Why Gift Cards Are Stupid

              So, I've wondered for a while now why money wasn't seen as an acceptable gift. I mean, honestly, who would complain if they got money? It's awesome. It's useful. The only valid thing people can complain about when they receive money is the amount of thought that went into it. But honestly, finding someone a gift within your price range that they'll like is really hard, no matter how well you know them. You can never tell for sure if the person will like it or not since people will most often pretend to like a present that they don't care for just to spare your feelings.

              Right after Christmas, if you go on eBay or craigslist, you will see a ton of unwanted Christmas presents being sold online for really cheap, but you'll never see an "Unwanted $50 bill". 

              So honestly, who's making such a big deal about gifting money? Whoever they are, if they're ever gifted money and they don't want it, they can send it to me. I won't complain, I promise ;)

              Here's the part that really doesn't make sense. For some reason, the world has decided that it's unacceptable to gift money. That's stupid by itself. But what really makes no sense is that I can't give you $20 for your birthday, but I can spend that on a $20 gift card and give it to you instead? Do people not see how stupid that is?! What's even worse than that is that gift cards are literally money minus the freedom to spend it wherever you want. Why would I spend these $20 (that I can spend anywhere I want) on a little plastic card that I can only use at a few select shops? Perhaps even only one? And then, by purchasing this little plastic card, I put an expiration date on my money. 

              Also, just to get this out of the way, a $20 gift card is not worth $20. Not even close. Let me put this further into perspective: Imagine I owed you $20. Imagine as I was paying you back, instead of giving you a $20 bill, I give you a $20 Toys-R-Us gift card. Would you consider that to be me paying off my debt, or would you do something along the lines of laugh/bash my face in until I gave you $20 cash? 

              Exactly. Because a gift card is NOT worth as much as the money it was purchased with. It's worth a lot less. 

              You could end up only being able to use that card on one store. You couldn't use that card to buy yourself a pizza (unless it happened to be a gift card for that particular joint). Could you imagine how stupid you'd look if you handed the pizza man a Toys-R-Us gift card as payment for your food? Why would you wish that upon yourself or someone else? Exchanging your money for a gift card is like throwing your money away. Literally. A New York Post article estimated that between 2008 and 2014, $44,000,000,000 worth of gift cards went unused, which means that you just gave your money away to those companies for nothing in return. 

              After reading this, do you still want to go out and buy a gift card as a gift for someone?

Do yourself a favor and stop wasting your money on these stupid gift cards. After hearing all of this, if you still feel like giving someone a gift card, do them a favor and just give them the money instead. 

Note: I hope that after reading this you don't think any less of me. I know I sound a bit like a greedy, money-loving, pretentious jerk, but it was hard to sound like anything less than that on this particular subject. I also hope I didn't offend anyone who has given me a gift card before, because that's not my intention at all.