Do you ever receive gifts that aren’t very useful or ended up discarded or regifted? What if I told you there is an easy way to help your family and friends to buy presents for each other that you actually want and need, while still having some element of surprise? A few years ago, I found a website called Giftster.com, and it has made holiday and birthday shopping so much easier for our family.
It is similar to a registry, but not limited to a single website or store. You can easily paste a link into Giftster and have it ‘Fetch’ the information to put it on your list. Someone isn’t limited to buying the gift at that store you linked to on the page. They can easily buy the same item at another store and mark it purchased on Giftster. Or you can just list a simple item or set. For our son, we usually put Lego ‘City’ sets as one of his gifts. You can also rank your present preferences with 1 to 5 stars.
So How Do You Save Money With Giftster?
Well, there are things we all ‘want’ and ‘need’. Sometimes urgent purchases are necessary, but many times a purchase can be put off for a few weeks, months, or even years. Instead of that making that impulse buy in the store, make a list in your phone of things you want and add them to your Giftster list ahead of your birthday and the holidays. Another benefit of making the list in your phone is that you may decide you don’t actually want some of the items on the list when it is time to build your Giftster ‘Wish List’. As a military family, we are trying not to accumulate too much stuff as we move around about every two years, so we will even add items to our ‘Wish List’ that are simple and basic, like workout clothes or sneakers or a wok and spatula. But we actually use these gifts, a lot. And even better, you get the items you actually want, not just some randomly purchased set of workout gear. So you can save using Giftster by adding items that you would purchase at some point anyway, but instead could get them as a gift from a friend or family member.
Getting Started On Giftster
It is simple to sign up and invite friends and family to use Giftster. Here are the basic steps you’ll need to get started.
1. SIGN UP
Signing up is similar to other sign ups. You can set up an account with an email address or connect through Facebook.
2. START A GROUP
Click on ‘start a group’. Then enter the name and email addresses of people you want to be in the group. It is possible to have multiple groups, so you can have a friends group and a family group.
3. CREATE YOUR LISTS
Click on ‘New List’ to create a new list for each person. Each member of your family (you, your spouse, & children) should have a separate list.
4. POPULATE YOUR LISTS
Put all the stuff you want on your lists. If you find something online, which is probably the easiest for specific items you know you want, you can paste the web browser by ‘web link’ and then click the ‘fetch’ button. Then you can rank the item with 1 to 5 stars, enter a quantity, and add details like sizes for clothing or shoes.
Wrapping up
You will need some buy in from family and friends, but Giftster is an easy way to exchange gift ideas and a unique way to save money by getting gifts you want and will use.
Disclaimer:
I have no association with Giftster aside from being a user of their platform.
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