No one wants to be that family member. Y’know, the one that routinely forgets birthdays, public holidays, or to prep their presents before the holidays start.
We’re not judging. On the contrary, we’d like to offer some assistance in this case because we’ve all been there.
If you have an avid techy, gamer, or generalist geek in your family/circle of friends, and you’re after an easy-to-execute last-minute gift for them this festive period, you’ve come to the right place. While the gift may end up being a voucher or digital subscription, that doesn’t make it any less valuable.
The folks you totally didn’t forget to buy presents for will agree.
“I’ll just get the presents from my car.”
Showmax subscription
Showmax vouchers can be purchased at any local Pick n Pay, Builders Warehouse, CNA, Dis-Chem, Game, Makro, HiFi Corp and Incredible Connection stores. A one-month voucher will cost R100, a three-month voucher will cost R300, or a six-month voucher will cost R600.
Stuff Magazine subscription
If you’re a gadget enthusiast and we know you are (this is even a good option for the younger techies), a year’s subscription to Stuff Magazine is an excellent backup present. Grab a one-year sub that includes six issues for just R200 here. What, you didn’t think we were going to include Stuff on this list?
Adobe Creative Cloud Photography
A one-month subscription will set you back around $10, or R200. This will give them access to Lightroom and Photoshop, along with 20GB of cloud storage.
Spotify Premium Gift Subscription
You can find these at many tech stores as well, like Incredible Connection. Or buy them online – a three-month subscription for Spotify’s Premium plan is just R180.
Steam gift card
Steam makes it almost annoyingly easy to buy your friends digital gifts. If you know of a specific game that person’s been after you can go ahead and buy a digital copy of that game and send it to your geek directly. Seriously. You can add a little message and everything.
Xbox Game Pass
For the base subscription, you’ll pay R80 per month but Game Pass Ultimate will cost a fair bit more. You can sign up for your buddy or buy a gift card online before heading over to their house to exchange “gifts”.
Ster Kinekor subscription
It feels like the cinema’s answer to a Netflix subscription, so if you know someone who would make good use of such a subscription, you can buy one right here. There’s also a more expensive tier if you’re feeling guilty about forgetting to get ‘real’ presents this year.
Ucook subscription
Another proudly South African option, Ucook offers a food subscription service that delivers meal kits to your home, after which you cook the food yourself. It’s an interesting concept and may be a great gift idea for someone keen to delve deeper into cooking as a hobby.
Rentoza subscription
We’re not entirely sure where services like Rentoza fit into the market, but if you’re after the goods without the commitment, it’s worth checking out. You can balance the sometimes absurd installments with the knowledge that broken presents are Rentoza’s problem (but read the terms and conditions before playing Dark Souls, maybe?)