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If you’re anything like me, Christmas is a double edged sword; so much excitement and fun but there’s also the guilty thought that soon my kids will be flooded with gifts.

The gifts are of course from beautifully well meaning grandparents, aunts, uncles and dear friends but add them all together and there’s …. a lot!

And many of them may be given a cursory glance, a moment of attention and then left in a massive pile – to haunt me for months and make me feel guilty about the mountain of plastic and landfill.

I often wonder why I feel bad actually providing suggestions for gifts or asking for contributions towards a larger gift.

It didn’t bother me to have a Wedding Registry, so why feel guilty having a list for the kids?

It seems I’m not alone. It seems that other parents have walked ahead of me and felt the same guilt. But they’ve done something fantastic … they’ve created PURPOSIT!

Now I’m not going to pretend I’ve just stumbled across this App and am raving about it. I didn’t. But when the team from Purposit got in touch with us and told us exactly what their App does, we were more than happy to share the good news.

purposit_make your childs gift wishes come true_650x200

Purposit enables you (and those who gift to your children) to give meaningful gifts for your kids, every time. Gift choices are only limited by the parents’ imagination; from material items to experiences such as travel, school funding or dance classes. It can also be a charitable gift.

With Purposit, you can choose presents for today or the future. The same gift can be used for multiple events (eg. birthdays, Christmas, Graduation) until it gets 100% funded.

Here’s what Mums and Dads are saying about Purposit:

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Here’s how Purposit works (it was much easier to understand when I saw this):

Now I can just point friends to the gift ideas and, if they do not know what to get, they have the option to contribute. As there is no minimum contribution, this works for all friends regardless of their budgets. Only the parent who invited you can see your contribution so there is none of that ‘peer pressure’ that you get with most group gifting platforms.

For most people, Purposit will save a lot of time too. No need to go the mall to search for the right gift – you can do that from your phone or computers in literally 60 seconds.

Perfect for interstate and overseas gift givers.

If you have grandies and relatives inter-state and overseas, this is just perfect for them. After they contribute online via the website – called webapp for some reason – you can send them personalised thank you cards and post pictures for them to comment on. Closing the distance and allowing distant relatives to feel like they are still in the loop.

Purposit is very different from your typical gift giving event. Once you join an event for a child, you can follow their profile on Purposit. You can see how their gift funding is tracking (% progress only), comment on photos and make ad hoc contributions to any unfunded gift.

It feels like a more personal social circle around your child composed only of those people the organiser chooses. As there is no way for anyone to ‘ask to be your friend’ on it, you don’t have to worry about that pain in the butt cousin you never invite.

For me as a mum, one of the main attractions is that I can now think about experiences, travelling, education and activities that looked of out of reach and use the app to help fund them. I can create gifts for next year and the year after so people can chip in for the same gift multiple times on multiples events. Until the gift is funded!

So easy to use.

Whoever designed Purposit clearly had non-tech savvy people like myself in mind because it’s all super simple and clear to navigate. Lots of tasks are automated including the invitations. I didn’t have to write the invite – I just chose one of many templates with a nicely crafted message and added a few emojis here and there.

One thing I’m conscious when asking people to chip in is how they may feel. I don’t want them to feel like I’m telling them what to do. I want them to feel like I’m giving them options in case they want to give something but are unsure what to get. And the templates were smartly written to make sure everyone receiving feels good and see the gift ideas as an option only. Clever!

But the best part of it is that it helps me give my children opportunities and chances than perhaps I would not be able to give on my own. It helps me think about what my kids will need in the future and start working on it now to make it happen.

And that’s all done by simply shifting the hard earned money of friends away from unnecessary presents and towards the gifts that matter most and will benefit our kids greatly.

And that is an awesome thing!

Screen Shot 2017-12-06 at 1.27.37 pm

Find out all about Purposit on their website here.

Download the Purposit App FREE from the App Store, Google Play or Web App and start gifting today!

We may get commissions for purchases made using links in this post. Learn more.
  • Great idea, especially in terms of keeping the ridiculous numbers of unwanted presents down.

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  • My sister-in-law is using it for her twins’ Xmas presents as we are all contributing via the app. I chose to help them with their Movie World tickets. That sort of removed the awkwardness of asking what they needed and be told something that is more expensive than what i was planning to spend. Great to see this MoM review and that was similar to my experience using it. But I would not compare this to a gift registry at all. It did not force me to buy a full gift like registries do and also you can use it for presents that are not material things. And i got a thanks message with a picture from the parent, not from a machine. I have yet to see all the features this app has to offer but it’s definitely something we will use for our own son. For me at least that’s very helpful.

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  • I often ask the parents what to get their children for birthdays, Christmas etc.
    Sometimes it is a good idea to check with other relatives to make sure they aren’t buying the same toy as happened to us one year. It didn’t look the same but it was basically the same type of toy. It as decided we kept one at our place as at that stage we didn’t have many toys. The other grandparents had older grandchildren and already heaps of toys, including what we bought.

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  • Let us know how it went indeed. I love the idea of the annual zoo pass!!

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  • I will give it a try for Christmas afterall it’s free and when I asked my relatives if they minded if i shared with them some gift suggestions for my 5yo daughter they were all fine with it and some even said “yesssss pleeeeeeeease!!!”. I’m thinking of an annual zoo pass and a few soccer lessons (yes she is into it). I will report back to share how it went, but I’m excited about the possibilities! :)


    • Sorry for the late review. A friend of my was asking about this app and I realised I forgot to share how my Xmas experience with it went. But here it is:

      For my daughter and my family, this was great. I chose 4 gifts for her (she is 5) : painting set, annual zoo ticket, soccer classes and school trip fund (for when she is older). The zoo ticket and soccer classes were fully funded by our relatives and they loved to get thank you cards from me and my daughter – we put an effort to send everyone a card with a different picture and message. The painting set was partially funded so I just funded the rest myself – the app lets you do that without having to physically pay via the app. The school trip fund got a few contributions and I will keep using it for future christmas and birthdays – till it’s funded.

      Not everyone used it though. My sister had already bought something for my daughter. And that’s the subtlety of the app that I missed till I used it. My sister did not feel that she had to contribute to the gifts I chose. Rather, those were ideas in case she had no idea what to buy, like most of family members. Her feedback was that the way i wrote the invitation made it sounds like i was giving suggestions in case they had no clue of what to get. True, and i just used the pre-written invite template from the app.

      I was curious to see what the grandparents would think as they are not computer savvy and old school. But they had no issues using it from overseas and found it to be very ‘modern’.

      For me it was great to wake up on the 26th and see my daughter happy with all the gifts she received. Even better, there was nothing that i could say ‘hummm.. that was waste of money or she won’t use it….”.

      It was also educational. A few weeks ago I was explaining to my daughter about her school trip fund and how – instead of getting lots of little gifts – she will be able to go on a nice trip with her school friends later. She is 5 only but it’s never too early to teach our kids about that.

      The one thing i would like the app to do – and i sent a message to the app owner Johanna who replied straight away – was that it could also allow non-parents like an uncle to organise a gift for his nephew or a kid at school.

      That’s it. I will be using it again for sure. Really easy to use. I can see this being useful with school friends on birthdays where it can make the life of their mums a lot easier.

      Has anyone else used it?

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  • I used this app a few months ago when I was invited to the birthday of a school friend of my kids. I loved it and I’m now using it for my own kids for Xmas. I do not like to see my relatives and friends ‘unknowingly’ giving things that go to waste (=don’t get used often if ever), especially cause nobody wants to give something that is not needed – I certainly don’t – but it happens all the time. If my mum knows what to give to her grandchildren, she will buy and give it to them. But if she doesn’t or can’t find it, she can just contribute to the gifts I share with her.

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  • Mm… I’ll have a look… Maybe for older young people, not sure I’d be okay with it for littler kids.

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  • When I was a kid, I rarely got what was on my Christmas or birthday list. I was lucky enough to have parents who used their imaginations and came up with lots of quirky, interesting, useful and educational presents. Overall, I didn’t have many toys but I still have a few treasured ones over 50 years later. I can’t remember discarding any presents without getting plenty of fun and use first.

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  • I never liked the idea of Wedding Registries, so I don’t like this idea much. But I am sure it will be helpful for a lot of people, in particular people that have big events and invite a lot of guests.

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  • We’re finally starting to get the “lets all go out for the day and do something fun” message across instead of piles of toys that never get used.

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  • We have never ever used any type of registry as we love surprises and we don’t like to know what we are getting – love the thrill of something unexpected. Probably an app that others may find helpful?

    Reply

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