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Would you “waste money” on something of questionable value? Something that receives only a passing glance or less, that is fleetingly or not at all appreciated, that is mostly discarded within days and is often a mere obstacle to the prize within? I bet you would and have, possibly multiple times a year.
I try to resist, but it is fruitless, we are cornered. There are other ways to approach the situation, but most of us are trapped by convention. The sinister people involved create the need and have for a long time. The first of these was created in1843 in London for Sir Henry Cole. The tradition that trapped us began in the 1870s.
Connie and I went shopping for our latest supply yesterday. I picked up one or two and looked at the price. Nope! I don’t care who it’s for, I’m not paying $6.99 for a birthday card for a one year old. I’m pretty sure he can’t read it and the parents are more interested in the paper inside.
What’s wrong with writing a note and putting it in an envelope I asked. That didn’t go over well so we drove a few miles using $0.75 worth of gas to a store where they had cards for $1.00. I like paying less for a greeting card than a gallon of gas.
The frugal version is not as glitzy, they don’t speak, there was no chip, but they were to the point, “Happy Birthday.” Do I really need to express my thoughts on life’s journey and a bright future?
My curmudgeonly view is the price of greeting cards is out of hand. They are like buying a house. We used to be satisfied with six rooms, one bathroom and closets you just stuck your arm in. Now we demand a bath with each of four + bedrooms, walk-in closets larger than a normal bathroom and extra family rooms for our families that have declined in size to four people…sorry I got off track. That $7.00 card threw me.
So, leave that greeting in the case, write a nice personal note, put in a #10 envelope and make that special person, and you, happy and then legitimately claim to be frugal. 😎
My wife and are with you on this one. We get all are cards at the “Dollar store”…I start at the 2 for a dollar section. I have a 99% success rate regardless off occasion. Some years back I found a Christmas card that I laughed so hard, some, little girl came from another alise other to check out who has laughing so hard. My wife was quite happy to be in the car when this all happened. I purchased a bunch of them, they were a buck a piece…and Hallmark.
I could take Dick literally and ruminate about solving his greeting card debacle or I could generalize the situation. I’ll choose the latter. This is about the psychology of money and spending. Why do I – like Dick – feel a compunction to obsess about small purchases when I am comfortably retired? Why do I fret about the small stuff, then turn around and go to a restaurant for dinner, drinks, and dessert? Why do I spend a boatload on my hobbies, but get my knickers in a twist if a web site charges shipping? This is a conundrum that I have yet to solve. Financial schizophrenia.
Good point. I think part of the answer is utility and degree of pleasure derived.
Trader Joe’s sells cards for $.99
My wife & I stopped celebrating with cards and flowers in the 80’s. Useless.
I have never given purchased cards to my grandchildren. As teenagers they still receive a handwritten card, and sometimes I will choose some special photos from my phone and print them on the card.
So the card will have two 50 dollar bills and a 5 dollar bill, and the agreement is that one 50 dollar bill is to be saved and everything else can be spent.
I always explained to them that I would rather include the extra five dollars in the gift than spend it on something that will end up in the trash.
I have a hard time at the grocery store because I’m like, “Apples for $3.99 a pound?” But I want honey crisp apples, I don’t want to make a separate trip to Cantina Grande where they’re $1 each, and they won’t break the bank.
As for other silly things we purchase, my mom gave me some of my gradmother’s gold jewelry to sell. My grandmother bought a lot of gold jewelry. She loved the different designs and the color. The jewler tested each piece. Some were 14 K, some 18 K, and some not gold at all. Neither he nor I could tell which was which by simple inspection. Sounds similar to a $6.99 card vs a $1 card. Except a few earrings added up to more than $2k.
Good point R Quinn. We stopped those expensive cards a decade or so ago. My wife now uses Jacquie Lawson email cards. By the way that $1 card in 1968 has inflated to about $10 in 2026 due to inflation!
Email “cards” are filtered into the trash. Invitations from an automated service too. I’m happy to get a personal email, but if comes from a commercial email address I don’t know, I won’t even see it. I also demand that most bills come via the mail; the volume of email and texts is far too enormous to handle.
I hope the postal service isn’t destroyed. Two weeks ago I received a handwritten thank you note. A few weeks ago we got a very brief thank you note on on cheap generic card. It’s nice to get these.
Handwritten cards and letters are going to be increasingly appreciated in this AI world … if I see a boxed set of cards on sale (occasion specific or more generic), I buy them and more importantly I SEND them. I agree that the greeting card business is a bit of a racket, but I am never frugal with letting people know they matter to me.
I have a friend of almost 50 years. She lives hours aways and is still working so so we almost never see each other. Last year for her birthday instead of sending a card, I put pen to paper and wrote her a two page letter and mailed it in a hand addressed envelope. I figured the unique-ness and novelty of receiving a hand written letter in this era of texts and emails was greater than any mass produced card.
I thought you’d address something truly costly like many insurances
I just use Christmas cards left over from the prior year. I wish them a Happy Birthday or Graduation on the inside of the card. Most people find it humorous.
One of my favorite features of AI is having it create personalized poems and cartoons for birthday celebrations. For a friend’s recent birthday, I entered a few random events, memories, etc. from our 50 years of friendship. AI created a wonderful poem and a hilarious cartoon illustration to accompany it. My friend loved it.
Kristine, did you send that message in an e-card or a physical care?
I posted the poem and cartoon graphic on my friend’s FB page. Several people commented on how fun both the poem and the cartoon were!
That’s a wonderful idea. I just had Claude AI create a personalised, funny and silly rhyme for my grandson.
It’s great fun. I sometimes tweak one or two lines to make them more fun or personal but the general format and structure AI provides is great.
I find it very odd that people consider an AI produced poem personalized, but if you and your friend liked it, I guess this is our new world. What, however, is the cost? Have your electric bills increased and this is the indirect fee for the service?
Actually our electricity costs have decreased recently–but we live in a relatively low-cost part of the country.
The AI produced poem was highly personalized–I prompted several various events in our lives that my friend and I have shared and AI simply put it into a rhyming prose form. Could I have done the same thing? Sure. But it would have taken me quite a bit of time while AI was able to do it in…seven seconds. And the fact it could create a cartoon that was absolutely personalized was a wonderful bonus. I have ZERO art skills so I wouldn’t have been able to create anything like it.
Kristine’s AI poem was probably more personal than whatever is printed inside a store bought card.
I do acknowledge and understand your swipe at data centers.
It was absolutely more personalized. I’d much rather send an AI creation that references many of the various fun and memorable events we’ve shared over the past several decades than a generic note that says, “Happy Birthday to My Good Friend”.
Could I have spent the time to hand-write a note that reminded us about all the events we have shared? Sure. But the fact that I spent the time reflecting back and prompting AI about those events seems like it probably took an equivalent amount of time. And the poem AI created was likely more creative than what I would have come up with.
The info she submitted was personal. So whatever AI came up with was probably personalized to her relationship with the recipient. I like the idea.
It really was a fun poem–I included many personal events that we had shared together over the course of more than four decades. The cartoon AI created included many of the animals each of us had shared our lives with as well.
Mr. Quinn, I couldn’t agree more on the price of the cards. My wife and I hit Dollar Tree, Dollar General, or the cheap card section at Wal-Mart. To each his own, but it’s what inside the card that matters.
For about $17, you can get a box of cards at Costco (50 I think) that has a few for all possible occasions.
Never E anything … Nothing like a personal note or letter
When I read the first paragraph I was thinking being nomadic we hardly ever buy anything we can’t eat. I read further and realized this is about greeting cards.
We’ve certainly spent on those, and have also spent to send them to the United States as we’re usually elsewhere. However we very recently took a subscription to an electronic greetings service. Now we can send as many as we want and have actually sent e-cards for occasions we might not have otherwise. No trees harmed and now they get there on time too.
Oh, good, I was wondering whether any other HD readers go digital with e-cards. I’ve used them for years. There are classy ones available by subscription and some with a free tier, e.g., Ojolie, Blue Mountain, Jacquie Lawson. Huge selection for any occasion, available any time day or night, to send on a scheduled day or immediately, plenty of room to write your message, and no postage cost. True, can’t enclose ca$h or check. So just Venmo or Zelle.
Simple solution. We get cards at The Dollar Tree 2 for $1. We’ll buy ten birthday cards, ten get well cards, etc. No wasted gas and great savings
The real question is overall spending relative to income. If you are retired, and you buy whatever you need, and you’re still not spending all your income, then you’re doing good. Money will continue to build up in your accounts, and you won’t have to worry.
I’m not sure that the point. It’s not a matter of affording it, it’s how it is being spent and why.
I agree that greeting cards are expensive, but so are many things. But I buy them anyhow, just as I buy other things that seem more expensive than they may be worth. The expense is not high enough to cause me to devote extra time, energy, and gas to driving around for the least expensive option. I just buy them at the neighborhood grocery store or drugstore.
Seriously, Dick? Looks like you love your seven bucks more than you love your grandkids! JUST KIDDING! Expensive greeting cards are at or near the top of my list of rip-offs; it’s emotional blackmail. Funeral homes are in the same category; put me in a pine box for gods sake, I won’t care, I’ll be dead⚰️
😂😂😂
Did I mention there was a $100 bill in the card…and that one year old was my sister’s great grandchild.
You did not mention that! You almost always make me laugh, Dick, which I am told is the best medicine. Thanks for today’s dose.
Same, except I want to be scattered in McCovey Cove (the small body of water outside the Giants’ ballpark in San Francisco). I’m sure that’s completely illegal, but some younger cousins said they can rent kayaks, and–well, you know. And what do I care if it’s illegal? I’ll be dead.
True story… some of my more shady family members didn’t want to pay the cost of having their mother’s grave opened to place their father’s ashes inside. So they took matters into their own hands, sometime after the witching hour. Now they rest together — at no extra cost.
For family, I go with cheaper cards probably around $3 on the Walmart/ supermarket assortments. I don’t bother traveling to
Dollar stores for the cheapest. I agree the recipients are more interested in the paper inside. But I approach Christmas cards differently. Those cards go to people I rarely or ever see. They’re a way of keeping in touch, so I do spend for nicer cards — usually those on sale from places like the Metropolitan Museum. The family doesn’t receive these cards.
I make my own art cards and write personal messages for people special to me. If I counted my supplies and time, the cost would well exceed $6.99. I also sometimes buy cards for less important occasions. Supporting local artists by buying their cards, typically costing around $5, always feels good and seems like a bargain.
Ever since Dollar Tree opened near us, that’s the only place I shop for cards. Apparently a lot of other people do the same, because the local Hallmark Store shut its doors for good a couple of years ago.
That’s our normal go to place as well. To be honest I don’t know how Hallmark survives. I often wonder if $7.00 greeting cards are included in the paycheck to paycheck calculation. I suspect many people just feel obligated.
We need a new approach. One person buys a greeting card and gives it to a friend, (sans hand writing) the friend reads it, perhaps removes a gift, thanks the giver and then uses the same card to give to another person. We just must avoid sealing the envelope. It could go on for years. The net unit cost of a card could be pennies🤑
When my father-in-law began doing this with my mother-in-law (trading the same birthday card back and forth), their three sons adopted the tradition, though they would each have to find a new envelope because they had to mail the card to their three different locations. It continued for several years until the two youngest died within a year of each other. I don’t remember who was left with the card, but it was a cute way to remember each other.
The last card we bought was a whopping 39 cents, straight from the bargain bin at our local card shop. Christmas is my Achilles’ heel, though. I’m chronically late buying cards, so by the time I finally show up, every “Wife” card in the bargain section is long gone. I’m left picking through the pricier shelf, paying full whack for something that, three weeks earlier, I could’ve grabbed for pocket change.
With kids’ birthday cards, here’s where the frugality tension kicks in: it’s never about which card to buy, but how much cash to stuff inside. After much deliberation, we’ve landed on forty bucks as the going rate, official currency of the Birthday Card Economy.