Group gifts when other people have more money

amother

Thu, Jun 10 2010, 11:38 am

My sister decided that we should all get together and give my mother a very expensive gift for her birthday. It's something that my mother would really appreciate, but won't buy for herself. It's a great idea. But it's EXPENSIVE. Even split among all of us. She said everyone should just contribute whatever they want, but if we would split it evenly, it's over 100 dollars each.

The rest of my family is financially well off. We're not living month to month, B"H, but we try really hard to stick to a budget. We can afford the 100 dollars - we're not going to go hungry. But it's going to come from our savings.

Now, our savings are mostly there because my parents invested money when I was a kid, and it grew. So it's not MY hard-earned money. I feel silly and ungrateful saying "I don't want to take from that money for a gift for my mother - who gave it to me." Especially because my mother has gotten us SO many gifts, randomly, that add up to more than 100 dollars for sure.

Am I being ungrateful and should just give the money? I think part of the reason it feels so hard for me to do is that I feel like no one else thinks twice about spending 100 dollars. They're always spending lots of money on things for themselves. We don't. But logically, I shouldn't give them a problem with this. Right?

amother

Thu, Jun 10 2010, 11:56 am

normally I would say go ahead, give $20 - I'm sure your siblings will not mind. In my family we often buy group gifts - but we understand that some people have less money and can't give so much. In fact, we just bought my mother a very very expensive gift, people just gave what they could.

In your case, I think it would be a really nice act of hakoros hatov to give the $100. After all, as you said, you have the money because your parents invested money for you.

Of course, I have no idea how much the savings are - could be $1000 or it could be $50,000.

DovDov

Thu, Jun 10 2010, 1:35 pm

As the sibling who's relatively better off than the others, I know I've proposed pricy gifts in the past with the full understanding that I would be paying the majority of the cost but wanting the others to participate so it would be nicer for my parents.

For my mother to get an expensive present from me is kind of nice, but to get a thoughtful gift "from the kids" really makes her feel wonderful. So I call my sibs and tell them I plan to get X present and anyone who wants can chip in on it. So far it's happened twice, and both times we gave the gift from all of us though I paid the lion's share (in fact, I don't know that either of my married sibs ever actually paid me back anything).

But we started the discussion with a candid: "Mom really needs X. She'd feel really good if we all got it for her together. I know you can't really afford to pay 1/4th of X, and I don't mind paying most of it, but I'd be really glad if you would chip in a little, even just so we can say it's from all of us." I don't know how yours was presented.