Well, I'm parting with some funds in order to do things that are important and exciting for my kids. We are an Irish dancing, soccer family, meaning the girls are Irish dancers, and the boys are all soccer players.
For Mother's Day (happening two months early), I am going with my two daughters to see "Heartbeat of Home", by the creators of Riverdance. My girls had a whole argument written out as to why we should go see it. Compelling argument is younger daughter wants to dance professionally (Irish) and wouldn't it be great for her to be inspired. And because I loved Irish dance so much, I started them in classes eleven years ago. Anyhow, we paid roughly $44 per person and are going to a matinee show next Saturday at the Oriental Theatre.
And for Father's Day, my husband and sons are going to see the Chicago Fire play, but their season is just starting and we'll get those tickets next month. I can't even argue because they are counting down the days to the World Cup.
So, there you go. We're gifting ourselves with experiences. 
Value of experiences over things
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They don't seem to recall the birthday parties their dad and I knocked ourselves out to make special or the concert T's that caused such angst but they know every detail of the annual visits to the circus with gran. She used to arrange her visits to our city with the circus schedule. The only foodie things they ever talk about is dad's annual BBQ for his staff where they were the official bartenders and manipulating us to go to the ice cream store because Brandy [[our dog] 'needed' an ice cream cone.
March 10th, 2014 at 04:19 am 1394425150
I started that with my youngest niece. I asked her a couple of years ago for birthday and Christmas gift ideas (she was 7) and she said she'd rather do something with me than get a gift because our time could be limited with work and school. So now I creatively gift wrap something having to do with our experience and draft a poem and she has to figure it out. Sometimes she gets it right away, sometimes it takes some research which she loves doing!
I think of it as making memories together. She will never remember the gift I gave her for her 6th birthday but she remembers going to laser tag and beating the college fraternity boys (truly) when she was 7.
Making memories for a lifetime is great! and now all my nieces and nephews want something like that, thank god for Groupon and similar sites where I can get an experience for cheaper, and high school drama shows, or the local college doing shows of all kinds.