Over Half of Americans Re-Gift, Do You?

Last year when I asked Is Re-gifting Okay?, I commented that we often re-gift items given to us (translation for those who don't know what re-gifting is: we give away gifts given to us as gifts to others). I thought we were in the minority on this issue, but it seems this is not the case. In fact, it turns out that more than half of Americans re-gift. This from Yahoo:

The survey of 1,505 American adults, conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive, found that over half (52%) of the respondents admitted to "re-gifting" with passing on gifts becoming a far more common and acceptable phenomenon.

Better yet, most people are ok with the idea of re-gifting:

In fact 78 percent of consumers who were polled felt that it was acceptable to re-gift some or most of the time.

Good news all around for us re-gifters. ;-)

Our main guideline when re-gifting is to make sure that the item we give is something the recipient would like. We simply do not give away items we received at random just to be rid of them. As long as this rule is followed, re-gifting works well for both the giver and the recipient.

So, do you re-gift? If so, what are your "rules" about it? If not, why not?

Comments

[Lord]

It would seem the logical choice of re-gifting would be to buy something you would like and let them give it back to you next time but that would call for a lot of patience.

[Erik]

I think regifting is a dangerous thing to do. Most people seem to know when this happens. It is disrespectful ("do unto others..." would YOU appreciate a regift?), potentially embarassing and smacks of cheapskatery, not frugality.

[FMF]

Actually, yes, I would appreciate a regift -- as long as it follows the principles followed above.

An example:

A friend of our gave me a small miniture rose plant a year ago. She told me it was a regift upfront and admitted that she'd waited too long -- it was almost dead -- to give it to me. But she knows I love roses and enjoy bringing a sick plant back to health. I nursed it (inside) through the winter, then moved it to the ground in the spring where we enjoyed it all year. I loved that little plant as much (or more) than the others because I took it from almost dead to a fully healthy bush.

So, as you can see, a regift CAN work -- if the principles I note above are followed (i.e. the gift is appropriate for the recipient.)