How much to spend on a 40th birthday gift
The 40th is one of the most searched milestone birthdays on this site, and for good reason: it's a big one, and people want to get the number right. The calculator below starts at a milestone 40th. Adjust it for your own relationship and budget.
Recommended range
$75 to $140 is a comfortable range
Close friends sit near the top of the non-family range, which tracks with what Australian surveys report people spend on friends they consider genuinely close. This is also where the unspoken rules of Australian gift-giving bite hardest: a generic gift here reads as low effort, even at a decent price.
Turning 40 is a milestone birthday in Australia, and gifts typically step up by around fifty per cent for milestones. That premium is already built into the range above.
Ranges are a social norm, not a rule. The right amount is the one that does not strain you.
Now you know how much. Want to know what?
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Questions
Is a 40th treated differently to an 18th or 21st in this calculator?
Only through your relationship and closeness settings, not the milestone itself. All the tracked milestone ages get the same fifty per cent premium.
What if I want gift ideas as well as an amount?
The 40th guides linked below this calculator have specific gift ideas at this range for both him and her.