It’s not uncommon for a group of friends to set a price limit when it comes to birthday gifts to make sure everyone spends a similar amount of cash.
But one woman and her mates have discovered just agreeing on an amount each isn’t always enough – as smart shopping can still leave one person with a gift that goes above and beyond the rest.
A woman user has revealed she has angered her friends by splashing out on an ice cream maker for a mate’s birthday, as although she stayed within the agreed £36 ($50) budget, the true price of the item was more than double that.
The woman utilised two coupons and an in-store sale to get her desired item under budget – but her friends are annoyed that she made their gifts “pale in comparison”.
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In a Reddit post explaining the situation, she wrote: “For a friend's birthday, I and our circle of friends and family had an agreement in place where we should NOT spend more than $50.
“Now my friend is a hobbyist baker who loves ice cream, and he was using an old ice cream maker that often broke down in the middle of a churn, forcing him to find another way to finish it. I found the perfect ice cream maker to replace it with and its price was more than twice the set limit.
“However, there were three things that helped me: There was an upcoming weekend sale at the store that would reduce its price, I had a 20% off coupon for that store, and I had an additional 10% off any item over $50.
“The coupons were stackable and could be applied to sale items, so overall I was able to get the ice cream maker for JUST less than $50 sans tax. I had no other reason whatsoever to shop at that store and the coupons wouldn't last long.”
The woman also said the coupons came in the post, so any of her other friends could have also utilised the huge savings.
When it came time to hand over the gifts, the birthday boy was “ecstatic” – but their other friends accused the woman of making them “look bad”.
She added: “The birthday came and of course he was ecstatic when he opened up the ice cream maker. The other gifts paled in comparison in terms of value, needless to say.
“As expected I got questioned by near everyone. I explained what I did and texted pics of the receipt, but EVERYONE badgered me and accused me of making their gifts look bad.
“They said the goal was to get a gift whose ORIGINAL COST was $50 or less. Now this was not true as we had the group chat correspondence that explicitly said we weren't supposed to SPEND more than $50.
“To make their case worse, one of the gifts was a nice shirt that had the tag left on it that said ‘Was 89.99, Now $40’. As far as I know there were zero complaints about that.
“Some of my friends have cooled off since the weekend but others are still p***ed at me and have made it known.”
The Reddit post has received hundreds of comments, with many people confused as to why the woman’s friends aren’t just happy for the recipient.
One asked: “Why aren't your friends excited their friend has a sweet a** ice cream maker and can make them all ice cream??”
While another said: “Your friends are being silly. Great job scoring the good deal.”
And a third wrote: “Your friends are petty. They are more concerned about looking bad than about a friend's birthday. He was so happy with his gift and they had to ruin it. So childish.”
