In our new weekly series, readers can email in with any financial dilemma and enter the Money Moral Maze. If you have a dilemma you would like us to look at please contact us at money@inews.co.uk.
The Dilemma
I’m doing a Secret Santa this year with my friends. We have a £40 spending limit.
I’ve managed to get my friend the gift she put on her wish list for half price in the Black Friday sales at £20.
Obviously I am happy with this bargain but want to know if I need to spend another £20 to bring it to the limit or can I just leave it at this gift as technically it should have been £40?
Grace Gausden, i deputy money editor, argues the case for ‘You should spend another £20’
Secret Santa is a fun tradition often utilised by friends and family in the festive season to avoid splashing out hundreds of pounds on gifts for everyone.
Instead, it allows you to buy a substantial present for just one person, usually chosen by picking a name out of a hat – physically or online.
The Black Friday sales, which happened this week, are usually a great time to hunt for such gifts as you can get bargains on nearly everything.
Fortunately for you, you found the item your friend had put on her “wish list” for half price, meaning you only spent £20 instead of the limit of £40.
Now a limit is the top end but most people aim to hit around that mark, sometimes a little under or over.
My view is that if the limit is £40, to spend just £20 seems rather cheeky. I understand your friend asked for this gift but my prerogative would probably be to buy an item that is usually more expensive and reduced.
For example, something that usually retails for £80, reduced to £40.
If you have bought the one item they wanted, that a more expensive version can’t be bought of, I think you should perhaps buy a top up gift – something else of similar value.
It will make you look like a great friend and will save embarrassment if your friends have already taken my advice and gone down the route of buying more to compensate for cut price deals.
Callum Mason, i money and business reporter argues the case for ‘You have already spent enough’
A Secret Santa is a great way to buy gifts for your friends or family without breaking the bank.
The limit that’s been imposed sounds like just that – a maximum – and if you’ve managed to get a gift that she wanted for far cheaper, it seems to me that it doesn’t make sense to then buy something extra, just to get the spend figure up.
You’ve only managed to get the item for half price because of your own savvy ways – spotting it on sale – so I think that unless you spot something else that your friend would definitely want, you shouldn’t worry about spending extra.
Your friend is unlikely to be too upset that you didn’t get to the limit – even if they realise that you got it for half price, which again, doesn’t seem particularly likely.