Is it easier to just to buy a gift card?

I really do try to personalize the gift so even if I do buy a giftcard I try to buy one for a store where I know the card will be used. So many times I get a card from someone who has not clue what to buy me and it's not something I would use any way.

Sometimes I will have a personal, meaningful gift picked out for a person but usually I just get gift cards. A lot of stores around here are starting to sell gift cards to other places...stores, online, restaurants, gas stations etc....so I can do all the shopping in one place usually. I still try to be personal about it. Like for someone's anniversary I would try to get them a card to their favorite restaurant. For a teenager I would get them one that pays for their ipod downloads. My s/o would get a card for Sears or one for his favorite race car driver to buy things from nascar.com. I don't even really see anything wrong with giving them as Christmas gifts. Usually there are so many after Christmas sales that they can purchase more with the gift card than you could have bought for the same amount of money. It all depends on the person's likes and dislikes. I personally see the chance to go shopping for myself without worrying about the money to be an extra gift beyond the gift card.

I try to make every effort to personalize the gifts that I give people. I listen to them all year, try to find out what they want/need, what their their interests are. When it's time to buy a gift, I pretty much know what they want or need.

Yes, gift cards are kind of tacky. The message they can send is "I don't know you well enough to know what you want, and I don't want to spend the effort of finding out." There are exceptions though: *Gift cards for very specific stores, in which you would not know what to buy. This would be the case if, for example, you wanted to give someone some computer parts, but knew nothing about computers. *Gift cards for things that you couldn't otherwise give, such as food. An example of this is when I gave my mom a gift card to starbucks, where she often goes with friends to drink coffee. There's no way I could just gift wrap half a dozen hot lattes. Ways not to give a gift card: *Don't give general gift cards like wal-mart cards, mall cards, or the cards from visa that can be spent anywhere. You might as well just give cash. *Don't give gift cards to places the people won't like. For example, I was once given a card for a store that sold discount name brand clothes. But I don't care about the brand on the label! The clothes I normally buy are cheaper before being discounted than the discounted name brands were after being discounted, and the store was grungy and unpleasant. *If you are wanting to give a general-purpose gift card anyway, instead, tell the person that you are going to take them shopping. This is much more personable, and lets you have a good time together while having the same end effect as a gift card. *Beware of gift cards that have expiration dates, or special restrictions on what, where, or when you can buy.