Finances & Money

Making some year-end charitable donations

As I write this, it’s Sunday night and I just watched an unmentionable football game come to a disappointing close. If you know where I’m from or have read it in my past posts, you’ll know which team I was cheering for. Well, it wasn’t meant to be, but I didn’t get my hopes up too high.

Anyway, to cheer myself up, I’m going to send hundreds of dollars off to charities! This isn’t a ploy to lower my taxable income. Rather, I’ve just been putting off these donations until I got the time or motivation to do so. Well, now is the time with just a few weeks left in the year.

I will let you know that I’m using earnings from this site to contribute even more than we normally do to these worthy causes:

1. Our Church – Many months ago, we pledged $150 for our church’s fundraiser (it’s actually the whole diocese’s appeal). Well, we’ve gotten a monthly reminder since then and now it’s time to pay up.
2. Stacie’s Undergrad College – Stacie went to a small private college in central PA, while I went to Penn State. Stacie loves that college and we’ve gone to so many events hosted by their D.C. alumni chapter that I think they’ve earned my respect and our dollars. This year, we’ll be in their “Founder’s Club” with a $250 donation to the scholarship fund. Many of these kids are very poor students, and need every dime they can get, but more on that in another article.
3. My High School – I went to a private, parochial high school and although high school was a tough time for me (I was the fat kid), I feel that the school did a good job of making me into a quality adult. I’d like to repay them for that with a $250 gift. That’s quite a bit more than the $50 we gave last year!

Total: $650

I want to thank all of you, my readers, for helping to contribute to these funds. I apologize for not naming them specifically, but I don’t want you having all of that information about us! 🙂

I will say that we’ve contributed thousands in cash to charities this year, but we’re still far from a 10% tithe. I’m still not comfortable with giving that much, mainly because we’re in so much debt. We’re working our way up to it, but until we no longer have debt, I can’t see giving more than 5% annually. Don’t get discouraged if you find yourself unable to give a certain percentage of income, because you can give much more than money. There is a charitable organization called Boat Angel where you can donate your boat for charity. They will take your boat off your hands and donate all the proceeds towards the charity of your choice. The process only involves filling out a few papers and informing the organization where your boat is located. Boat donation only takes a few moments of your time, and it is an excellent way to give back, especially if that boat in your garage is collecting dust. Remember, not only does the Bible say giving is good, but it also says get rid of your debt ASAP! Of course, I didn’t read much of the Bible when I got us into most of our debt and it probably wouldn’t have helped much at the time anyway.