In a common type of contract, where one party provides money and the other provides goods or services, both the money and the goods or services are regarded as legal consideration. Whether the money received matched the value of the goods or services is not an issue at common law (although it may be under laws such as the Trade Practices Act). However, really excessive payments may be regarded as gifts under the guise of a contract.

A gift is not a contract. Thus, if you promise your daughter $10 000 on her twenty-first birthday and fail to pay her, she would not be able to sue you for breach of contract because no consideration was agreed to pass from her to you and no contract therefore existed. If, however, she promised to abstain from drinking alcohol until she was 21 years old, in return for the $10 000, that would be legal consideration and the contract would then be binding provided that all the other Requirements for a contract to be legally binding were met.