3. Give handmade goods or hand-me-downs
New and store-bought is not always best. A study published in March 2015 in the Journal of Marketing found that people prefer buying homemade items for loved ones and were even willing to pay as much as 17 percent more for homemade things versus mass-produced items. The findings suggest that people feel that homemade items show more love, and love is what they want to express to the gift recipient.
Family heirlooms may be another good gift option. A 2009 study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that when families hand down even a very depersonalized asset — money — through the generations, the symbolic value of the cash is greater than the numerical value alone.