What Would You Pay to Have Your Gifts Wrapped?

Online retailers charge anywhere from 3-6$ per item to be gift wrapped. We have a charity wrapping center in the mall and they ask for donations, when I volunteered for this people donated anything from a dollar to 10$

I went to the mall and had some presents wrapped. it was donation and done in less than 20 minutes.

If you really are in McLean? I'd come over and help.

If you’re hiring a babysitter or mother’s helper, you should pay the going hourly rate in your area.

In my area it’s no less than $10/hour. My daughter is almost 24 now and when she was high school/college she earned about $100 a weekend night babysitting.

So.. pay the sitter rate. However... another concept... I just paid a 14 yr old neighbor to bag leaves at $5 a bag. This kid worked her A$$ off and I paid her $90.

depends largely on how many gifts, and whose supplies will be used, doesn't it?
khairete
S.

I have never done this, but a good friend of mine did this this year.

She bought those bags that look like Santa sacks - one for each person - and put all the gifts from Santa specifically - in the sack and didn't wrap them. So it looks like Santa left it for each person.

It cut down on wrapping considerably. Then if you add in not wrapping gifts in stockings (or just wrap loosely in tissue) ...

Maybe you can make it easier on yourself. Just stick things in gift bags with tissue.

If you had a teen or mom's helper in, to do it - I personally would probably pay the same as I would to babysit for an hour. Just give them the wrap and let them go. Or min wage and tip or something. I mean, it would be worth it right?

I'd pay the babysitter the usual rate, plus tip. It's easier than watching kids! If the sitter is watching the kids at the same time (assuming the gifts are for others, or the kids are in bed), I'd say to keep track of the hours spent on wrapping, and add that on as an extra hour or two. It's worth it for your convenience and peace of mind.

I think you should provide all the supplies. If some gifts are from Santa and are in different wrapping paper than those from family, you can do a paper swap with neighbors. That's what some of our neighbors do. It helps "keep the secret" for older kids.

For just a few gifts that I wanted to look special for presentation, I went to a local stationery store in NYC and paid $9 per gift for really pretty wrapping done by a "professional" at the store (unique wrapping styles with fancy bows and all).

You should think about your "needs" - not every person, not every teenager, is good at wrapping gifts...some people might use too much tape, some people might wrinkle the paper - decide what "quality" of wrapping you need before you decide who to hire.

When you set a rate, I think you should pay per wrapped gift item, not pay hourly, to control the total cost. That helps with fairness to you and fairness to the hired wrapper (you are not expecting the whole job to get done too quickly with unreasonably fast wrapping, and, you will not have a money-hungry kid go unreasonably slowly, you are just having X number of gifts wrapped regardless of how long it takes).