Different love languages. Sigh.

My husband's love language is gifts. He wants to buy me a gift for valentines day and asked me to choose between a high end phone or a gold chain. Both of which will pinch our pocket a bit to purchase. While I am touched he wants to do this for me, I am not happy with spending so much money. I ask him to buy me clothes instead and he says I should buy those small things myself and its not good enough for a gift.
I told him it will pinch our family finances and we should probably save it now. But he gets offended when I bring this up. I am happiest if he wpuld just write me a letter saying how much I mean to him, because my love language is words of affirmation. But he isnt ready to do that because he thinks its lame and he isnt very expressive with words.
How do I tell it to him that I am not comfortable with burning a hole in our pocket without offending him?