The holidays can be expensive. That's why just under a quarter of all Americans say they're willing to re-gift presents, or offer second-hand items as a way to save money.
Bankrate data analyst Adrian Garcia says the pressure of buying gifts has many Americans willing to either boycott gift giving altogether, or at least re-gift something they already received.
“Women more so than men are feeling the pressure to spend more this holiday season, as well as parents and younger people, those being millennials, and all those people are more willing to do things like re-gifting,” he says.
But there are some rules to re-gifting.
“The way to make it more successful is just to be thoughtful, is this person actually going to enjoy this gift that you're re-gifting? Have you removed all the tags from it? Are you sure they did not give it to you? Make sure it's not a personalized gift your grandma or someone made for you.”
Garcia says duplicate items are always a safe bet when re-gifting.
“If you receive something like wireless headphone speakers and you already have a pair of those, it may not make sense for you to keep both so that's something you can easily re-gift and feel good about,”he says. “Another good example is we get so many gift cards and maybe we don't patronize the coffee shop they got it for us.”