Stuck on Christmas gifts? Warren Buffett’s favourite tradition might be your new festive hack

Warren Buffett is best known for his investment prowess. So, it should come as no surprise when we get to know what he gifts his family for Christmas every year — stocks.

However, this was not always the case.

Warren Buffett’s former daughter-in-law, Mary Buffett in an old interview mentioned that the Berkshire Hathaway Chairman used to give all family members $10,000 as Christmas gifts.

However, when he found out that they were spending the money on all trivial things, Buffett decided to change the Christmas gift altogether, Mary told ThinkAdvisor in the 2019 interview.

“As soon as we got home, we’d spend it, whoo!” she said.

This likely did not sit well with the investor who boasts a $154 billion net worth, whose financial game is based on the idea of playing a long game in a sustainable manner.

“Then, one Christmas there was an envelope with a letter from him. Instead of cash, he’d given us $10,000 worth of shares in a company he’d recently bought, a trust Coca-Cola had. He said to either cash them in or keep them,” Mary said.

Mary, who was married to Warren Buffett's son Peter, said that she took inspiration from her father-in-law and decided to stay invested in the stock when she received the gift.

“I thought ‘Well, [this stock] is worth more than $10,000.’ So I kept it, and it kept going up.”

The tradition then continued for many years, where Warren Buffett would gift stocks on Christmas.

“Then, every year when he'd give us stock — Wells Fargo being one of them — I would just buy more of it because I knew it was going to go up,” Mary told ThinkAdvisor.

WellsFargo is still profitable, with the stock going up by 21.9% and has been up more than 200% over the past five years. Most companies the ace investor has invested in, have done well. Rather than giving someone a cash gift, investing a sum for them is always a good idea.

What does the family gift Warren Buffett on Christmas?

Speaking to the news outlet, Mary Buffett said that she realised early on that the best gift she could give the now 95-year-old was to make him realise that his children and family were successful enough by themselves.

“The first year we were married, I realised, 'Warren is very rich. Therefore, he doesn't want anything',” she said.

“I didn't know what to get him, so I put together our music company's balance sheet to show him that we were making money,” Marry said.

She recalled that she wanted to show him that the family was doing good financially.