What will they think of next?!

A New Jersey-based company called Cold Cuts Media has created a new iPhone/iPod application called REGIFT that will catalog the gifts you want to pass on. Since two in three adults have regifted at some time (I certainly have), this could prove very useful to keep out sticky social situations (such as eventually giving the gift back to the original gift-giver).

Costing just $0.99 from the ITunes App store, you can: track what you want to regift, take a shot of it, record who gave it to you, when and for what gift occasion, make notes on who NOT to give it to, categorise it, and then mark it off as “regifted” once you’ve rewrapped it and sent it on its merry way.

Just to make extra sure your regifting effort goes um, unnoticed, it even prompts you to check for receipts, engravings, cards or some other identifying factor that would indicate it had been originally given to you.

Perhaps this is one app that all couples should add to their wedding gift registry…

Everyone knows someone who’s a bit of maverick, who tries to fit in but cannot be anything other than different. Take a bow, Aquarius!

Aquarians are unusual. You’ll notice them at first glance (these guys are more likely than any other sign to be the first of a subculture: they were probably the first in their class to be one of the shocking bodgies, widgies, hippies, New Romantics, punks, goths, emos… you get the picture or at least they love dressing up as one as often as they can). Or if they seem normal, your conversation will soon reveal you’re dealing with a very different kettle of fish. Even if they dress normally and behave in socially appropriate ways, they will have a strange, rare or alternative hobby.

Many of them are wildly popular; a stack of them are on the geeky side. Anything that’s cutting-edge technology should thrill them just fine. While it’s a enormous generalisation, if you can think of most urban DJs/geeks/computer hackers as Aquarian you’ll be on the right track. They are typically a citified lot, umbilically linked to the iPhone, iPod, Skype - you get the picture.

They love nonconformity, unpredictability and a scorn for convention. They can be quite outrageous at work, and they just love teasing family, friends and neighbours with no sense of humour. Sometimes they’ll remind you of Dr Spock (curiously unemotional - in fact they rather like items to do with him, and that other guy, Darth and his mates) and at other times their ideas will be so antiquated you’ll wonder if they’ve time-travelled from the 19th century. Both sexes are surprisingly ageless; children love them because they treat them as adults or maybe it’s because most Aquarians never really grow up.

While they sound anti-social, they’re actually groupies when it comes to friends (more is better) who spread themselves thin catching up with everyone.  Anything that can help them to entertain great swathes of acquaintances is one suggestion.

As you can guess, these are not the guys to buy chintz doona sets for. Kitsch things like egg chairs, lava lamps or those fluttering fibre optic lamps (or basically anything that decorated Dr Evil’s 1960s pad in Austen Powers) are usually a hit. Many of them are humanitarians who want to make the world a better place. Some of them have a strange attitude towards money; many of them give it away (Paul Newman was a sexy Aquarius). These are the sort you could happily regift something and they’d be happy you weren’t wasting the planet’s resources.

Aquarians can be extremists (they’re very stubborn about their point-of-view) and are either soooo politically correct or a bigoted throwback to the past. They do have a good sense of humour though so you can tease them about their controversial, even unpopular causes.

Many of them are into astronomy, astrology, science and metaphysics. A telescope, a star named after them or just for fun, an acre of the moon could appeal to them.

If you’re one of the 19% of consumers who received a dud Christmas present (and you’ve managed to get hold of the receipt), you’d better get cracking if you want to return them for a refund!

While some stores will allow refunds up to a year later, many will refund goods brought in their original packaging (hmmm - how often does that happen!?) and tags up to the end of January.

Other stores won’t give you a refund at all but merely an exchange or credit for something else in their store. According to the US National Retail Federation, American retailers took back an estimated $17 billion of unwanted gifts. What’s more, 17% of retailers have tightened their return policies.

If you can’t get cash and you really don’t like the item nor feel you could regift it to another, think carefully how you could use the credit note to “purchase” another gift which will save you spending your own money. You could always select one of the items there for Valentines Day, your anniversary, birthday, Mothers Day or even for Christmas 2010.

According to a new survey, Britons have wasted £657 million on dreadful and pointless Christmas gifts - which is about £10.70 pounds wasted on bad Chrissie gifts for every man, woman and child on that little island.

 Two thousand Brits were polled by the TV channel Home to promote the launch of  new de-cluttering program called Gutted. (I think this is a fantastic name as “gutted” not only means a complete clear-out of junk to start afresh, but in English slang means terribly upset. Which is what you are when you get a rubbish present.)

So we get to watch people who have loyally kept presents they hate and never use toss them out.

The worst offending gifts were novelty jumpers (a la Mark Darcy’s one in Bridget Jones), rice cookers, fondue sets, comedy books(?), pasta makers, exercise DVDs, ice-cream makers,  liquor chocolates (oh, come on, I’d eat those!), novelty slippers and jigsaw puzzles.

What’s worse is that one in five people got themselves into debt buying gifts, overspending by £340. Men racked up more debt than women (£400 vs £310) but women took longer to pay it off.

Thirteen percent admitted regifting the badly-chosen gifts to some other sucker while 16% sold them on eBay.

Everyone gets a gift that’s not quite “them” for Christmas. So what are your options?

1. Get a refund. You can only do this if you know the gift-giver well enough that he or she would happily give you the receipt so you can get what you want (ie cash). The cleverest thing you can do for your personal wealth-building for 2010, if you get the cash, is to make sure you spend it on an anniversary, upcoming birthday or 2010 Christmas gift and then you can cross one gift off your list!

2. Regift it. I got three boxes of Guylian shell chocolates - and as much as I love them, that’s kinda overkill (on my thighs). So someone is going to get a box of them as a hostess gift for a dinner party or whatever.

3. Reuse them. Strange clothing items might be perfect for your (or your kids’) dress-up box, with especially glitzy jewellery great for decorating your Christmas tree in 11 months’ time! An ugly ceramic vase could be “planted” in the garden to hold a flowering shrub that disguises the original container. A too-fruity perfume could be fine as a bathroom atomiser!

4. Sell them. eBay estimates approximately $1billion worth of gifts are unwanted every Christmas. However, since you will be “competing” with hundreds of thousands of other sellers trying to flog the same thing, it may actually be a better time to BUY items still in their original packaging in January as you won’t get a very good price for whatever you’re trying to sell right now. Start selling next month, perhaps…

5. Donate them. Take your unwanted toys and books to the local library or children’s centre, clothing to the local shelter and so on.

6. Throw it out. In feng shui terms, there is nothing worse than keeping something you cannot stand as the quietly festering resentment you have towards the item creates a yucky pool of energy in your home. Most people can’t remember what they gave you after a couple of years, anyway…

If your Christmas gift from Aunt Samantha, Uncle Wayne or perhaps your parents seems suspiciously “used”, with tags missing, the clothing rumpled and non-starched or that “new” smell missing, it’s quite possible they’ve regifted it.

A survey of more than 1,100 Baby Boomers by New Zealand website Grownups.co.nz found that almost 50% of respondents felt there was nothing wrong with regifting unwanted presents (yeah right, they were sooooo good that they had to pass them on).

I don’t know when Oldtimers Disease kicks in but amazingly, 66% of respondents (aged 44-64) admitted to forgetting to buy a Christmas gift for their partner! Arghhh!!! I hope they didn’t get themselves out of the doghouse by regifting what their partner gave them back to their long-suffering other half…

But to make up for this, they are particularly generous to charity with 28% giving at Christmas-time and a further 59% giving money to charity throughout the year.

Did you know about 27% of people who get gift certificates and gift cards don’t redeem them? That’s a lot of wasted money and effort on behalf of the person who bought them the voucher.

I can think of only one gift certificate I didn’t use and it was for a pedicure at the local beauty salon. Unfortunately my birthday is in winter and I just didn’t fancy freezing my toes off in flip-flops for four hours to keep my OPI polish free of woolly sock prints! So I let it lapse. Arghhh. Boy, did I feel bad (and my toes didn’t look too great either).

So, what you do about gift certificates that can be unsuitable?

1. Contact the retailer or website in plenty of time before the certificate expires to ask if you can swap it for another item of the same or lesser value (I could have used it towards a luxurious facial, but it didn’t occur to me at the time).

2. Regift it to someone else. (Ah, not to state the obvious, but you can really only get away with this by regifting gift cards and pre-printed gift certificates without your name on it.)

3. Sell it on eBay - there are plenty of people flogging unwanted gift certificates for a little cash on the side (Aunt Mary might be a bit upset, however).

4. Donate the gift certificate to a registered charity.

5.  Redeem the gift certificate so it doesn’t expire and offer the resulting manicure booking/jewellery/movie tickets/tacky lingerie etc as a door prize for a business networking function or as part of an auction line-up for a community raffle. Costs you nothing and ensures it’s not entirely wasted.

Regifting is one phenomenon that’s been gaining ground thanks to the coinciding Global Financial Crisis and the anti-clutter trend. If you can clean up your home, give someone a gift AND save money in the process - happy days.

Have a look around your home. There’s SURE to be something suitable you can pass on for someone’s birthday. Here’s a quick guide to what items you could safely regift to certain Sun signs without causing too much distress. (It goes without saying that you’re not going to regift anything that’s dirty, broken or in poor condition! Also, ideally it should still be in the original packaging…)

Jewellery - rings, bangles and bracelets (Geminis), pendants, necklaces (Taurus), gold anything that’s good (Leo), matching set jewellery (Libra), antique family heirlooms, pearls (Cancer and Capricorn), mood rings (Pisces), toe rings , “statement” pieces (Aquarius), belly chains, anything hand-crafted (Virgo), leather jewellery (Aries, Scorpio), ethnic pieces (Sagittarius).

Books - cookbooks (Cancer and Taurus), romantic novels (Leo and Libra), thrillers (Scorpio), sci-fi (Aquarius), self-help (Aquarius and Virgo), travel (Sagittarius), business (Capricorn), mystical, movie or music books (Pisces), how-to manuals and sexy potboilers (Aries)

Homewares - bookshelves, storage items (Gemini and Virgo), doonas, comforters, mohair throws (Taurus and Cancer), ornate mirrors, boxed DVD sets (Leo), antiques, crystal vases (Capricorn), BBQ equipment, Persian rugs, travel souvenirs (Sagittarius), DIY power tools, sporting equipment (Aries), filing cabinets, fur throws, breakfast in bed trays (Scorpio). terrariums, vintage equipment, computers (Aquarius), aquariums, windchimes (Pisces), cake stands, serving platters, jewellery trays (Taurus and Libra).

Clothing - vintage shoes (Pisces, maybe Leo if they’re in ultra-good condition - the shoes, I mean), scarves (Taurus), fur coats, dramatic coats (Leo), wacky 60s/70s stuff (Aquarius), handbags (Virgo), belts and hats (Libra), brooches (Cancer), Doc Maartens boots, anything red (Aries).

And if it all seems too hard, go shopping!

When a friend or family member’s birthday is coming up, how do you feel about presenting them with the gift? While the ads on TV will have you believe that everyone beams with joy upon a receiving a gift, nay, it isn’t so.

Why? There are some planetary signs, houses and aspects that will make some people grunt their thanks (at best!) while others light up like a Christmas tree when they receive something.

Everyone knows the type of gift recipient who will attempt to smile and nod when they receive something (and that’s their best efforts at enthusiasm). These ingrates are often shy about openly expressing their appreciation, and just can’t seem to get worked up with the thrill that makes it feel worthwhile making an effort to give them a gift.

Many of them are ”cursed” with a Moon and/or Mercury conjunct/square/oppose Saturn aspect. Any of these combinations makes them awfully self-conscious, pessimistic, and disbelieving of their worthiness. If you get them a good present, they feel embarrassed, obligated, or even suspicious of your motives, ie “what do you really want from me?”. If you get them a (quite honestly) bad gift, they feel that they don’t deserve any better and will then moan no-one cares. Yes, it’s not too fun giving them something.

Others tough gift nuts to crack are those with Saturn in the second house. Saturn rules what makes you feel uncomfortable, insecure, unworthy, shy - you get the drift - and the second house rules money, values, possessions and other material goodies. If you don’t buy them a super-good, thoughtful present that’s the best you can afford, they feel you don’t care. These guys are quite often the type to judge their relationship with you by the quality of the gifts you give.

A related gift-giver is one with a heavy Virgo or Capricorn focus in their chart (and Taurus to a lesser degree). They can be surprisingly mean and have no compunction about re-gifting, or just giving you a “token” present eg a jar of jam, a small book etc - even for a milestone birthday. They just don’t like spending money. The gifts they prefer to give tend to be actual services ie they will happily help you move, repair something or offer advice that you’d normally pay for.

Geminis, Sagittarians and Aquarians can often get a kick out of giving someone a gift that strays dangerously close to being wildly inappropriate, just to get a rise out of them. These are the whoopee cushions and other silly gags (especially appealing to Sagittarians), books that send a message ie How to Win Friends and Influence People (Geminis are most guilty of this) and those are so left-field no-one can believe they bought them - take a bow, Aquarius.

Those with a heavy Aries, Mars or first house focus in their charts are hopeless at thinking about others. And you won’t be in any doubt how they feel about your prezzie! They either love it and start using it/playing it straightaway (at which point you heave a sigh of relief) or will say, “No, there’s a much newer/better/trendier/cooler X that I want” or something charmingly similar, making you furious you bothered. If they haven’t abdicated their gift-buying responsibilities to someone else, they tend to buy exactly what THEY like as that is what interests them. So ask these guys to give you a gift card to a store you like. You get what you want, it takes them mere seconds if they do it online with an electronic gift certificate AND you can let them know what you bought thanks to them. This’ll then encourage them to do it again as they love praise…

Next post - who’s great at receiving gifts…