Do you have a financial advisor, insurance professional, accountant, or other finance guru somewhere among your friends and family? If so - or if you are one yourself - you know it can be hard to find a gift that plays into their love of numbers, math, or economics without being just plain old boring.

Well, at Ashar Group we've got plenty of finance geeks in the family - in fact, our leadership team members President Jason Mendelsohn, CEO Jon Mendelsohn, and Vice President of Secondary Market Solutions Jamie Mendelsohn are all siblings!

Because of that, we'd like to flatter ourselves that we've gotten pretty good at picking out gifts for fellow number crunchers. You'll find a list of our top picks for gifts this year below.

    1. Magazine subscriptions. These are great gifts because they do, literally, keep on giving - for however long you choose to gift the subscription. Kiplinger's, The Economist, and Bloomberg Businessweek are all solid standards, but maybe you want to get a little more creative.

For that, check out a publication like the equivalent of a tabloid for intellectuals, Mental Floss, or the global news-tech-environment-culture magazine Wired. Each offers highly informational, fascinating stories without being as dense or high-minded as the strictly business rags.

    1. The Daytrader board game. For that one person who just can't help checking how her portfolio is doing no matter what holiday she's celebrating, try Daytrader. It's fairly quick, easy to learn, and designed to be as thrilling as a day trading on the floor - except here, any catastrophic losses you might suffer will be a lot easier to recover from.

And if you'd prefer something a little more familiar, check out some of Monopoly's special editions. While Monopoly itself is already the classic financial game, they have some fun versions that might appeal to the financial planners on your list - especially if they have kids who might play along. We like the Monopoly Here and Now: World Edition one.

    1. Anything from Bull Market Gifts. Bull Market Gifts sells all kinds of gifts aimed at the serious Wall Street enthusiast. And we do mean serious: you can find things like bull and bear cufflinks, bronze sculptures of a dueling bull and bear, and reproductions of old stock certificates. There's also a collectibles section that offers vintage figurines, coin banks, and reproductions of signs, documents, and more from the 1800s and earlier.
    2. A giftcard to a bookstore, plus some recommendations for books you think he or she will enjoy. Here in Orlando, we prefer our local independent bookstore BrightLight Books, but any bookstore, of course, will do. If you include some thoughtful book recommendations with the giftcard, your gift will be that much more meaningful.

You can see some of the books we've enjoyed recently here, but here are a few others that we think number lovers will have fun with:

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis

The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, by Barry Schwartz

And because Michael Lewis writes some of the best, most interesting financial journalism there is, we're adding one more of his to the list: Liar's Poker, his 1990 debut.

  1.  A Fitbit. Maybe it's just us, but we've noticed that a lot of finance enthusiasts also happen to be fitness enthusiasts. Just look at our President Jason Mendelsohn, who rode in the 140-mile cycling fundraiser Ride to Conquer Cancer this September, shortly after finishing treatment for stage 4 tonsil cancer.

A Fitbit, or one of the many other types of personal fitness trackers that are now out there, can be a great present for the guy or girl you know who runs numbers all week, and then hits the trails all weekend.

We hope this list helps you jumpstart your gift-giving. If Ashar can help you make the holidays shine brighter for your clients this year by facilitating a life settlement, contact us!