Net Worth
Good Info I've Collected
- Debt Calculators and Debt Reduction Resources
- Financial Calculators
- Free Stuff
- Increasing Your Income
- Keeping Motivated
- Living Frugal
- Random Money Saving Tip
Site Design By
Site Hosted By
- Dreamhost - use code GIVEME50 and you will save $50 off your first year of hosting (I make $47).
Archive results for “November of 2006”
On this page you will find the search results for the search term that you queried.
In 2002, a man named Keith (also known as Dr. Keith) started up a little website where he gave 10% of his income to “help working individuals and families to afford the types of small but necessary expenses with which others had assisted him in times past.” Today, it’s more than just a little website.
Keith’s vision turned into a 501 (c) 3 non-profit foundation that is dedicated to assist working families with small financial crises. This organization is called Modest Needs.
From their website, their mission is…
“- To prevent otherwise financially self-sufficient individuals and families from entering the cycle of poverty, when this might be avoided with a small amount of well-timed financial assistance;
- To restore the financial self-sufficiency of individuals who are willing to work but are temporarily unable to do so because they do not have the means to remit payment for a work-related expense; and
- To empower permanently disadvantaged individuals who otherwise live within their limited means to continue to live independently, despite a temporary, unexpected financial set-back.”
I think it would be great to help others make it through little financial binds in their life. What Modest Needs does is take applications from individuals and then they research to make sure the claims are valid. If they are valid, they are approved and Donors view the applications and rate them. The highest rated applications get funded if the funds are there.
I think Keith’s idea is a great one. I think all of us in debt have had those times where unexpected things came up and you ended up falling behind on everything. Then, things snowballed from there in a bad way. I see this website as really helping people, so I’ve signed up to be a donor and plan to give a little something next month. Through the end of 2006, there is a private foundation that is matching every donation dollar. So, if you can give $10 - that’s $20 that can go to help another family.
If you are interested in donating to Modest Needs or asking for help through them, you can find out more at their main site, www.modestneeds.org, and at their blog. You can also click on the banner on my left sidebar as well 
The 20/20 show last night, Cheap in America, started off with discussing what city is stingier…San Francisco, California or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This unscientific study involved placing a Salvation Army bellringer out for two days and they tallied how much money was donated. In San Francisco they were in front of Macy’s. In Sioux Falls they were in front of Walmart.
What they discovered was that even though Sioux Falls was not as busy of a location and in general the folks living there make half as much as those in San Francisco…they gave twice as much money.
I can only speculate, but some of my ideas involve the way that smaller communities interact. I think people are more likely to give to an organization that has affected them or someone that they know. Being a smaller community, more people probably personally know someone who has been helped by the Salvation Army. And since the community makes less as a whole, perhaps some people feel that at some point they might need help from the Salvation Army so they donate what they can now.
The next area of discussion was about who gives more…liberals or conservatives? What they found was that conservative-head households gave 30% more than liberal-head households. Conservatives were also 18% more likely to give blood. Since I’m not really a political person, I can’t really comment here. Any readers out there have ideas?
Next was an interesting segment about the rich. By far, the rich give a smaller percentage of their income and John Stossel was trying to find out why billionaires gave so little. It came down to four reasons:
1.) I can’t get at the money - Most of their money is made up of pieces of paper and it isn’t very accessible.
2.) I can’t find enough good charities - I suppose if you have billions to donate, it would be a rough task to find great charities that will use the money well.
3.) I’d like to give away more but I’m too poor - Some have a lavish lifestyle and some worry about having enough money to use until they pass away.
4.) I need to make more - This one I liked. One of the billionaires discussed how they would like to manage the money and do things with it now and perhaps give later. One statistic given was that a billionaire creates over 10,000 jobs. That, of course is a way of giving back. If the billionaires keep the money now and do not donate it, they can use it and expand their businesses and perhaps create more jobs for others. When I thought about it in depth, I’d want billionaires to keep doing what they are doing and creating more jobs. They got to be billionaires with a lot of talent and hard work. Let them keep on bulding.
Next, the show discussed the most giving group by far…people that are religious. They not only give to their church they give to other organizations as well. Being religious was an important factor on whether a person was giving or not. This does not surprise me, again with the sense of community involved.
The next segment was about rich kids. There’s a lot to be said there and that’s a post in itself LOL.
Lastly, the segment talked about how much your mood can improve by giving money or giving time. I would agree 100% with that. Last year, I gave a lot of my time to my son’s school and I was very happy. I no longer do that, and while I’m somewhat happy with my life, it’s not the same happiness that I felt last year. Researchers call that the “Helper’s High” and I would say that is an accurate description. It feels good to give.
There was one thing that I would have liked to have the show investigate….why do the middle class give such a small percent of their income in relation to lower and upper classes? Just thinking about my life, we gave much more in terms of monetary donations and volunteer time when we made less money. Now that we make more, I haven’t given much at all. I guess now that we have extra money that can go towards debt, that’s been my focus. I wonder if the debt level of the middle class has anything to do with it?
I’m glad I watched the show. I haven’t been giving as much as I would like to this year, and lately I’ve been doing a few things to make up for lost time. I’ll talk about that later.
I am super tired tonight, so this is just a quick post to give everyone the results of questions that I posted earlier. They were questions covered on tonight’s 20/20 special and the results are taken from the program (not quite sure how to cite it…).
What group gives the largest percentage of its income to charity…upper, middle or lower class?
Lower class. More specifically, the working poor.
What group gives more to charity…liberals or conservatives?
Conservatives.
Which city is stingier…San Franciso, California or Sioux Falls, South Dakota?
San Francisco, California
I’m hoping to wake up a little early in the morning, so I can type up a few more things mentioned during the program as well as my thoughts. I found the show to be quite interesting.
What group gives the largest percentage of its income to charity…upper, middle or lower class?
What group gives more to charity…liberals or conservatives?
Which city is stingier…San Franciso, California or Sioux Falls, South Dakota?
Those questions will be answered tonight on a John Stossel special report called “Cheap in America”. Check your local listings - on the East coast it is showing at 10:00 p.m. on ABC.
I was given a heads-up on this special on Good Morning America this morning, so I already know the answers to the questions above. I’ll tell everyone the answers tomorrow if you miss the show…but I don’t want to spoil it for those who will be watching.
They claimed the answers are surprising and I can see how they could be. But when you think about it…some of it makes sense.
I plan on watching, and I’ll give a recap probably tonight or tomorrow. I am very curious if debt will be mentioned at all because I think it could be a major factor in the answer to the first question above.
For Christmas, I’m trying to find some more blocks for my son. He received some mega bloks (the mini size) for his birthday and I have been able to find one size container in the stores but they are pretty pricey.
So, I’ve been searching eBay. It seems as though I’m not the only one trying to get those blocks. Whether you search for Lego, Tyco or Mega Bloks (they all work together for this particular size) the bids are getting up there.
Making them even more expensive is the shipping. Most things cost over $10.00 to ship and some even go up to $20.00 depending on how many blocks there are.
Things looked a little better when I just tried searching “Mega Blocks” instead of “Mega Bloks” (bloks is the correct spelling for the brand). I read about that trick once to search different spellings. But there are more irrelevant results to sift through.
Anyone have any other tips for finding those hidden “gems”?
I posted a little while ago that I had $10.00 Sonicare Rebate forms to give out. I still have one left so please see my prior post if you are interested.
UPDATE (12/02/06): They are all spoken for now. I hope to have more things like this in the future so stay tuned.
MyMoneyBlog shared an interesting loophole with Discover Card. For their Holiday Mall Promotion, they are giving away mall gift cards with your purchases. However, they do not say anything about what happens to those gift cards if you turn around and return the merchandise.
He tried it by making the purchases and getting gift cards and then returning the merchandise. He was able to keep the gift cards. It’s stirring up some debate over there as to how ethical it is to essentially make money from credit card offers.
Go take a look at the article here and come back.
You’re back? Great. Here’s my thoughts and feel free to share yours.
For me, I wouldn’t be comfortable with doing it. While my credit cards have made a lot of money from me over the years, I almost feel like I would be stooping to their level. They get me with the fine print sometimes, and while there is a part of me that would love to “stick it to them” I don’t think I could in this case.
However, they sometimes offer things like credit protector free for 30 days and give you a “gift” for signing up. They explicitly say you get to keep the “gift” even if you cancel before your free trial is up. In those cases, it’s a little different because they give the go-ahead to cancel and keep the free gift. I haven’t tried this yet, but I saw an offer for $100 in gas which I’m looking more into.
What are your thoughts?
About This Site
Credit Card Debt
- Starting = $37,614
- Paid Off = $28,616
- Current = $8,998
- $25 ING Savings Bonus
Savings Account
- Current = $3,203
| BlogHer Ad Network |
| More from BlogHer |
| Advertise here |
| BlogHer Privacy Policy |
