
Mother’s Day is right around the corner, which means it is time to start thinking about Mother’s Day gifts. While moms frequently get a meal in bed, dinner out and flowers for Mother’s Day, maybe this year you could give her something different that she will remember for years to come.
Experience gifts are a perfect way to show your mother both how much you love her and how much you know her and her tastes and interests. (If you don’t know your mother’s tastes and interests, you might want to stick with giving her flowers.) If you give her the gift of experience, she is likely to remember it for years to come.
For instance, my grandmother always wanted to ride a hot air balloon. Finally, in her seventies, one of her children arranged for her to go on a hot air balloon ride, and it was an experience she never forgot. Would she remember the flowers she was given one particular year or the dinner out? Probably not. But she never forgot that hot air balloon ride.
An experience gift is the gift that keeps giving.
Make a list of things that your mother has always wanted to do. Perhaps it is flying a small plane, skydiving, getting a massage or taking a gourmet cooking class. Come up with the top three experiences you know she would enjoy.
If her experience is something mainstream such as the three listed above, you probably don’t have to pay full price for the experience. Sign up for all of the social deal sites such as Groupon, Living Social, Mamasource, and Daily Deals, to name a few. You will be sent an e-mail every day giving the deals for the day. Chances are good that one of the three you have chosen for your mother will be offered in the next few weeks on one of the sites.
If you can’t find what you need from the daily deal sites, you can look on several other sites including Lifesta, Deals Go Round, CoupRecoup, Dealigee, and City Pockets. These sites sell deals that others bought but decided that they didn’t want to use. (By the way, on the off chance that your mother doesn’t want the experience that you bought her, she can change in that skydiving deal voucher for something more tame, like a day at the spa.) Wealth Informatics wrote a complete post on reselling vouchers that explains the process in more detail.
If your mom is content with flowers and a meal out, you can give her that. However, she may just want something more. An experience gift is a gift that she is likely to remember for years to come. You can take advantage of daily deal sites to make her experience a bit easier on your wallet, and she can always trade in the deal if it turns out to be something she doesn’t want. Moms do a lot for their kids throughout their life; take the time to thank her this year by doing something to treat her in a unique way.
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This is a GREAT idea! Flowers that will die in 2 days or an experience she’ll be able to remember? Obvious answer!
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