How extravagant do Valentine’s gifts really need to be?
This topic was brought to you by my Monday morning doom-scrolling that brought me across Tania Antonenkova’s post about asking for real estate as a Valentine’s Day gift over more jewelry. While I have to believe that this has some element of clickbait energy to it (right?!), I can’t be too mad at a woman who wants some standing power from her gifts. She frequently shares about how her Hermes acquisitions instantly gain value when she walks out the store. She even high lights the Van Cleef & Arpels bracelet she received last year as a gift – which retailed for a whopping $28,000 or more, but I digress.
What scale of gift actually makes an impact? How much is actually worth spending on your loved one for the holiday? Stephanie shares a story about her husband taking the time to inflate a few hundred balloons and insert a sweet note, making her feel loved for months to come, and all it cost him was a lot of oxygen and a bag of latex balloons. This is a far cry from a piece of jewelry that costs more than some new vehicles. Taking it one or two steps up from a very cute and very frugal friendly idea, Haley Sacks of the Mrs Dow Jones blog and Instagram account went around NYC interviewing individuals about what they had spent for Valentine’s Day, this year and in years past. The highest number seemed to be around a thousand dollars for an electric keyboard, and the buyer was pleased with that spend, citing that the relationship had ended well. You’ll notice that this is still a far cry from anything in the luxury spending space.
If we look at the classic dinner, chocolates and roses (abandon the lingerie and heart shaped jewelry with me for a second) we should come in well below $1000 dollars, leaving room for a personal gift if you or your loved one is oh-so-motivated. Let’s do the math:
Dinner at your fave new Instagram worth restaurant: $300
Chocolates from your wedding chocolatier: $70
Last minute, over-the-top 2-dozen long stem bouquet: $295
Even with all this, you’d only end up spending just shy of $700 dollars. That would leave $300 dollars if you’re capping it at $1000 or a casual $27,700 if you’re a graduate of Sugar Daddy University.
Sorry, that was weird. But you get the point. It seems to be the law of diminishing returns once you get past let’s say, $400 dollars. Even $700 if you want to fulfill the Valentine’s Day movie trope 100%. Definitely not saying you need to deprive yourself of oxygen inflating hundreds of balloons and only spending a couple bucks on balloons, but there is something to be said about putting thought into the card instead of a higher balance on the VISA.
And reality is, we can’t decide for you what is really worth it, but we can tell you…$28k is a lot more than $700.
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Sources:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-valentines-day-gift-that-you-have-given-or-received
https://www.fleursauvagechocolates.com