot notes about which months have “triple” paychecks
• Heads’ up regarding big bills; I’ll write a note the month before a major bill (like our annual life insurance premiums) is due or a key subscription (like my XM radio) is set to expire
• Birthday reminders – not just the day off, but two weeks ahead of time, giving me enough leeway to buy a card or gift and get it in the mail

Why Not A Virtual Calendar?

So, by now I’m sure you think I’m a complete Luddite, and are probably wondering why I don’t just upgrade to a more technologically-current mode of organization?

There are two reasons for this:

1. I find that I remember things better when I write them down. And by “write them down,” I mean physically using a pen on paper, not typing or dictating something into a virtual planner.
2. My calendar becomes an amazing record of my family’s life. I can tell you at what time I started contractions with my firstborn because I wrote it down on the calendar; I can tell you the day my daughter earned the “student of the day” award at preschool because I wrote it down on the calendar. When you combine these details of our day-to-day life with the pictures on our calendar, they become more than a means of organization; they became a family heirloom.

Reader, how do you keep track of your appointments? Am I the only one who still uses an old-fashioned calendar?

Incoming search terms:

• get organized calendars 2013
• how to get organized using a calendar
• using calendars to get organized
• wipeable annual events calendar
• wipeable calendar
• year calender wipeable

This actually isn’t the first time this has happened. For my daughter’s third birthday, she got the same board game from two different people. So when I realized we’d have multiple copies of the same gift once again, I already had a game plan (no pun intended) to follow.

It boils down to regifting. Usually, this can be a dirty word; it insinuates that the original recipient of the gift didn’t like it, and chose to pawn it off on to someone else, who will most likely not like it either. But it doesn’t have to be that way. So, before you head off to the customer service desk to return unwanted holiday gifts, read my rules of regifting. You may save yourself time and money!

Regifting Rule #1: Talking To The Giver

Got a gift you plan to pass on to someone else? Although you may be tempted to tell the person who sent the gift your way, resist the urge. The secret of how to regift is just that: a secret. Filling too many people on your actions – or motives – is like having too many cooks in the kitchen: it spoils everything.

When my kids received three copies of that one toy, I made sure to tell everyone who gave it to them how much the gift was appreciated, and how much the kids were enjoying it. And they were enjoying the two copies we chose to keep (one for each child; if you have more than one kid, you’ll understand the method of our madness). The fact is, once everything was unwrapped, I really didn’t know which of the toys we were keeping and which we were going to pass on, so I truly didn’t know if we’d be regifting the toy my mom sent or the one my husband’s mom gave.

What about if the well-intentioned givers had been off the mark? That’s a little dicier. On the one hand, you don’t want to hurt the giver’s feelings, but you also don’t want to encourage similar gifts in the future. The decision whether to tell the giver that their gift didn’t exactly fit your tastes depends on who the person is, their relationship to you, and whether they’re likely to give you more gifts in the future. A bad gift at a wedding? Forget about it. The same person giving you bad gifts every Christmas? It may be worth taking the time to discuss your habits and hobbies so the person gets to know you better, and buys a more appropriate gift the next year.

Regifting Rule #2: Keep Records

Knowing who gave you a gift initially is key for successful regifting. Whether this means you put a sticky note on the gift before shoving it in the back of your closet, or keeping a digital record on your phone or computer, you need to make sure the gift doesn’t somehow end up back in the hands of the giver or someone they know. This is especially crucial with gifts that aren’t mass-produced, like a hand-knitted sweater or a piece of art, which can be more easily recognized.

Regifting Rule #3: Know Your Social Circle

This piece of regifting etiquette goes right along with rule #2. It’s vital that you know which friends and relatives are connected with one another. There’s nothing worse than regifting an item, only to have the original gifter show up at the same event! If you’re thinking of regifting, you must be absolutely certain that the recipient is not in any way connected with the person who gave the item to you in the first place.

Regifting Rule #4: Personal Preferences Still Matter

It’s one thing to regift a beautiful sweater that didn’t fit, but which you were too lazy to return, to another friend who wears the right size; it’s another to pass on a hand-crafted vase that appears to have eyes, which follow you around the room (I’ve received one of those; they’re creepy). But in the end, it all depends on one crucial factor: will the person who receives the regifted item like it?

If the answer is yes, then by all means, go for it. But if your answer is no, then you need to rethink your motivations for regifting it in the first place. There are places where you can dispose of unwanted gifts without putting a relationship in jeopardy: think Goodwill, a store’s return desk, or even the trash.

How We Handled The Extra Toy

Right now, the extra toy is sitting – in its box – on the highest shelf of my bedroom closet, where it’s out of reach (and sight) of my kids. The next time we have a birthday party, I don’t have to buy a gift; instead, I can pass this item along with an enthusiastic endorsement. I don’t tell the recipient (or his or her mother) that the item’s being regifted; they don’t need to know this, although if it’s a cool, well-intentioned gift, there’s no reason to go to lengths to keep it a secret. It’s just a piece of information that’s basically superfluous.

Do you ever find yourself regifting Christmas or birthday presents? Do you have any rules for how to regift?

Incoming search terms:

• www moneyinthe20s com daughter
• 20s being broke
• my parents regifted
• regifting childrens presents
• regifting childrens toys