New parents refuse to chip in for a Gucci bag and $3500 birthday dinner after entitled friends ask them to: ‘These expensive group gifts are not something we feel comfortable doing anymore’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Jul 16, 2025 6:00 PM EDT

When did we all collectively decide that we were going to spend an arm and a leg on birthday gifts for our friends, especially in this economy?! Forget a homemade birthday cake and a gift card to Dunkin', you're expected to chip in hundreds of your well-earned smackaroons so your entire friend group can gift someone a Gucci bag or a seafood dinner. Seems a little much, doesn't it? Folks knowingly put pressure on others, especially in group chats or other group settings, so you feel inclined to agree to whatever the majority decides on. Even if you feel like you can't financially swing it, you're put on blast for everyone to see. So, when you finally put your foot down, your friend group will either ostracize you or, in this story's case, admit that they've hated the expensive gift-giving for years.

The overly insistent couple who started the "tradition" fails to understand that if someone decides to opt for a separate gift instead of pitching in hundreds of dollars for a group gift, then it goes without saying that they don't want to be a part of it and likely can't swing it at the moment. Scroll below to read about the fallout.

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  • "AITA for not chipping in for a Gucci bag or a €3,000 birthday dinner I didn’t plan?"

    I (29F) and my husband (35M) are part of a close group of friends. We're all in our late- twenties to mid-thirties, most of us are married or in serious
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  • relationships, and we usually celebrate birthdays together. The usual setup has always been that the birthday person hosts and pays for everyone.
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  • But about a year ago, this weird new tradition started. For each birthday, someone opens a WhatsApp group and says, "Let's
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  • all chip in for this really expensive gift." We're talking about things like Hermes flip-flops, Formula 1 tickets, Gucci bags. It's all very public and a bit uncomfortable to
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  • say no. My husband and I have always gone along with it, even though it's felt a bit much at times. For example, we paid around €300 towards a €1,500 Formula 1 ticket for my husband's best friend, let's call him Tom.
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  • At the time, it felt okay. But now things are different. We're already parents to one child, we're trying for a second, and we just opened a new business
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  • which we fully funded from our own savings. Everyone in the group knows this, including Tom. We're doing fine financially, but
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  • we're definitely being more careful. These expensive group gifts are not something we feel comfortable doing anymore.
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  • A few weeks ago it was my husband's birthday. One of the friends asked if I was going to open a WhatsApp group for a
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  • gift. I said no. My husband didn't want anything. We hosted everyone for a pool party, paid for everything ourselves, and were happy to do it. For the record,
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  • Tom gave my husband a nice bottle of tequila worth around €100. We appreciated it. I'm not complaining at all. I've never judged or compared gifts, and I've been genuinely grateful for every single one, no matter the price.
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  • Two weeks later, it was Tom's girlfriend's birthday. He opened a group chat and said she would like a Gucci bag. I told my
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  • husband I didn't want to participate in this one. He agreed. We didn't reply in the group, but we bought her a €120 massage voucher as a gift.
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  • Her birthday was held at a really fancy and expensive beach restaurant. We went, enjoyed the event, had fun and made sure the
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  • birthday girl had a blast. A few days later, Tom wrote in the group that the bill was €3,000 and said that if anyone would like to contribute, they could.
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  • I told my husband I didn't want to chip in. We didn't choose the place. We gave her a gift. And again, we're being more mindful about money right now. He obviously agreed.
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  • Then Tom messaged my husband privately and said he expected us to help with the dinner bill since we didn't join the group gift. He
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  • said our €100 gift wasn't enough, brought up the fact that we had always participated before, including for his Formula 1 ticket, and said we were being jerks for not pitching in at all this time.
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  • I honestly don't understand it. I've never once complained about the gifts we got. I've always been thankful. But suddenly we're being labeled as the r de ones just because we made a different choice this time based on our current situation.
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  • TL;DR: Our friend group does expensive group gifts and dinners for birthdays. We used to join in, but now that we have a kid, are trying for a second, and just opened a self-funded
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  • business, we're being more careful. We didn't pitch in for a Gucci bag or a €3,000 dinner at one friend's girlfriend's birthday. Gave a €100 gift instead. Now we're being called jerks.
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  • Archkat NTA You can tell him that you are opting out of the tradition and since you already had a birthday and didn't ask anyone to pay that's the proof.
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  • Helpful-Inside-5023 ΝΤΑ Serving you with a bill after the fact, without informing you before the event that this would be expected is not a fair friendly move.
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  • If Tom wants to buy expensive gucci bags to his girlfriend and plan 3K dinners, that's great, but he can't expect the same level of chipping in from everyone else. It's his girlfriend, not everyone's. If Tom was a good friend he wouldn't have stepped on multiple boundaries and calling you "jerks"?... For not paying for his ideas.
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  • clarazn UPDATE After reading all the comments here, we realized we might not have been as clear as we thought. So we decided to write a message in the group chat with all our friends:
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  • "Hi guys, first of all, we love you all. Just wanted to say we're no longer participating in the group gift tradition. With our growing family and the new business, we're trying to be more mindful with money. We'll always celebrate you in our own way. Thanks for understanding."
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  • Everyone in the group were super supportive and said they understood completely. Everyone decided to just stop this tradition and go back to just celebrating eachother's special day.
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  • Then, privately, one couple reached out to us and said they're currently going. through IVF (which is super expensive) and have also felt uncomfortable with the pressure but didn't know how to say it. They were relieved we spoke up.
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  • Tom, on the other hand, texted my husband saying the message felt passive aggressive and like we were throwing shade. His girlfriend messaged me saying we should have just said privately that we "don't have the money" and that now we've ruined the tradition for everyone. She doesn't know about the other couple.
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  • I told her, "Well, my birthday is coming up and I want a trip to Thailand for my whole family." No answer, obviously. It stirred things up a bit, but it also helped more people feel comfortable. So I think it was worth it.
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friendship aita presents birthdays present AITAH best friends birthday friends gift reddit story friend entitled people karma entitled birthday present reddit thread Reddit parents entitled people
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