by Beks
One of the goals we came up with after filing taxes last year was to be more generous in our charitable giving. It’s easy to get so focused on penny-pinching that you forget there are folks out there less fortunate than yourself. For me, it’s difficult to not want to apply that amount toward debt and promise myself, “I’ll help out when I’m debt free.” To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have donated any more than our usual amount… but like I’ve said before, I’m married to a great guy. That great guy has a heart for helping others. Now that we have a child of our own, he has become more active in giving to children’s hospitals, giving to help hungry children in famine areas, and to programs helping children with autism.
When I was preparing our taxes this year, I was surprised how much his *cough* I mean, our charitable giving added up.
We beat our giving amount from last year…
and it felt good.
Set some goals this tax season, you may surprise yourself.
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
We would like to donate more. We donated around $500 last year, but would like to increase it.
I’ve always made it a point to give- I grew up in church and always tithed. When we stopped doing the church thing I still ‘tithed’ to whatever organization grabbed my interest. I don’t give 10% of my income anymore but I do still make it a point to give every month. I found that I was starting to forget to find an organization and give so this year I just signed up to sponsor a child because that’s just automatic giving and I can always give on top of that to other organizations if I want. It’s nice to have it automated even though I used to enjoy picking out different organizations.
The non-obvious part of giving is how much it helps you on tax day, too. I’m not saying that’s a reason *to* donate, but it certainly is nice to see the impact on the bottom line when the end of the year comes – it almost feels like you’re being rewarded for being a good person. I suppose it’s sad that that feels odd, but that’s a different discussion for a different time. 🙂
We give weekly to our church. We tried 10% of our net income, but it didn’t fit into our budget. We are giving 5% until we are out of debt. We will give more when we are not giving our money to the bank. I think its great you want to give… I’m just not sure though why you would want to be charitable to your bank though…
Beks,
Congratulations on the giving. I really believe (whether from a religious standpoint or not) when you give to others less fortunate you too are blessed. What goes around does come around. Yes if I give I may add a few months to my debt repayment and pay my bank a little bit of interest but if I stop giving maybe the shelter I support will have to cut back on bed count and it is snowing here or maybe my sponsored child will go back to being hungry and I am not able to live with that any easier than I would be able to sleep knowing someone in my own family was going hungry or without a bed at the expense of my foolish spending…
> Yes if I give I may add a few months to my debt repayment
So, by not paying off your debts and giving, that means you are not serving those that you pretend think are helping. You could be giving more, but you can’t because you choose to give your charity to a bank. You think you are being a good person now, but really you are hurting those you purport to help.
Sun, read the whole post before commenting please. That’s exactly the conclusion she came to…
I did read the whole post. Did you? What conclusion did she come to that my comment is restating? Everyone is only repeating that we should continue to give while in debt because someone may need the support. My point is that you can wait after you pay your debts. The world’s problems will still be here after you are debt free. If you think LONG TERM, you will be helping those in need MORE after you have paid off your debts. That seems to escape everyone’s comprehension here.