We’ve all been there. At some point, at some time, someone, somewhere gave you a gift. This stupid act of generosity has set off a chain reaction whereby you now are in the midst of a gifting circle-jerk. You must now exchange gifts with each other, of greater or equal value, back and forth, again and again, until the end of time, or at least until one of you has the good grace to die.

Is there any way to remove yourself from this ridiculous gift giving cycle of death without losing your friends and becoming a hermit? No…there isn’t. It’s scientifically impossible (source at the bottom).

But we have devised a workaround to make is easier. You see, there is a way to lighten the financial load, and keep your social circle intact; Behold regifting.

Yes the art of taking gifts you have received and pawning them off onto
unsuspecting recipients is a great way to save a few bucks and avoid all the stress and strain of purchasing new gifts. Beware, it’s a risky little game full of pitfalls, deceit, danger and potential stigma if you get caught.
To help you break the chain and keep a high enough reputation to remain a part of polite society, here are some tips you can use for regifting like a pro.

Keep Records

The last thing you want while regifting is to inadvertently give it to someone who was there when you received it, or worse, the person who gave it to you in the first place.

Hey, cheer up, it happens. You’ll just have to leave town and make new friends or die. . . from social embarrassment.

That’s why it’s important to keep meticulous records of any and all gifts, gifting occasions, and gift giving people, right down to the last detail. Who gave who what, where and when. Be very exact, start stalking others, notice their tells, their behaviors, and starting thinking like them. You know, like a sociopath or a micromanaging middle-management supervisor.

Not only will this help prevent you regifting to the wrong person, it will also allow you to spot other regifters and call them out for their disgraceful behavior.

You can’t die of social embarrassment if you’re too busy watching others die.

Additionally you can team up, by teaming up, I mean blackmail them. You know their secret. They practically become your dog, it’s great.

Evidence

We all know (or at least should know) that you must remove all evidence from a gift you plan to regift. No price tag, no branded sticker, no label saying “To Billy, From Grandma”. Anything like this can be a dead giveaway of your shady dealings. But did you realize you can take some “evidence” and turn it in your favour?

Collect stickers from random stores of different products with different prices, and simply stick them onto your product. This way you can regift to anyone, even the person who gave it to you, and no one can call you out.

“The toaster you gave me? No, that toaster was bought in Walmart for 20 bucks, whereas this one clearly came from the Hard Rock Cafe and cost 17,000 yen.”

Add some more misdirection, I mean flare, by slapping a Supreme sticker on it or a Gucci label. That’ll do the trick.

Make Use of Return Policies

“But wait” I hear you ask “this article is about regifting, not returns”. Well you got some never buddy, coming in here, to my article, and giving me shit. I’m the expert financial adviser here, and you’re the guy with 4 blenders that you never use and can’t get rid of. How much debt do you have? That’s right, rookie numbers, chump. So shut up.

You can also make use of returning items for the purpose of regifting. The biggest risk of regifting is the fact that you cannot give a receipt to the recipient without giving away your entire scheme. Well here’s an idea. Return the item to the store and say it is faulty (you may need to make a few…adjustments…to the device yourself. Snip snip). Any reasonable customer service employee will be happy to give you a replacement product. Then, boom, you’ve got a brand new item, with a brand new
receipt with your details on it. Give it to anyone you want, knowing you have the “proof” that you bought it yourself.

If the customer service employee isn’t reasonable, then become a Super Karen and ask for their CEO. Naah, fuck it, ask for the POTUS.

Gift Vouchers

Gift vouchers. The scourge of any would be regifter. They are simple, require no real thought, and the recipient has to use it in a designated shop like a basic bitch. If you get locked into a voucher gifting ring, then you are stuck in the most mundane of all gift giving experiences. Every year buying the same voucher from the same store for the same value that they bought for you on your birthday. On top of that, they have expiry dates, and sometimes even have your name on them. They’re unregiftable. Right?

Well I’m going to let you in on a little secret. You can use gift vouchers to…
(*drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumroll noise*)…buy more vouchers! Yes, that’s right. You can go into a shop, tell them you would like to purchase a voucher, and by means of payment you will be using a previous voucher. They will be skeptical, they may question whether it will work, they may eyeball you as if you were trippin’ on LSD. But then they will try it, and it will work.

I’ve done this on several occasions and it works a treat. Heck, if you play your cards right, you can create a self sufficient ecosystem within your gifting circle, whereby everybody is essentially buying vouchers for themselves. You’ll never have to buy a gift for them ever again.

Notable Regifters to Model

Like all skills, there are some that exceed and excel at it. If regifting was a sport, the following people would be in the Hall of Fame of regifting. So please, go ahead and model yourself after them.

Red Paperclip

If you really think about it, trading is sort of like a gift exchange. All you have to do is ‘regift’ your item for a more valuable one. Such as the guy who gifted a red paperclip to eventually regift a house.

A Vancouver man traded a paperclip for a pen. He then traded the pen for a doorknob, then for a stove, then for a generator, then for alcohol swag, then for a snowmobile, then for tickets to British Columbia, etc.

The man eventually ended up making a trade for a two-story farmhouse.

So with a paper clip and some regifting efforts, he was gifted a house. At that point, he cashed in his regifting. You know, settling for a house.

For more info click here.

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama meet and greets a shit ton of people. So much so, that these people just line up in a long fucking line to say ‘Hi’ and give him gifts.

Dalai Lama: *Exists*

People every fucking where: “Let me give you shit you don’t need”

A lot of close friends have given the Dalai Lama some awesome gifts. You know, life changing useful things like solar pinwheels and other Cyperpunk 2077 technology. Guess what the Dalai Lama did? Give that gift to the next person in line, yeah. So he regifted the gift of lines to the person behind the gifter. It’s like Secret Santa except with the Dalai Lama.

Admiral Rickover

There is a prominent US Naval Admiral God of fission, thou art in heaven, who was an expert at regifting. His name is Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, and he took the best kinds of gifts, bribes.

What better gift is there than pure money? The best part is, he took that money and, yup, regifted it! What a genius!

‘They always hand out these gifts … so I naturally collected a lot of them,’ he [Rickover] said. Asked if he had taken other gifts, such as the $695 pair of diamond earrings, he said, ‘I don’t know. I’m not a very materially minded person. I spend my time on studying and training people.‘

‘When I left my job as head of the nuclear section, I had a room full of junk that contractors had given me. I put them out on a table, and the employees who worked for me went out and took them — not all of them.’

Source

He later explained what he did with those gifts in another interview:

”I never considered or treated these items as personal gifts to me,” he wrote. ”With the exception of two pieces of jewelry which were given to my wife and were valued by the Gratuities Board at $1,269.73, all of the items with which I was presented by General Dynamics were given away.”

Source

The Military Industrial Complex Gods gave the Admiral gifts in which he regifted to politicians. Many of them, expensive gifts (Here is a video source, around the 9 minute mark).

So if you’re a politician or a person with high authority, you should definitely accept bribes to then regift and bribe other people. That’s the best way to get shit done.

Best part, they can’t prove you accepted the gifts because, well, you don’t have them! Win-win.

In Closing

Finally we come to the end of our article, and you are now the ultimate regifter. We can’t say if you should or shouldn’t take bribes, but you should definitely regift all your gifts. That’s what a great spiritual teacher would tell you, you know, the power of abundance and all. Be like the Dalai Lama, you know, a regifter.

“But wait” I hear you rudely interrupt, again. “You never mentioned what to do if we get caught.” Ah, well here’s my opinion on that matter.

DON’T GET CAUGHT.

If you have followed my above lessons, and made the necessary arrangements, there’s no way anyone could possibly accuse you of regifting without coming across as a paranoid, delusional, lunatic of the likes of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm.

If anyone does dare confront you? Simply gaslight them, duh.

Try to remember that with gifts, it’s not the money, but the thought that counts. Since you’re putting all this thought into a shameless regifting scheme, isn’t that really the best gift of all?

You won’t own anything in the end, just give it away. Possession isn’t real, so have fun regifting.

This down low article was given to you by Gavin MacMoney.

We don’t have a scientific source for regifting. We don’t do real science, just social science.

*Not Valid Financial, Legal, Life, or Any Advice