Better to have gifted and lost...

or never to have gifted at all?

Put it this way: you're a couple with children, stapped for cash, and wanting to put something for them under the tree. Do you do what you can currently with what you have -- not knowing what the years ahead bring -- or do you blow your financial future by running it up on what everyone pretty much agrees is a crappy gift, guaranteed to break down without significant tinkering, just so you can be all showy right now about what you're gifting, fancy packaging and happy holiday times and all?

Be smart. Give what you can afford; pass on feeding the pocketbooks of those with an crappy product, insurance or not; and remember, the glow from the success of the showy day of gifting eventually ends, and the bills come due.

The kids will thank you later.