Latest responses to “Gift Card Purchase Fees Are A Waste Of Money - We Need To Start Using Chinese Red Envelopes” Copyright 2013, MoneyBlueBook.com 412950 2008-05-01T04:23:11-07:00 01 mapgirl, Japanese also give money for funeral and the envelopes are black or other dark colours. 412960 2008-05-01T04:21:45-07:00 01 Hi, you are very misinformed. If you have no use for the Starbucks card, you can call them and they will "refund" you the denomination with a check to your address. 412920 2008-03-11T17:57:39-07:00 Raymond Mapgirl, I had no idea people gave money for funerals...I wonder if the counterpart to red envelopes for weddings and new year would be white envelopes for funerals since in many Asian cultures, white is associated with the passing of someone. 412930 2008-03-11T09:27:48-07:00 mapgirl Raymond, I have a hard time finding the envelopes, but I used to live in San Francisco and the local banks in Chinatown had red envelopes during Lunar New Year. I meant to check DC Chinatown for them this year, but notably, Bank of America (former HQ'd in SF) does not have a large branch in Chinatown in DC and that would have been my first destination. I guess I'll have to see if I can find them some other way from some other place. FWIW, Koreans also give cash for weddings, funerals, birthdays and new year. However, you do NOT give funeral money in a red envelope. Might want to check that. The money is used to defray funeral costs. Oh. Perhaps I should do a post about this? 412940 2008-03-10T10:21:48-07:00 SavingDiva Sounds cute! Now, I just need to find cute envelopes (not necessarily red).... 412910 2008-01-16T17:02:03-08:00 Urbanfrugal Giving cash definitely helps you stick to a spending plan. If you decide that you can only afford to give a person $10 then give them $10. (You can even make little envelopes out of old magazine pages, for a really unique touch) 412900 2008-01-05T03:07:07-08:00 Raymond Lily, Red envelope cash gifts are the best! Mrs. Micah, Not sure where you live in the Maryland area, but there are Asian stores around here that probably sell the red envelopes - there's Maxim over in Rockville on Hungerford Drive. Maybe Chinatown in DC has it too - perhaps one of those 7-11 type stores (although DC's Chinatown is seriously being taken over by mainstream stores). 412890 2008-01-04T22:14:50-08:00 Honest Dollar For the crafty, you could always make your own. 412880 2008-01-04T18:41:26-08:00 Mrs. Micah I really like the red envelope idea! It makes the money special and yet flexible. I wonder if we can popularize it... Do you know if they sell these envelopes in the Chinatown area? It just hit me that one might be able to acquire them locally. :) 412870 2008-01-04T08:59:23-08:00 Lily I'm totally with you on this one. This year I couldn't bring any big items back from my parents' house since I was already pretty close to airline baggage limits. So my parents gave me cash (albeit in a white envelope), and that's the most helpful thing they could have done. I think some people would not like the practice of giving cash, since even when you give gift cards, at least you put some thought into which store to get the card from. But I completely value the freedom of choice you offer people when you give them cash as gifts. They don't have to shop at one particular store, buy a certain thing to stay under the limit, or pay more money out of pocket in order to completely deplete the card.