How to buy gifts that people actually want

This person is a robot or something. They're missing the most important component of value of a gift -- that the value of something is higher when it's a gift from a loved one. If I have a wireless charging dock or a rhyming dictionary or an umbrella that I really love, I love it 2x more if it was a gift from my wife and 10x more if it was a gift from my kids.

Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise.

If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. Even though I'm happy to drop a couple of hundred dollars on a gift (they've been super generous to me in the past), I'm not able to pull the trigger because I feel like the facebook-ad-quality-knives are almost certainly not what they would value.

Although... I suppose the point of the article on this point is that if I just asked my friend, they would receive the value of the gift (since I would just be proxying the purchase for my friend, and gifting them the cash). So my refusal to do so is just me maximizing for my own selfish gift-giving goals. Interesting.

Removing yourself from the equation is so important. The most recent gift I bought I thought was completely stupid, but it was something someone close to me had abstractly mentioned wishing it had existed (cell phone controlled tea kettle). I openly mocked them for wanting something I found idiotic and told them at the time they were a lazy bum and suggested buying my sensible cheap manual kettle. But I made damn sure to find one, and a power converter to make them happy.

Last year, the adults in my immediate family put a limit on how much we'd spend on each other for Christmas. I think we picked around $20/person, when in the past we probably spent $75-100.

This has been good for us, mainly because it lowers the pressure of gift exchanges. There's a big difference between giving (and getting) an unwanted $10 item compared to an unwanted $50 item. The limit removes emphasis from the material value of the item and puts it more on the thought behind the gift.

Generally, I think gift-giving culture in the US is out of control and largely doesn't benefit the giver nor the recipient.

I think they side step this a bit, but please provide the gift givers in your circles with a list. It doesn’t have to be actual specific items you know exist (the cell phone controlled tea kettle is a great example), but it makes life better for everyone as it reveals your preferences.

My in-laws moved to distributing wish lists this year and it is so much less stressful.