Four years of consumption offsets and going strong.

[zestyping]

In 2010, I decided to start matching everything I spend on a non-essential purchase with an equal donation to an effective charity. It's worked for me; even though mechanisms like this are arbitrary, it feels more logical than choosing a percentage of income. It feels nice that spending money on nice things for myself and my friends is aligned

Comments

[fanlain]

I would think this is easier if it's also 1 income: 1 person. So you'd have to maybe some up with a different plan if you're in more of a 1:many relationship where 1 income isn't just about 1 person's freedoms but you're providing for a family so I guess you'd have to somehow either weight it out to $x for the family as a whole or something.

Hmm. Eventually in the coming years we will start talking the twins about money. How would you cover this scheme for a preschooler? I guess it's really a subset of some 1:many framework for the family since what you would give to a preschooler is still some % of the total family income no matter what.

[zestyping]

Yeah, it's more complicated when there are multiple people. A nice thing about this plan is that it's independent of income though. As long as you can agree as a family on what expenses are "essential" or "non-essential", then it works. Or if it's too hard to agree on what's "essential" (especially for a preschooler), you could just choose one specific category, e.g. $1 spent on dessert = $1 to charity.

[anemone]

I give mostly via paycheck deduction. I set up it up October for the following year. It's no where near as much as you, but more than my coworker who has "doubled his contribution every year for the last 25 years". This is very convenient, but it's also very, hmm, cold. It takes any compassion out of donating, because it's only that one day in October in which I have to think it at all. I also give to charities of various facebook friends. Around Christmas, I try to contribute to giving trees and toy drives, but the time constraints make that difficult. (It's actually only reasonable due to Amazon prime.)

(My mother does lots of giving trees. She also always shops to donate to the food bank--like if cheese or peanut butter is on sale, she'll pick some up for the food bank.)

choosing the organizations you support?I divide my donations into four groups based on whether they are local or global, and based on whether they address immediate, pressing needs (eg, Doctors without Borders globally, food banks locally), and