Do you purchase gifts as a couple or separately?

[GolferGirl123]

For people who are married or in serious, LTR:

 

For birthdays and holidays that require gifts, do you and your partner each buy a separate gift for parents (and/or other family members that you purchase gifts for), or buy one gift as a couple and both sign the card?

 

And, what are the reasons you do it the way you do over another way?

 

I had a disagreement with my bf on this, and he insisted that he does not know one single person that handles this situation my way, while I can't think of one couple that does it his way. So I'm just curious.

 

Thanks

[martini-mae]

Married 33 years & for birthday's or Christmas' the gift has always been from both of us. I usually do the purchasing of all gifts but both of our names go on the card. We're a couple. No reason to buy separate gifts.

[Stung]

95% of the time, gifts are from us as a couple. I almost always make the lists and do the shopping because my husband does everything last minute and never knows what to buy besides technological gadgetry, and my husband always does the wrapping because I am a sloppy wrapper and he is precise.

 

Occasionally one of us will buy a special separate gift for a very close friend or family member that we take care of individually because it has some personal meaning between just the two people.

[sally4sara]

We make a list of gift recipients that doesn't include me, him, or the boy. Then we split it down the middle and buy a gift(s) for each person adhering to whatever amount we agreed would be appropriate. And we check with each other about what we've chosen before purchasing it.

 

We collaborate on what to get the boy.

 

Other than what we give each other, all gifts are from us both. We both contribute to the family income so I'm not sure how one of us could purchase a gift out of our shared account and consider it from only one of us.

[denise_xo]

95% of the time, gifts are from us as a couple. I almost always make the lists and do the shopping because my husband does everything last minute and never knows what to buy besides technological gadgetry, and my husband always does the wrapping because I am a sloppy wrapper and he is precise.

 

Occasionally one of us will buy a special separate gift for a very close friend or family member that we take care of individually because it has some personal meaning between just the two people.

 

This, minus the wrapping. I shop, sometimes we shop together, I do the wrapping.

[UnsureinSeattle]

Generally we buy gifts as a couple, just because we bounce the gift ideas back and forth- joint checking, etc. If the friend/family member was more hers, she might well buy it on her own and vice versa, but out of the problems we have, buying gifts together has never been one of them.

[Art_Critic]

buy one gift as a couple and both sign the card?

 

This is what we do...

[GolferGirl123]

I thought this was probably what pretty much everyone does.