How to make any gift extra-special: It's all in the wrap
Fortune recently spoke with Julie Subotky, founder of ConsiderItDone.com. For about $4 thousand per month with a 6-month minimum, you can hire her to pick out gifts for your loved ones. According to her site:
No time to shop? Let a Consider it Done personal assistant handle all of your gift buying needs. Baby gifts, hostess gifts, birthday gifts or wedding gifts we will find the perfect gift for the person in your life that has everything. If it's your own shopping needs, we'll send one of our experts out to get you outfitted and then organize your closet -- you'd be surprised what you can find in your own closet!
For those of you who aren't running to get your credit card, she had some great tips for gift-giving. The one that I like best is the importance of gift-wrapping -- I've found that you can buy someone a $4 candle but, with some colorful wrap and a cute bow, make it seem as wonderful as an expensive diamond. Here are some links if you're not sure about how to go about this:
eHow.com has a nice 14-step guide to wrapping a gift.
The Fun Times Guide has some nice tips for how to make it extra-special.
Most impressively, ExpertVillage.com has a series of videos to help you wrap a gift, make your own wrapping paper, decorating a package, and even, gasp, wrapping with plastic.
And because this is a personal finance blog, I feel obligated to issue one last reminder: You can finds lots of perfectly nice wrapping paper at dollar stores and other discounters -- save the money for the gifts or, better yet, your retirement account.
