Gift baskets are a great way to say thank you, whether it's for something personal or work-related. You buy a basket of food, usually some kind of fresh produce, and have it sent to someone's house with a note. It's like sending a bunch of flowers, only less romantic and more tasty - although gift baskets can contain flowers too, if you want.

Typical things for a gift basket to contain include wines or champagne, cheeses, chocolates, fruit, and relishes or spreads such as chutney and marmalade. They can be surprisingly inexpensive at the lower end of the market, yet always make a well-appreciated and long-lasting gift.

In fact, if you're going to get a gift basket, it is often worth going with a cheaper one. Expensive ones tend to be pretty much the same in terms of what they contain, but the presentation can be intimidating and the food can seem to many people to be 'too nice' for them to just eat when they want to. To avoid any awkwardness, try not to spend more on a gift basket for someone than you would on buying them flowers or chocolates - department stores sell wildly expensive baskets full of posh jams and things, but that doesn't mean they're good!

If you have some idea about the tastes of the person you're sending the gift basket to, you might want to send a more specialised one. Instead of getting a mix of everything, you can get baskets that contain only a selection of wine, or a set of cheeses, or even more unusual gift baskets full of meat or fish.

As a final note, if you don't even want to shell out for the most basic of gift baskets, don't let that put you off. Baskets are cheap, and filling one with someone's favourite foods is unlikely to turn out very expensive at all - but you can bet that it'll be appreciated.