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The Best Gifts I’ve Received

My love language is quality time and touch. [Anne's note: If this sentence confuses you, check out The 5 Love Languages]  It’s not gifts, acts of service, or words of affirmation. Lucky for me, my husband is in the same boat. This is a bonus for our married life budget since special occasions are cheap and involve cooking dinner together and curling up to a movie with a glass of wine. The trouble with getting gift cards to a general place like Best Buy or Kohl’s is that I won’t spend it on myself but I’ll wait until there’s something we need and then use the card. I like practical gifts that will be put to good use. At the same time, I do appreciate decorative or fun gifts as well since I know I won’t spend the money to buy them. With that said, here’s a list of the top five gifts I’ve received.

A Convertible

This is definitely not a practical gift but my parents came to visit for my 23^rd birthday and took hubs and me out for dinner to celebrate. I opened a few simple gifts and then my dad hands me a little box. My dad is always buying cars and fixing them up to sell. At this time he had been on a Saab convertible kick and had turned three around to sell. He ended up gifting one of them to me as a birthday present!! The excitement was short lived because since we live within walking distance to my husband’s employer, we didn’t need a second car. We were also in the process of paying off my student loans and didn’t want to pay for all the expenses of a second car, so we ended up selling it at the end of summer. We loved every minute we spent in it with the top down and my hair blowing in my mouth every two seconds.

A Massage
When hubs and I met in college, I had just broken up with a guy I dated on and off for a few years. The turd made me pay him back for a concert we went to that summer AND he wanted me to return the gift certificate for a massage he gave me for my birthday. As a joke, my new boyfriend (now my hubs) bought me a gift certificate for a massage as a Valentine’s Day gift. It was the first massage I ever had and every minute was glorious.

A Create-your-own Photo Book

Scrapbooking is on my list of activities I never want to participate in. I am not creative and I’m too lazy to print copies of pictures. I was given a gift certificate to make my own photo book of our wedding day with Blurb and I absolutely loved the ease of dragging and dropping pictures. You can be as creative as you want or simply use the templates offered. It turned out so well and it’s been seen by everyone who comes to our apartment since it sits on a side table by our couch. I ended up getting another Blurb gift card for my birthday to use for all the pictures I took from my sister-in-law’s wedding in Ireland this past summer!

A Grill Pan
This is an apartment dweller’s best friend. We have yet to own a grill but our handy grill pan has made its fair share of delicious dishes. It was a gift purchased from Williams & Sonoma which means it’s a high quality product and likely cost more than I’d ever personally spend on a single cooking utensil.

A Dining Table
My mom is a Craigslist pro. She is great at spotting quality furniture and negotiates for the best deals. Since she loves giving gifts, she went ahead and bought an awesome dining table for us newlyweds who were planning to buy a $10 card table from a garage sale for our first year of marriage. It came with beautiful chairs and my husband calls it a transformer because when you pull the two ends apart and the leaf magically unfolds to add extra length. It was a very practical gift that will last though crazy kids and beyond.

Jessica spends most of her time blogging at Budget for Health, where she discusses finances, nutrition, recipes and generally tips for leading a good lifestyle.  Today, I have a post on her site that discusses the difference between house costs and housing costs and how to set a budget for a house.

What is the best gift you’ve ever received?