What did you do with the cash gifts from your wedding?

[amastewa93]

We got married on Monday and have a bit of cash from gifts. Normally people spend that on honeymoons or registry items. However, we are moving and my other half is already in our new city (I'll be joining him in about 16 days). So, we don't want to buy anything extra to move and we won't have a honeymoon/trip until later this year.

Other than a trip or items for your home, what did you do with cash gifts from your wedding?

[disneysteve]

First, congrats on your marriage.

As for our wedding cash, it's been a long time (26+ years) so I don't recall exactly. We did take a honeymoon so the money probably all went for that. If anything was left, we probably used it toward debt. DW had a car loan and I had a ton of student loans so I'm guessing it went there or for household stuff.

[kork13]

We just piled it in with all of our normal earned income. But yes, much of it ended up going to pay for our honeymoon trip & household items. But really, it's a gift. No strings attached. Use it however you need to use it. That could be moving costs, initial deposits, debt, or whatever else. Don't feel obligated to use it for something special (but unnecessary) merely because it was a wedding gift. Use it in whatever way is of greatest benefit.

Congrats on the wedding!!

[Thrif-t]

We paid cash for our wedding and honeymoon so the cash from our wedding went into our first joint savings account to save for a house. 1991 got $7,000 in cash for our wedding.

I still got the book with all the names and dollar amounts that people gave. Yep I'm Italian and it's like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ8plFxMp40

[1claire]

Congratulations on your wedding.I and my partner decided to save it since we have prepared our honeymoon in advance before walking down the aisle.

[bjl584]

How much did you get?
If it is a small amount, then maybe just use it for some household items that you may need?
If we are talking about a larger amount, then pay off debt or invest?

[MonkeyMama]

We used it to offset our wedding costs. We paid cash for wedding, so probably just put the gifts back into savings. Don't remember 100% but at the time money was no object and I don't remember splurging on anything. (We were frantically trying to save towards a house in San Francisco. Which is where most our income went, and certainly any windfalls). But I do remember being pleasantly surprised by cash gifts and in my mind considering that reducing the actual cost of our wedding.

Congrats!

[amastewa93]

We are actually both moving to Atlanta for his new job so we have decided to stash it away in savings for an additional safety net. Neither of us know anyone in Atlanta so we both feel a little better padding our EF a bit more. This also gives us a bit more peace of mind to start focusing on paying off debts (we paid his car off today with some of the cash).

[corn18]

Congrats! Sounds like there are a lot of moving parts and risks to manage. I would like to say we were as prudent as you with our wedding cash, but I'm sure we spent it on a new TV or something. And spent the next 24 years or so in debt up to our eyeballs. We didn't take a honeymoon then but 30 years later, we are.

[disneysteve]

We are actually both moving to Atlanta for his new job so we have decided to stash it away in savings for an additional safety net. Neither of us know anyone in Atlanta so we both feel a little better padding our EF a bit more. This also gives us a bit more peace of mind to start focusing on paying off debts (we paid his car off today with some of the cash).

Padding the EF is nice but if you have high interest debt and enough cash to pay it off, that's probably the better way to go. Plus if you eliminate a debt, your EF doesn't need to be as large anyway.

[amastewa93]

Congrats! Sounds like there are a lot of moving parts and risks to manage. I would like to say we were as prudent as you with our wedding cash, but I'm sure we spent it on a new TV or something. And spent the next 24 years or so in debt up to our eyeballs. We didn't take a honeymoon then but 30 years later, we are.

We aren't taking a honeymoon right away with the move but we were gifted something like $400 in Southwest airline gift cards so we will go somewhere soon! We are hoping that with his new job we will be debt-free in about a year (woo).

[amastewa93]

Padding the EF is nice but if you have high interest debt and enough cash to pay it off, that's probably the better way to go. Plus if you eliminate a debt, your EF doesn't need to be as large anyway.

Ah - yes. His car was the highest interest debt we had until today. It is officially paid off. After that, we plan to snowball our debt. We don't have any CC debt, thankfully. So we aren't getting killed on interest rates for the most part. My student loans are the next big thing to tackle (around $23K).

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Congratulations! We spent it I recall on buying pots and pans from our registry we didn't get. Used the 10% macy's completion and 14 years later we still are using our pots and pans. I smile when I use my pots and pans daily. It really was the best money we spent. Rest went to honeymoon which was also amazing but I remember buying our pots and pans!

[amastewa93]

Congratulations! We spent it I recall on buying pots and pans from our registry we didn't get. Used the 10% macy's completion and 14 years later we still are using our pots and pans. I smile when I use my pots and pans daily. It really was the best money we spent. Rest went to honeymoon which was also amazing but I remember buying our pots and pans!

We received pots and pans from his mother shortly after we moved in together. Much of those items we already have, so we are able to really look at how we wanted to use it.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

We'd lived together 5 years before marriage. We did have everything. but we didn't have anything good. We had crap. I bought calphalon pots and pans to the tune of $500. I also bought dishes and silverware from crate and barrel. All of this stuff I use daily 14 years later and haven't replaced. If not for the wedding money I probably would never have shelled out that sort of dough for high quality stuff and kept on using the crap. But the good quality stuff was well worth it.

Now if only I had bought knives. Years later I still have modest knives instead of a really high quality set. I'm still eyeing my set.