What the data says

The recipient pages answer one relationship each. These are about the numbers themselves: where they come from, what they cover, and where the confident-looking figures elsewhere come from instead.

All of it rests on one survey: 2,202 US adults, fielded 19-21 August 2025. Three pages, because one survey raises three separate questions — what it actually measured, what it reports that everyone else contradicts, and what it does not measure at all.

• “No gifts, please”: what is measured and what is not

  Every page answering this gives you wording. None says whether the request works, or how unusual it is. One in three Americans have made it this year — and whether guests comply has never been measured by anyone, including us.

• How much money to give for a birthday

  The only published figure says a child gets $83.03 and an adult $55.65 — the child gets more. Every confident per-age table you will find says the opposite, and none of them has a sample size.

• What is actually published about gift spending

  One national survey publishes a birthday gift figure. It gives a single number for any adult and no breakdown by relationship at all — which is a problem, because breakdowns by relationship are exactly what every gift guide prints.