Golden sunsets
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2013
- Messages
- 2,524
By that I mean;
1) Do you have a budget?
2) How do you decide individual amounts to give to each recipient?
3) If married do you share the budget equally with your SO?
4) Have you set up a Donor Advised Fund?
5) Do you vet the recipient organizations?
6) Do you give anonymously?
7) Do your recipients vary from year to year?
Here is how we finally decided to handle this expense category, but I'm open to improving our method. For years and years we always gave in a haphazard manner, with no particular pattern or goal, except for our religious giving sub category. I finally acknowledged to myself and admitted to DH that I found that the constant requests by phone, door to door solicitation and mailings really annoyed me. And that fact made me feel bad about myself. We gave but I was first annoyed and then experienced self loathing. Plus, DH's giving priorities and my own we're not necessarily aligned.
As we got closer to retirement, my work commitments tapered off and I had more time to devote to budgeting and planning. What we decided to do is set up a giving budget (which we systematically increase each year) and mentally divide this budget in two, one half for me to allocate and the other half for DH. I keep track of the giving on a spreadsheet and in fact we deposit money monthly into a sub account giving fund (along with other money for other irregular expenses). Most of our intentional giving occurs at the end of the year invariably as our charities for the most part start soliciting about this time of year. Part of the reason I like this approach is I feel free to ignore begging letters, or politely reject calls and door knocks for money, because I "have my own somewhat generous plan for giving" and no longer feel guilty for refusing. Plus I can vet any new recipient rather than responding on the spot. November is the big month. At the beginning of November DH and I each complete our list of recipients and amounts and I then go on a spending binge on line, credit card in hand, setting up the gift. Many of the recipients are the same from year to year, but there are inevitably one offs, some of which occurred earlier during the year and the amounts may vary.
The result has been, I am no longer plagued with self hatred, debates and negotiations with DH and actually feel good about our giving.
I'm interested in your method, dear FIRE members......
Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
1) Do you have a budget?
2) How do you decide individual amounts to give to each recipient?
3) If married do you share the budget equally with your SO?
4) Have you set up a Donor Advised Fund?
5) Do you vet the recipient organizations?
6) Do you give anonymously?
7) Do your recipients vary from year to year?
Here is how we finally decided to handle this expense category, but I'm open to improving our method. For years and years we always gave in a haphazard manner, with no particular pattern or goal, except for our religious giving sub category. I finally acknowledged to myself and admitted to DH that I found that the constant requests by phone, door to door solicitation and mailings really annoyed me. And that fact made me feel bad about myself. We gave but I was first annoyed and then experienced self loathing. Plus, DH's giving priorities and my own we're not necessarily aligned.
As we got closer to retirement, my work commitments tapered off and I had more time to devote to budgeting and planning. What we decided to do is set up a giving budget (which we systematically increase each year) and mentally divide this budget in two, one half for me to allocate and the other half for DH. I keep track of the giving on a spreadsheet and in fact we deposit money monthly into a sub account giving fund (along with other money for other irregular expenses). Most of our intentional giving occurs at the end of the year invariably as our charities for the most part start soliciting about this time of year. Part of the reason I like this approach is I feel free to ignore begging letters, or politely reject calls and door knocks for money, because I "have my own somewhat generous plan for giving" and no longer feel guilty for refusing. Plus I can vet any new recipient rather than responding on the spot. November is the big month. At the beginning of November DH and I each complete our list of recipients and amounts and I then go on a spending binge on line, credit card in hand, setting up the gift. Many of the recipients are the same from year to year, but there are inevitably one offs, some of which occurred earlier during the year and the amounts may vary.
The result has been, I am no longer plagued with self hatred, debates and negotiations with DH and actually feel good about our giving.
I'm interested in your method, dear FIRE members......
Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
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