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Episode 253 – Organising gift cards

One of the things we regularly find when we’re decluttering homes is giftcards.
Sometimes it can feel like a lucky win if it’s a gift card you’d forgotten you had but if it’s expired it can leave you feeling like you've just wasted money and an opportunity.
In this podcast, we’re going to delve into gift cards; giving them, receiving them and organising them.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
One of the things we regularly find when we're decluttering homes are gift cards. And of course, if you'd forgotten about it, it can feel like a lucky win. But if it's expired, it can feel like you wasted money and an opportunity. So today we're going to delve into gift cards, giving them receiving them, and organizing them.

00:31
You're listening to the declutter Apple podcast, bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here are your hosts, Ingrid Johnson, and Lesley spelled.

00:54
Hello, and welcome, listeners. I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find a fun factor in the serious business of decluttering. And if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening.

01:14
If you'd like to get involved in conversations related to this podcast, it all takes place in our Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm, supportive community. To find the Facebook group go to declutter hub.com, forward slash group to find out more, or you can search for the declutter hub community on Facebook. Ingrid, before we get started, I'm sort of laughing, right? Because what the listeners have not heard is the nine texts that it took you to get in trouble, right. So we're very, very bad, both of us anything scripted. The intro takes us longer than recorded the rest of the podcast. You should just give up on doing the intro. Let me get somebody else to do it. We maybe we need a voiceover artists like Caleb to do all of the intros for us. And we can just jump straight into the podcast.

02:02
I know. I know. Sorry. I was not on top of my game when I was. I just couldn't get it out properly. And we want to make sure that it sounds right. So you guys know what we're talking about. And I for one reason, I just couldn't get it. Right. But anyway, giftcard to this today, but unless you But before we dive in, we've had some lovely reviews happened. We Yeah,

02:23
I thought it was really important to talk about an ounce. I've got this thing because it's kind of related to the podcast that I did with my son, Luke, a few podcasts ago. And honestly, the feedback, the emails, the comments have been absolutely incredible on that podcast. So I wanted to thank each and every one of you because I think it was very poignant for a lot of people for lots of different reasons. So it's podcast 247. And it was about my son, my eldest son, who's recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and it's going through his journey, and also my journey with him getting diagnosed, if that makes sense. It's very honest and open conversation. And we had so much feedback from people who felt what we were feeling. We're very grateful that he was so open and honest about the things that you're feeling. So thank you so much. If you sent her a review, it was really nice to send them all on to Luke as well. So he's well aware of all the fantastic feedback that we've had. So let's read a couple of them out in grid.

03:18
Yes. Joanna said Well done to look for sharing this hearing of people I know being diagnosed. So found is really open and honest and very well explained. And I have to actually agree. It was I listened to it as well, of course. And I was like, Oh, wow, he's so open and honest. And I think that resonated with a lot of people.

03:41
So Justina says as well thank you so much for this podcast. It has helped me more than you will ever know. You're very welcome, Justina. That's exactly why we wanted to call that podcast.

03:51
Yes, Michelle reached out to us as well and says, thank you both so much for this very powerful podcast. It resonated so much with me and my son, whose journey has been similar to look, but still on the waiting list for support. Well done. Thanks, Michelle.

04:09
And then Sandra said that this was on LinkedIn. Right, Ingrid, I'm a regular listener to your podcast closely, and completely resonated with the podcast with Luke. I shared the podcast with my son this week because he sounds so similar. I think this will help moving forward with the diagnosis. There are so many similarities within growing up thank you for sharing your ADHD journey. So honestly, there were so many we haven't even mentioned and emails came into us and so we were blown away as well. And obviously, it's very personal to me. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing it means a lot honestly, whatever. Whatever podcast it is, if we get a comment or review, it means a lot to us to know that you can make progress with the things that we're sharing. So keep them common and the best of luck to anybody who's going through an ADHD diagnosis of your own or with someone who is in your family or friends.

04:58
Yes, completely agree like So I don't think we've ever had this many emails come in about. I mean, we normally get lots of love from our listeners, but this podcast kind of was blown out of the water. So yeah, absolutely amazing. So thank you as well. And I read everything as well. But of course, I know it really was special for for Lesley and Luke. So thank you listeners for all of your wonderful replies to us into our shout outs for letting us know if the podcast changes you or your thinking or whatever you're doing in your life. So anyway, let's let's move on with this podcast. Gift cards. I mean, you've already made fun of me that I've made like 26 mistakes while I'm recording the intro, but I think we now need to really get cracking with this podcast was gift cards, we call them gift cards. But when we Googled a little bit just to make sure that we got the terminology right, we found out they're also gold gift vouchers or gift certificates or gift tokens. So yes, I hope everybody now means what we talk about when we say gift cards, I think gift

06:03
token was like a 70s and 80s. UK thing gift token, I'm gonna call the gift token for a long time. But But I did used to call it a gift token when I was growing up. And then gift voucher, I feel like it's morphed from gift token to gift voucher to gift card in the UK. And I think it's gift certificates certainly in the US, and probably other places around the world as well.

06:26
Maybe it's now called a gift card, because now you can have the money gets put on some sort of credit card type of cards. Yeah, maybe I can kind of easily put your well maybe that's what it terminology changed. I mean, I don't know. So Lesley, let's be honest here. Do you like receiving a gift card from people

06:44
is the only one I'm like, although what was the what's the catch here? Like? Are you saying that you don't like gift cards? I mean, I do like putting it out there. Of course, like what's not to like about somebody giving you some money to spend on something that's like, that's nice, right? Ingrid?

07:02
I'm really torn about this, this question actually, because I don't really know that I think what to do with it. I mean, that sounds a bit crazy. But agar

07:11
is spend it.

07:14
There's a problem. I never know what to spend it on, you know what I mean? So if you got a gift cards from a shop that you never shop in, then suddenly you have to go to the shop and then buy stuff that you weren't intending on buying in the first place. And that's something where my thinking already gets completely muddled. But of course, you know, if you get a gift card or something that you always show, then it's helpful. But you see my problem. I don't like shopping it in the first place. So maybe that's where I go wrong.

07:43
Yeah, I think I could always find something that was shot. And that's it. That's the problem. And I guess that other people because everybody knows in this podcast, I do shop. I do Declutter. I haven't as organized as term. But I do like to shop Ingrid is kind of the opposite. She doesn't really love she can she can be because you can warm up to shopping. And when she does do it, she actually quite enjoys the fruits of her labor to be fair, but she's not well, she's not a pro shopper, which I would say that I definitely am a pro shopper. So I get you. Okay, I hear where you're coming from. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the fact that sometimes getting a gift voucher is almost like it's burning a hole in your pocket. Is that what you're saying?

08:27
Yes. And then you're kind of almost kind of forced to kind of go to the show that you suddenly got some money for trying to buy items that you don't necessarily need.

08:38
Okay, so in the clutter in the clutter world, then it's tricky. And it's going to add to our clutter. That's what yeah, we would like to think that people who do do give you a gift card would possibly think about where a good places to give you a gift card for right. True. True. Yeah, so most people are gonna, who were going to give you a gift are going to go, Oh, Ingrid would like to go to this shop, for example. Yeah. So most, most of the time, it's not going to be an issue. But I do hear, I do hear that, you know, perhaps if you've got too many gift cards for one place, or maybe it would just, I do get that feeling once you've got a gift card in your wallet, you don't want to spend that. Spend that. So it's not like normal money. You know, it's it's like you feel that you are obliged to spend it perhaps sooner or on something that you might not want at that time. So it's more about a timing thing. Maybe?

09:34
Yeah, yeah. Good point. Good point. And I think as well, I think a gift card is really different than receiving cash, although it's both money. And because cash, you can kind of put in your wallet and then you suddenly are like, Oh, I thought I had 50 pound or something in my wallet and then it's gone because you spend it on little bits and bobs. Well, I think that's I think one of the pros of a gift card may Have you feel a little bit more like, oh, well, this was really given to me as a gift. So I'm going to treat myself a little bit and buy something that I want instead of it kind of going on bills or boring stuff like a pint of milk or something.

10:13
I think that will be the worst thing really, even if somebody gives you cash or a gift card, I think spending it on household essentials, unless that's what's going to really really make you happy sharing. So if you have got disposable income, I know there are a lot of people who don't. But if you do have disposable income for it to just get frittered away amongst, you know, normal household expenditure is almost not the intention with which it was given, I guess, yeah, yeah, I think there's something in it. But it does still feel quite special, and it feels quite indulgent. I think there's something about a gift card that perhaps has got a different psychology attached to it. So I hear what you're saying. So having jumped down the throat and not liking a gift card, and kind of coming back around to what you're saying, Hmm, okay,

10:57
so how do we end up with gift cards? Let's see, because it's not only gifts that people give us right cards, like in an in a with a birthday, or special occasion, or some people can give you a gift card, instead of like hard, cold cash. But sometimes you also get a gift card, because you have brought something back to a shop, but you can't really get your money back on it. But they will then give you a gift card to kind of buy something else. I mean, how smart are they?

11:26
Yeah, of course. And often when you return something to a shop, sometimes, I can't even think of an example. But sometimes you end up with like, one pound 20 on a gift card or whatever. It doesn't say on the gift card, how much it's worth, you forget about it. And then you find it a little bit later. And you go into a shop thinking, Oh, I know that I've got a gift card from John Lewis sort of something. But you don't know whether it's got one pound 20 or 12 pounds on it, or 120 pounds if you're really, really lucky. But she probably wouldn't have 20 pounds on there. And see you kind of stab it around in the dark a little bit. I'm going to talk after the break, aren't we a little bit about how to declutter and organize gift cards. And but the other way you can get gift cards as well quite often is that in reward schemes, people quite often change reward amounts into gift cards, because you can kind of get triple points on gift cards. So you can get like triple the points if you spend on a gift card and things like that. So we have got quite a lot of gift cards at the moment. So I think it's a nice thing to have. I think we're all about experiences, not stuff if possible, aren't we in Sweden, though, I love a gift card. And I could definitely find something to spend a gift card on. I think on balance, I would prefer a gift card or an experience gift rather than a stuff or a money gift. What about you? For sure,

12:49
for sure. I mean, you know, you once gifted me a lovely gift card to buy a meal for two online. And it was so enjoyable. And that because you know me, and you know that I would love that. And you know that I love cooking and that I like to have a nice meal at my house. So it was like the perfect gift in the form of a gift card. But it was more an experience. And I really, really enjoyed it. So thank you again, Lesley, for your lovely gift. But I think then it meant something for me instead of the stuff that you delayed to declutter it, it became an experience that I remembered.

13:29
I think there's something in it that if you give an experience, it's almost even though you're if you get if I gave you that that dinner idea, that gift of that dinner to you almost I almost felt connected to the dinner as well. Whereas if you if I gave you, you know, a voucher for a monsoon or something, I wouldn't necessarily feel connected to the dress. Does that make sense with by there? So I think it's interesting. I think there's a lot of interest in psychology with gift cards. I think what people are here for is to listen to how do we take control of gift cards we talked about in the intro, that if we find a gift card that we didn't know that we had, and it's not expired, it feels like Whoa, it's like finding five pounds in your pocket, isn't it? So you feel so excited by finding money that you didn't know you had? Yeah, so let's go to a break. And let's come back and talk about decluttering and organizing gift cards. So that that doesn't happen so that the gift cards don't expire on you and you just waste that money.

14:24
Hi, everyone. Welcome back. So we're talking about gift cards. And we talked about really the emotions connected to gift cards before the break. But now we wanted to give you some solid organizing tips on how do you handle these gift cards and how can you prevent them from expiring because that of course is the worst thing if you find the gift. Oh, oh, well that expired last year. How often do we see that happening? Lesley?

14:50
We see a lot and I bet a lot of people what are they actually talking about gift cards honestly, in a lot of homes that we see. We see gift cards that have expired or some times we find ones have not expired. But we're always kind of surprised thinking well about the kind of lack of control over something that is effectively, you know, the equivalent often is like 20 pounds, 50 pounds, something like that. And it's just throwing money away if you don't have a handle on that. And we want to make sure that there's a system in place to make sure that when the right time is to spend that gift card that you can put your hands on there that you know how much it is, and that it's readily available for you. Yes.

15:28
Interestingly, Lesley, when do we find these gift cards? Or where do we find them? In birthday cards and birthday cards there? Like there's either cash itself, or the gift cards, or it has been sent with like an Amazon voucher or something like that? And it's like, yes, so especially go on the hunt for these gift cards in your birthday cards.

15:52
Can I go one step further than that Ingrid, and say yes, we do find them in gift cards, because there's just like a psychological thing isn't about the keeping the card, you can say, oh, I need to remember to say thank you for that, to always keep it together. So you can remember that the two things came together and don't separate them out, which I kind of get. And then they find their way into sweet bags. Yes, we take the birthday cards down, and we put them in a suite bag. And that's quite often where we find these gift certificates, or the put on the side of a table next to your coffee table or something, you sweep that off into a suite bag that we've spoken about many, many times on many podcasts, if you don't know what other suite bag is. And when we find them in there. That's often where we sign them. Right?

16:33
Yeah, or in kind of a desk or, or paper where paperwork collects. That's where they often are as well. But anyway, that is a side. So what do you do when you find them? You need to check the expiry date first. And in the earlier days, there was no expiry date. But shops have gotten clever, right? They normally give you like six months over your a year now. I mean, in the past, it was like, Yeah, you can show up with a gift card that was 10 years old. It's very handy. But nowadays, no such luck. And the three or

17:05
four years ago, I was working for a client and I found loads and loads of paper gift vouchers right from I think it was like Marks and Spencers. Now, because those gift vouchers used to say on the back of them no expiry, they were kind of obliged to allow you to switch them into normal gift cards, gift cards for years and years. And I went there was literally hundreds of pounds. I don't know where they've come from these gift vouchers, I trotted off to Marks and Spencers for the client because she was elderly. And they were like no that stopped like two years ago. So even that even that is like they must have given a one and then said no, you can't do that anymore. Enough of the trying to change gift vouchers from 1975 into a gift card. But yeah, I think you know, checking the expiry dates of them can be easier said than done. Like sometimes the only place that you can check whether or not they've expired is by going to the shop. And if we're talking about that hole in, you know, burning a hole in your pocket scenario, that's going to encourage you perhaps to spend the mailers and you would have liked to, I think there's also you can quite often go online and put like barcodes or QR codes or whatever you've got in the back, maybe scan them on that stores website. And sometimes that will tell you whether or not they've expired, you know, because a lot of these gift cards, you can use online as well. So I think that's a good place. But I think you need to know what you're dealing with, don't you? And then I think once you start to do your work on the gift cards that you find, you need to make sure that you've got the correct information on them going forwards, so you might not want to suspend them that day. But what do you do so that if you come back to them in six months time, you don't have to go through the same process again.

18:48
Yeah. So I think definitely see if you can make some notes, maybe with a sharpie or something on the cart itself, and maybe jot down the expiry date and maybe jot down even the amount if you were able to figure it out. Or if there's a separate receipts that goes with that card, you can still think with a sharpie, write it down as well on the cart, because I think that will feel make you feel more in control about the dates and things and the amount of money you have. And of course, I think if you've got one pound 20 on a gift cards is less urgent than if you've got a 50 or 60 pound gift card. You know what I mean? So you really want to kind of not that we say oh, just fritter away to one pound 20 Absolutely not. But there is I think hierarchy in the amount of money that is on a gift card and how much effort you need to do to actually get there because if a shop is like, tricky to get to I would focus on the 75 pound gift card and not on the one pound 20 gift card if you know what I mean.

19:49
I would still be obsessed by the one pound 20 I would literally I would be obsessed by spending the one pound 20 I mean, yeah, no it isn't. It is weird. just mean, yes, it's like a weird, there's a weird psychology around gift cards, I can't I'm not gonna lie, you know something else that makes it tricky sometimes England is that if you buy a gift card for somebody, it comes with like a the actual credit card bit of it on a kind of card like a birthday card or a wedding card or whatever. And then they give you is that as the gift voucher buyer? Yeah, it's called The Gift Card via a kind of receipt. And sometimes that receipt, doesn't find its way in the gift card to the person that's getting it. So sometimes you might get a gift card of somebody, and you don't know whether it's 20 pounds, or 50 pounds, or 100 pounds, or 10 pound or one pound 20. So that also adds to the problem. So sometimes it's a nice surprise when you go and go. I don't know how much you know, money is on this gift card from auntie Lena or whatever.

20:49
Yeah. You know what, Lesley, I think so many people must not spend that gift cards to shops must be laughing. They must say they must hand out tons and tons of gift cards, knowing that there are loads of people that forget that they have them don't spend the money. No one wants to put stuff on gift cards, really,

21:11
you know, if there's nothing else that you get from this podcast, spend some time this weekend looking for gift cards, because it's kind of thing that drives me and Ingrid, insane when we're working with clients because we're like, you've got all this money here, the Automate, and you need to make sure you gather it together and put it into some kind of usable format. You know, don't just fritter money away because we kind of were really careful with a lot of other things. But we find a lot of times that people are not careful with gift cards. And that's the reason why we wanted to talk about it. And about loads of this is nonsense. I wouldn't even worry about a gift card, just spend it within five days again, it sort of thing and other other people are like, Yeah, I've probably got them hanging around everywhere in the house. And it's probably you that this podcast is, is for. So we talked about trying to get the right information about the gift card, maybe writing some stuff on the gift card, once you've done that, your your work on that. And then how do we get them to a point of actually spending them in grid?

22:07
Well, I would probably say have some sort of dedicated wallet for them or a little purse or something like that, where the gift cards can lift together with the information that you need. And make sure of course, then when you go shopping, you take it with you. So don't forget that. So I think that's kind of the more traditional way, right of having really the hard copy gift card in your purse or wallet. And remembering then of course that you've got that gift card. So how often how many times have we gotten into Shabbat and then oh, we had a gift card for that we forgot about it, that happens as well. So yeah, make sure that you kind of get a little system going. And I'm assuming people do not have 65 gift cards, you're probably talking you know, a handful of gift cards. So you can probably fit them easily in your your handbag or your purse or your wallet.

23:02
Yeah, I think that's the important thing is you need to have them available when you have the opportunity to spend them. So I suppose what we're trying to say is you can you can go one of two ways. You can know beforehand, I've got a 50 pound gift card that I want to spend and go out and treat yourself. Or you can go down there and buying this dress anywhere. And wouldn't it be lovely to buy it with the gift card that I was given for Christmas off my birthday or something? I tend to go towards the latter because I don't really, you know, when I shop I typically shop intentionally. So shop for things that I need rather than going out and just to buy something just because and so that would mean that I would need it in my wallet when there was an opportunity to spend it in that shop.

23:42
Yeah, excellent. Now in other ways. Well, there are of course ways now to use your digital wallet on your phone like Apple Pay or Google Pay. And we have found out you absolutely can put your gift cards in your wallet right Lesley? So if you're interested in that have a little Google on how to do that. But it should be possible to add your gift cards to your wallet.

24:06
And I didn't know that me there now. So we should have done it perhaps as our as part of our preparation for this. Have you got a gift card? No,

24:15
of course not.

24:18
It would have been down to me to try and add my 77 gift cards to to my Apple pay Apple wallet. No I haven't got it. I've got like two I've got I have got one for one pound 20 from being cube jam in which I'm like, I have to go to be in queue and spend my one pound 20 and get my money's worth. I am not allowing being cute to have that one pound 20 That so to me, so I think that was like a sort of refund or something. So yeah, anyway, so gift cards sounds like a strange one unusual one to discuss but in our opinion important to get on top of and you need to get have a system go in so that you've got the right gift cards at the right time for when you need them. Well,

25:00
I love it, Lesley because you know, these are the things when you get more organized. These are the things you can find you can find a home for. And then you can make the money go to good use instead of having it expired or lose it. So yeah, it makes me happy. It makes me happy. But you

25:17
didn't know Ingrid, what you're gonna get a free 50th Birthday

25:23
you're probably going to end up giving me a gift card. So I can not spend it on any essentials. But I have to bite something that's No, no, I'm

25:29
gonna give you the one pound 20 gift card from being you know, actually, before we go, one of the things that you can do that we didn't talk about is you can sell gift cards online. Oh, I don't know whether it's actually legal. I'm not sure whether it is. But you see people who will sell like 50 pound gift cards for places that they know they're not going to shop for on eBay for 45 pounds. And it might not be legal. So don't don't shoot the messenger. But, but I definitely seen that going on legal or illegal? I'm not sure. But anyway, I've enjoyed a little foray into gift cards. Ingrid,

26:05
I have to so thank you so much listeners and let us know let us know in the comments under this podcast. If you ever have found a gift card, and that you were pleasantly surprised or you were absolutely distraught because it was expired. We would love to know a share your stories with us. We always love receiving emails and comments to our podcasts. So thank you so much for being here, and we'll see you next week.

26:34
Thanks so much for listening to the declutter hop podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to us in your podcast player so you don't miss an episode. And we'll see you next week.
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Bethanie Branton says:

22 November 2023 at 11:56 PM

I do not like getting gift cards. 99% of the time they get regifted. I feel like Ingrid, in that you end up having to go to that particular store and try to find something to buy. I can honestly say i don’t think i have ever had luck spending them. I just put them in my little Christmas box. And as the year goes by, i will go into that box to see if there is one that i can give for someone’s birthday. I do make sure to put a note on them as to who gave it to me so I don’t give it back to them. Heehee. Most of the gift cards here in the USA, most of our gift cards do not expire. I always ask when i buy them. And on ones i get i will call the 1-800 number on the back of the card and find out if they expire
And how much is on them. And i write that information on a note on the card. I would much rather get cash. I will put that money in the bank or buy gas with it. Or i will put the cash in my Christmas box so that i have cash to buy birthday gifts throughout the year. Just my process. Great podcast

Reply
1. Lesley Spellman says:
  
  23 November 2023 at 8:39 AM
  
  Sound like such a good process x
  
  Reply
Andie says:

4 August 2023 at 4:34 PM

In the US, law says anything under $10 you can ask for cash back. Some smaller stores are very confused on how to do this.

Reply
Episode 253 – Organising gift cards

Episode 329 – 10 ways to avoid overwhelm when decluttering

Episode 328 – How to keep the plates spinning in a busy home with Anna Burns

Episode 327 – New Year new you or New Year same you?

Episode 326 – 10 motivational decluttering quotes to take you into 2025

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