What to send with the card

A card says the thing. A small gift beside it says you meant to plan for it. This page is about choosing the second part well — mostly it is about spending less and thinking more.

Start with the occasion, not the budget

The common mistake is to decide what to spend and then look for something at that price. It produces gifts that are the right size and the wrong idea. Start instead with what the day is FOR, and the price sorts itself out.

• A birthday — something they would enjoy and would not buy for themselves. The whole of the trick is in the second half.
• A wedding — something for the two of them, not for one. Anything for the home is read that way; anything personal is read as taking sides.
• A thank-you — small and specific. A large thank-you gift makes the person feel they are being settled up with rather than thanked.
• A goodbye — something that lasts and can be looked at. This is the one occasion where a keepsake beats anything consumable.

Three that are almost always right

Something they consume. Good coffee, a box of fruit, something from a place they mentioned once. It carries no obligation to keep it, which is a kindness people rarely notice receiving.

Something for a thing they already do. Not a new hobby — a better version of what is already on their desk. It says you have been paying attention, which is the part that is actually worth something.

Time. Two tickets, a table booked, an afternoon you have already arranged. The gift is that the planning is done.

And three to avoid

• Anything that needs storage they do not have.
• Anything that makes them reciprocate at a price they may not want to spend.
• A gift card to a shop they do not use, which is a cash gift with an expiry date and a lecture attached.

How to send the two together

The gift arrives from a shop; the card arrives from you. That is the right way round. Make the card first, send the link when the parcel is dispatched, and the card is what they read while they are waiting rather than a slip in a box.

If the parcel is late, the card still arrived on the day — which is the whole argument for sending one at all.