Gift Cards

A lot of times we are pressured into foolish decisions simply by the culture we live in. Seth Godin has a great post about the gift card industry, which last year profited companies more than $8,000,000,000 dollars. The post is definitely worth the clickthrough, but here's my favorite paragraph:

Along the way, we bought the story that giving someone a hundred dollar
bill as a gift ("go buy what you want") is callous, insensitive, a crass
shortcut. Buying them a $100 Best Buy card, on the other hand, is thoughtful.
Even if they spend $92 and have to waste the rest.

I know I've wasted money on gift cards before and never really thought about where that money was going. JM