It seems like the last couple of things I have read (Mary Hunt's Debt Proof Living and Living More With Less) focus alot on living under your means and giving to others. I am wondering how many of us do this. What I am asking is if you donate actual money. I have donated a ton of sewn stuff, food, household goods, etc... in the past but rarely actual funds other then the $10-15 we put into the collection plate each time we go to church. The principles in regard to donating in each book focuses on the fact that you will always get more in return then you give and to do this is what god expects us to do as good stewards.

I think we are going to do a few things to help us give more money to charitable causes. The first is that I am going to do my best to keep our grocery/ household supplies bill under $250 and anything that is left of that $250 will go to a cause that provides food for the hungry. I also plan on trying to scrape even more from our budget so that we can give at least a couple percent of our income each month to our church or charities and then hopefully make the contribution more when dh gets a raise or changes positions in the fall.

I understand that there are mamas here who may not belong to a specific church or organized religion so when I say charitable giving I mean to any type of charitable organization and not just tithing .

Your ideas, habits, and insight on this topic are greatly appreciated.

We belong to a church ( The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ie the Mormoms) and we regularly give 10% of our income to the church and it is used for building new churches, temples and giving to the poor and needy. All of our clergy (teachers, leaders, etc) is a lay ministry meaning that they don't get paid for what they do.

I don't feel that we miss the 10% that we give each month. I feel that we do recieve blessings and we are able to live on what we have. In the Bible we are told to pay a tithe on our income.

We have been blessed with numerous things. Like I just went through five rounds of chemo. I had to be in the hospital for each round of chemo for five days. We do not live near family and my family was only able to get the time off from work to come out and help during two of those rounds. My dh on the other hand was able to get time off from work for each round, paid time off from work and he didn't have to use any vacation leave. That was a blessing not to miss that income and not to have to put my children in day care when they have never been away from me for more that an hour or so. The American Cancer Society gave us a $100 gas card. We had to drive to OKC each month at least once for my treatment or dr. visit. That is an hour and a half away and that adds up after a while in gas money. That helped.

Oh, but the biggest thing is that our insurance covered everything! We only had to pay for a few RX's. We had no co-pays, nothing out of pocket. I was treated in an out of network hospital, had a private room each time and excellent care. I know that was a blessing. I've heard of so many who got into debt and have such a finiancal hardship due to medical bills. We had none.

So, I guess I am saying yes, we pay a tithing and we are blessed.

I've gotta run. I hope that helps.

Tawnya

Yup....but not to a church, as we don't use one. We feels good giving to things like animal rescue groups here, in the form of cash and our time. Also cash to local hunger groups, or buying a bag of groceries for them now and then....the kids love to shop for nutritious stuff for the bag and learn a lesson healthy eating as well as giving. :D We also donate money to the local school to help kids who can't afford to go to 6th grade camp (over $200 here), and donate extra always to soccer group, as that money goes into a fund for kids in our area who want to play, from age 5 to 13, but can't afford the fees or uniforms.....Things like that are what we do and feel good about doing. (o:

we don't give $$ because we don't really have extra $$. We do donate items and our time. I think when we finish school and come into a little money we will surely pass it along. We do give money to the church each week, 5-10 dollars depending on the week.

I donate when and where I can, yk?

I just sent $20 to an animal rescue org that needed to raise money for the medical bill of a severely abused pup. I always drop a five or ten in the jar at the animal shelter.

Regularly, we donate to NPR, PBS about every other year, American Cancer Society, and we usually help the Salvation Army out every year.

We are planning in the near future to return to the UU congregation we attended before Ian was born, and we will be donating there, though probably not 10%. I try to donate as much as I can where it will do the most good, and I guess I feel it is better to spread out what I do have, does that make sense?

We give to our church when we go.

We donate stuff to the good will. That's about it.

This thread has started me thinking of ways to start giving more to the community. I will be brain storming with my dh tonight.

Thanks for bringing this up, BobbiJo.

Yes we do.

For money, one thing that we will do with the kids is ask them to help choose organizations that deserve our support, and give them a "budget" of money to give to charitable causes.

For "stuff" I know that I will never bother having a garage sale or selling stuff on ebay, so often I'll find an agency that can find a good home for new or gently used items.

Karen

We dontate to our church by the way of titheing every week, We donate clothing, we donate time every Saturday night for our youth center thru the church, we donate many things and we are blessed very much

edited for privacy

I grew up being taught that you should always tithe 10% of your gross income. 5% to the Church and 5% to other worthy causes. I have tried to live by this guideline always, but we currently give about 4% of our net income right now. Part of the problem is that when doing budgets, I never set aside our tithe money as a mandatory expense. So when we were deciding, for example, whether we could afford new furniture, I figured, sure we can afford that, we can just reduce our discretionary expenses. The first discretionary expense to be cut? Usually our tithe. I'm trying to increase what we donate now though. I really feel like God blesses us when we share what He has given us. Like Michelle, we have had times when we were in bad situations, and we've received help just when we needed it and in the way that we needed it. Coincidence? Maybe, but I think God takes care of us.

From a non-religious standpoint, I also think that tithing helps me appreciate what I have. No matter how bad I think our financial situation is, when I write our tithe checks, I am reminded that there are people out there with less. I have a house, two vehicles, a job, clothes, etc. No matter how much I complain, I feel fortunate to have these things and feel it is important to share with those less fortunate.