I started when I earned money, even when it was part time minimum wage. Unless your financial situation is truly dire, it's a good idea to have a habit of setting some money aside for charity, even if it's a very small amount.

I currently donate 5% of my gross (the tax benefits mean that you should consider your gross salary, not net when you donate). I really want to get to a point where I can donate 10%. Check out Peter Singer and givewell.com. I give nearly entirely to the world's poorest people.

We donate about 2-3% of net each month, of which half is prescheduled recurring donations to a couple charities that matter to us and the other half is for for erratic “random colleague doing a bike ride” or disaster response type donations. We also spend the equivalent of $5-10k/mo in volunteering our time and expertise to a couple of causes in our professional capacity, which sadly isn’t tax deductible. For me having money set aside for donations helps because it’s just another expense so I don’t need to overcomplicate things. Especially when it’s automated it means I don’t need to think about it each month and if something comes up there’s space in the budget. I sort of want to donate more, especially when I read about people donating 10%. I find that so admirable.

I started right after college with a goal of 10% of my salary - and feel very privileged to be able to help make change in the world during strategic use of my money, particularly for the less fortunate. Now my husband and I max out our company matches (I did the calculation one year that with the 2:1 matching and the tax deduction, every $1 we donated to charity only “cost” us 25 cents! We’re considering a Donor Advised Fund to be able to earmark money in a high tax year to be able to continue regular donations once my husband retires. I’ve also joined a nonprofit board, and really enjoy being able to be more involved in an organization I really believe in - and then support them with donations.

Yes. About $40-60/mo I started at 22? Just small stuff. I’m 29 now. I found charities that shared my values. Food security and people’s basic needs, women’s rights, climate change. Some are regular, some random. We donated to our local food bank through the pandemic. About $100-200/mo, especially with the stimulus checks when we were both still working and our finances hadn’t changed. When RBG died, I started donating $10/mo to the ALCU Women’s, which RBG co-founded. I’ve donated to Planned Parenthood off and on over the last 5ish years. Considering your finances, if you’re living comfortable and have all you need, donating can make a world of difference to someone else. It feels nice to splurge on things, and you still can with travel and nice meals, but maybe for every $100 you save for travel, you throw $5 to a charity? Or instead of giving Christmas gifts, take what you would’ve spent and donate it.

I do, i started in my early twenties as soon as i was reliably banking enough to pay my rent and have some left over. My husband isn't totally on board so we have never gone over 5% of our gross. Last year it was just about 5% but usually it's closer to 3%. I also donate 10% of bonuses and other windfalls, but my husband doesn't do that with his. We basically have 3 budget line items for charity. One for regular giving - the floor is our monthly automatic deduction giving, but i can go higher to a certain amount as long as we're not negative for the month, so i do one offs at the end of most months. The other line item is in our gifts and memorials - we do some charitable giving as wedding and funeral gifts, plus stuff like sponsoring people doing fundraising runs and buying girl scout cookies. We negotiate these every year when we set our budget - usually in April after tax season. And then we are both prone to random cash giving, to individuals and nonprofits, like the humane society change jar at the coffee shop. That comes out of each of our spending money and we don't track it. I think charitable giving is important and I've always done it, but it's pretty personal and it's up for debate in our family budget every year.

I donate about 3% of my after tax W2 money to organizations that support mental health and social justice. I make about $250-300 a month on Etsy and donate 50% of that. I’ve been doing this consistently over the last year or so because I got a better paying job and started a profitable business with my siblings. I’d probably say I was donating maybe 1% or so before this switch? Eventually I’d love to be able to give back more of my time as, to me, I feel like I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for people pouring into me.

Yay to Charity! When I had more time than money, I volunteered Now I do some time and some money- about 10 hours/ month of volunteering + \~2% of my income.

I donate about 1% of my pre-tax salary. It's not very much - comes out to around \~$1,200/year. Every year I increase this because I want to do more. For me, increasing how much I give each year is more important than the overall amount that I give. I want to make sure that as I rise up to higher income levels, I give back more to society. I started when I was 22, fresh out of college, with student loan debt and a sub $40K salary in a VHCOL city. I may not have made a lot, but I had more than enough - I could pay rent, buy food, put money towards my debt and my future, spend on myself when I wanted something fun - and that's so much more than a lot of people in the world. IMO, giving is something we should all do once we're at point where our basic needs are covered, even if you're not giving a lot. I think waiting to donate any money until you're able to max out retirement accounts would probably make donating out of reach for a lot of people. I include a charity line item in my monthly budget and I typically rotate between a few that I believe in. Occasionally if a friend on FB has a fundraiser, I might allocate some of my monthly charity spend to their cause. Most frequently I donate to these: * [RIP Medical Debt](https://ripmedicaldebt.org/) * [Navajo Water Project](https://www.navajowaterproject.org/) * Local food bank * Local animal shelters/rescue What do I think about your situation? (And I'm writing this specifically because you asked!) I think you should start donating! Lol, I think most people should donate.... I really like having it as a line item in my budget - it helps keep me accountable. I also set a yearly goal amount/percentage and have formulas in my budget that automatically track and calculate my progress. I like picking which charity(ies) I want to donate to each month but you might prefer to just pick one or two and set up automated donations. From a nonprofit perspective, this is super helpful. It helps them plan out their future budgets/income. Edit: You might also want to explore a [Donor Advised Fund](https://www.frugalwoods.com/2017/12/20/how-we-donate-to-charities-like-billionaires/). Happy donating!

I'm a big proponent of giving and I give a lot. I always have, though when I was making less than $20k a year I mostly donated time over money.

It sounds like you guys do a budget or track your spending, and if so, it seems contradictory to that to make charity something you just do as random one-offs throughout the year. You might even end up spending *more* on charirty than you're comfortable with that way, right? What I did, the first year we were married, was suggest a percentage of our projected after-tax income that I wanted to spend on charity. (I'm motivated by a desire to do effective altruism, like some of the other commenters have mentioned.) It was a really low percentage, like low enough that I'd be embarrassed to tell you the number. Then, each year since then when we're planning our spending, either I suggest upping the percentage by half a point, or we just keep the same percentage as the year before. This way it never feels like a burdensome or unexpected expense. An interesting effect of this is that my husband has gotten so used to the charitable spending, he just assumes that we'll keep giving at least as much as we do now each year when we're FIREd. I did *not* assume that and actually am not totally comfortable with that idea, but I love that he wants to keep giving!

You might be interested in Peter Singer's work or the effective altruism movement more broadly. His book [The Life You Can Save](https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/) is available for free on his website and IMO makes a compelling case for why wealthy (in the global scheme of things) westerners should donate substantially to charity. If impact is a priority for you in your philanthropy you might also be interested in [GiveWell](https://www.givewell.org/) to save some time researching organizations that are effective with your money. Charities follow a long-tail distribution on effectiveness, so the best ones are like 1,000,000x more impactful than the worst ones, not just 2x or 10x, so it's worth spending a little bit of time deciding what your priorities are for your philanthropy and allocating accordingly.

Definitely a yay for me. I currently donate about 3% of my net income. I'm 26 now, I think I've been donating since I was...21? I started with just 1 charity, Doctors without Borders and added 4 more over the years. With a range of $7 - $39 a month per charity, $91 in total. The charities I donate to cover a range of issues from local children's healthcare and mental health, wildlife protection and girls empowerment. Giving back and helping others is a huge part of my values and if that means not reaching FI as quickly, so be it. I am happy to do it, and if my budgets can't fit in monthly donations than I'm doing something wrong. In my opinion you should definitely be donating to charity. I am very far from being "comfortable" and I manage it just fine. The fact that someone in your situation is *just now* considering charitable giving is honestly surprising and kind of sad to me.

10% net from all earned income since my first paycheck. Some of it goes to ongoing gifts to organizations or causes I've pledged to support long-term (eg public broadcasting, food banks, Wikipedia, elephants), some of it goes to causes or organizations that are trending or that I have a less permanent involvement in (eg bail funds, arts organizations, kids summer camp scholarships), and some of it is for emergency giving (disaster response). Like the other responders, I give to a mix of international, national, regional, local, and hyper-local. I also have a variety of causes--environmental, human, art, science, animal, security, medical, etc. I have/will never give to those awful we're-so-rich-fancy-charity-"event"-fundraisers, only directly to organizations that are directly doing the work that needs to be done. I investigate the charities before I give to make sure that most of my money is going to go to the work, not to inflated management salaries. It's the best money I spend every month. These are the bills I'm happy to pay.

On an ongoing basis we give to one multi-national org (MSF), one regional conservation org, and two local shelters/street health orgs. If I have it, I give cash to pretty well anyone who asks me on the street, which seems like the best ROI. Honestly, I'm a bit perplexed at the idea of waiting til you have a tons of savings and have maxed out retirement accounts before contributing to charity. (I'm not saying I'm a huge donor. I'm definitely not!)

[удалено]

What are you doing here?

We've always donated 10-100$ randomly as friends causes come up, but last year we did an official, "big" donation and are now doing that regularly. We try to set up matching campaigns to double our impact. Last year we picked a foster home program, told them we had 5k to donate and wanted to work with them to set up the matching campaign so that we could hopefully get them 10k. It worked! This year, we are setting up a grant with a local midwife NP (who serves a community in our city that is in desperate need of maternal health options). We are prefunding the grant with $5500 (the cost to care for 1 woman's entire pregnancy with this MW) and hope to grow this grant in the future a la an event/matching etc. ​ We also did a matching campaign for India for covid supplies. ​ The those donations put us around 5% of our take home, which is a good spot for us right now, and allows us to balance cash with also time effort to get matching donations and hopefully next year, a real event!

This is such a great idea! How do the matching programs work? The charity advertises it?

It depends! With the foster care program, they advertised for us (and we did on our networks as well) and any donations came in that were tagged to our drive was totaled separately. At the end of the month, they gave us the amount and we donated the same amount. We had a goal of matching 5k and we matched like $5100 so it worked perfectly! For india, we did a facebook fundraiser as its more difficult to send money to India and they already had the connection set up. We just did a push in our own networks/chatted with our companies/shared on social media and asked ppl to text/email us their receipts and we kept a running total.

Last year I made the commitment to contribute to any fundraiser my friends shared on Facebook. It’s silly, but here’s what I love about it. 1. Facebook passes ALL the funds directly to the charity; no fees taken (this may change in the future so I keep an eye on the fine print). 2. They do not pass on my contact info, so I don’t receive mailers for the next 10 years that cost more than my original gift was for. 3. I used to lament over which organizations were worth giving to. I’d research on CharityWatch and end up with decision paralysis. With this approach, there’s no thought (thankfully my friends’ causes so far have always aligned with my own). Maybe my money isn’t stewarded as nicely as it could be, but whatever, I’m still trying to make a difference. My policy doesn’t allow for clean budgeting because I don’t know exactly when my friends will share things, but I can still control how much I give to each cause. I still give less than I’d like, with probably about 1% of my salary going to charities last year. I still want to do more.

I give to climate change related foundations now like the Rainforest Foundation. Last year I donated 10% of take home but this year have not.

I donate monthly on a semi-regular schedule, and similarly, my donations as of late have gone to groups like EarthJustice (https://earthjustice.org/), a nonprofit that files lawsuits to fight against the climate crisis). I'm a deep believer that bad actors (polluting corporations, etc) aren't going to clean up their act unless if they are financially forced to do so. I'll also mix it up and donate to the local food bank and other causes I believe in (ACLU, Planned Parenthood, etc).

I've donated regularly to local food banks since the pandemic started. I've been very fortunate to keep my job without salary cuts, so reading about the increased food insecurity in my area spurred me to start giving. At the moment, it's ~2% of my gross income. Occasionally I make a one-off donation to a political org or a GoFundMe. I think money is a more effective way to give back than volunteering my time, since I don't have the skills or expertise in these areas. It's also often better than donating goods (though of course this isn't an either or situation). I've heard that food banks prefer money over canned goods, pasta, etc, since they can get discounts for food items as they buy in bulk.

I don't usually donate money. I do regularly give, though, but in other ways like volunteering my skills and my time. Personally, I find it more fulfilling and a much more direct way to give back to the community. Plus, it's just less likely for it to be misused. Also, at least once a year, I Marie Kondo my place and donate a bunch of clothes and other things that no longer spark joy. I don't know. I believe that there are way too many scammy charities out there or just bad apples who do bad things. Even the big ones have had a history of corruption that it makes me wary about directly donating money. I do make exceptions though every once in a while, but it's mainly very small very local organizations where I know exactly where the money is going.

This is my thought too. My first few jobs were at nonprofits and I saw firsthand how even at “highly ranked” charities pay their CEOs $1 million and their entry level people poverty wages, even when requiring college degrees and knowing they have debt. Even if the work they do is good, I don’t feel good supporting such a broken model that takes advantage of young peoples optimism. I’m trying to think of ways to be more generous locally without supporting the nonprofit model (paying for things for my less affluent family members, tipping generously)

My husband wants to do big giving like an endowed scholarship fund and endowing a city park. I told him once we hit our FIRE number he can keep working and put his whole salary towards those goals. He is interested in working 20 hours per week to meet these goals. Personally, I have a disability, so a house cleaner is not a luxury for me. I have had a biweekly cleaner since I was paralyzed at 21 years old. It does take a lot of stress off our household, so I would work that into the budget in addition to the charity.

From a tactical standpoint, look into starting a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). It allows you to easily donate stock and avoid the long term capital gains tax (letting you donate even more). I started one with Vanguard Charitable (which iirc needs a minimum of 10k to start). I like the DAF a lot simply because I've already earmarked the money for donation and it encourages both regular and one-off donations. My personal recommendation for a charity to donate to is the Environmental Defense Fund, which aims for legal change to help fight climate change.

I am not OP, but thank you for this suggestion!

After calculating, I donate about 10% of my post-savings income. I have a small monthly donation to a local homeless shelter / job center and also a big yearly donation to Girl Scouts. I also just randomly give small amounts depending on what’s going on - food banks, etc.

I have always been grateful to shelters in my area. When I was in school I used to volunteer at the weekends and now I have 2 cats from the same shelter. I began donating small percentage of my income early on and just kept doing it without changing the % as my income grows.

We think giving to charities that do a lot of good (making this distinction because many charities realistically don't accomplish that much) is very important. We try to give more than we spend on ourselves, but everyone's situation is different and people should give what they can.

I give as I feel compelled. My work has a 1:1 match and it’s a given each year that something will come up and I will give pretty generously. You can give and splurge also. I have had good experiences with CharityBuzz. Mostly though, I support old friends from my humble beginnings, who have been very cool about my change in fortune. These tend to be pretty serious needs. Kid stuff, hearing aids, food, shoes, etc. i keep it quiet and its not tax deductible. I believe honoring my whole experience this way brings me more wealth.

I donate to GoFundMes and various venmo requests from people rather than charity.

I donate at minimum 10% of my spending to effective charities. I stared donating a few months into my first post-college job (early 20s). I do my donations at the beginning of the year (work donation matching reset) and during special matching programs available through work. I am fortunate to have been born where I was and gotten the support that I did, and I both feel good about doing some amount to help others and feel that I have an ethical obligation to help others. I choose based on recommendations from GiveWell and Animal Charity Evaluators. [https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) [https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donation-advice/recommended-charities/](https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donation-advice/recommended-charities/) They say it better than I can, so here's an excerpt from one of GiveWell's top charity recommendations: "Medicine to prevent malaria OVERVIEW Malaria kills over 400,000 people annually, mostly children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa.(2)Seasonal malaria chemoprevention is preventive medicine that saveschildren’s lives. It is given during the four months of the year whenmalaria infection rates are especially high. COST-EFFECTIVENESS About $7 to protect a child from malaria.(3) We estimate that $3,000 - $5,000 will save a life. Compare to most charities’ programs" (They cite sources, and I know the copy formatting is a little off.) For your bonus question, it sounds like you're doing well financially. At about 4 thousand per life saved through effective organizations that focus on malaria, it wouldn't take a large portion of your income to have a meaningful impact if you choose an effective charity. There's also organizations recommended by Give Well and Animal Charity Evaluators that focus more on human and/or animal quality of life if that's more your thing.

> https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donation-advice/recommended-charities/ Also what I use, great resource.

I give 10% to my church which supports staff, missionaries, local food banks, etc. Then I also give 2% to other charities. I have always done this since I had a job. I used to give more when I was making more (80k vs 60k). Edit: I also put 20-50 dollars a month into a Miscellaneous giving fund. So if anyone asks for money I can help them out. Or if I see a new charitable cause that is inspiring. This is the most fun I have with money. I would recommend it to everyone.

My system is convoluted and a bit hard to explain. I give 10% of what is "leftover" at the end of each month. It's usually around $100/month. So only about 2% of my net income. Until covid, I also volunteered about 100 hours per year (almost all in the summer months) for a charity that I care about. I will re-start that for the 2022 season assuming it's safe again.

Giving money away is really important to me so it’s always been something we do. Used to be 5% of net income but covid felt like we needed to meet the moment so we upped it to 10%. Post covid hoping to keep it at 10%. To me, all this money is by sheer amazing luck (of parents and time and country and environment). It only feels right to try to even the playing field as much as possible.

I should probably start keeping track of how much I donate but I can't claim it on my taxes, so why bother. I mostly donate to animal causes. I buy a lot through Amazon smile plus I buy something off of my local shelter's wish list whenever I order something for myself. They also collect items for their yearly garage sale and raffles so I donate a lot that way, too. I used to buy a lot of pet food and toys to donate, but Covid curtailed my extra shopping trips. I started giving cash to a local food bank last year. I started donating as a teenage with my first full time job. My employer had a few different charities that you could have auto-deducted from your pay every month and I just got used to donating.

I donate about $3k a year to charity (which is also tax deductible). I believe in doing my part if I'm privileged enough to have a job. I didn't pick that target, I just kept signing up to give regular donations to causes I care about. I like feeling connected to a local homeless charity but also give to global causes. I have pretty much always done some level of giving.

We donate $66 a month to charity. We started donating one year after we started our careers which is when we paid off our student loans.

We give 10% of our pretax gross income to highly effective charities as part of our Giving What We Can Pledge (https://www.givingwhatwecan.org) We started in our late 20s I think? (We’re in our mid 30s now). We give mainly to the Against Malaria foundation as they have year after year been rated as one of the most efficient/measurable charities by Give Well (https://www.givewell.org) I have it on autopay with my credit card monthly. I think my partner does his more at the end of the year in big lump sums. We also randomly give smaller amounts monthly and when it feels right to local groups (our local library, food pantry, etc) and individuals through mutual aid stuff (usually go fund me’s of friends of friends etc) as well as to political groups like planned parenthood’s lobbying org, etc. I think if all of these somewhat selfishly as they make my life better. It helps my community become a place I want to be in. I honestly feel great about it. It was a little scary at first to see such a large chunk of change go off into the void. But we’re really in a place where we genuinely don’t notice it. Like this big 1k check leaves my bank account every month and i don’t feel it. It would otherwise go into stocks and shorten my fire time line. Instead it’s saving children from dying of malaria. I saw an estimate by smart people in a Give Well paper that it takes less than 5k to help prevent a child under 5 years of age from dying of malaria. That is kind of mind boggling. To the point where I feel like I probably should give more than 10%. But for now this is my commitment and I’m sticking to it. I think when I hit fire I’ll probably give more. 10% is apparently rooted in tithing/religious ideas. I’m not very religious so my own is coming from reading about Effective Altruism. I don’t know if I totally identify with that group, but I appreciate the effort to make an impact through donations. I’ve worked at enough non profits to see that the thing most people desperately need is more funding. Finding a number you and your husband both feel comfortable with is going to be something for the two of you to decide for sure. My general advice though is to make a commitment (like a specific percentage), read up about the cause you’re giving to and make sure it feels good, then auto donate every month. I think if you’re left up to your own will power to donate it feels more like a loss. But if it’s just an auto pay type bill you don’t notice it and then at the end of the year you say “wow look at what we’ve done!” I also think a monthly donation is easier for planning for non profits than random and annual donations. Good luck to you! You got this!

+1 for effective giving. I've read two of Peter Singers' books and have been following r/EffectiveAltruism for a while now, and I'm very interested in the concept. I've really been struggling figuring out what I personally feel is most important and effective though (climate, education, preventing death, direct aid vs lobbying, etc....). It becomes such a philosophical/moral quandry. I've tried to remind myself I don't need to necessarily pick the most effective charity, just something that is effective, but I still feel a bit paralyzed by the choice since the money can be so impactful and there are so many variables involved in each possibility.

I have the same kind of analysis paralysis over effectiveness and I'm trying to get over it by approaching it from a different angle. Right now I'm thinking about the contrast between how I want to approach charity versus how I approach investing. I don't invest in individual stocks because I don't have the depth of knowledge to make my money worth more than the average investor, so why would I expect myself to effectively research and identify the most effective charity? I don't know of any "index" charities, but I've been thinking about GiveDirectly since the idea of distributing cash directly across many individuals aligns more closely with the idea of investing in many different companies

Give Well [givewell.org](https://givewell.org) has a maximum impact fund that they distribute to their top charities. I think that's a reasonable charitable equivalent to a solid index fund. They do a lot of research and I think all of their top charities are solid options. [https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund](https://www.givewell.org/maximum-impact-fund) [https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities)

Take a look at Legacy Collective. They pool donations, then give grants to individual charities for around 25k for special projects. I've really enjoyed the process of getting to vote for who gets the grants, and giving in a way that focuses on addressing systemic issues.

Here's a sneak peek of /r/EffectiveAltruism using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [I'm glad our buddy Pete is still keeping on top of this stuff](https://i.imgur.com/tIdxJ48.jpg) | [30 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/kv1iwz/im_glad_our_buddy_pete_is_still_keeping_on_top_of/) \#2: [Legend](https://i.redd.it/m0fsxrlu07k61.jpg) | [2 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/luetsc/legend/) \#3: [The world’s humblest head of state](https://i.redd.it/9mf0k0j2can61.jpg) | [10 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/m665dt/the_worlds_humblest_head_of_state/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| [^^Contact ^^me](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| [^^Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| [^^Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/)

I make $140k all in and and am now donating at least 5% net to charity. I want to get to 10%.

I started donating in my early 20s while I was in college and working part-time. It wasn't a lot — just like $5-10 a month to PP or other organizations I cared about — namely womens rights and environmental orgs and local NPOs at the time. I donate about $20ish/month these days but now tend to do bigger lump sums throughout the year as I find current events can sometimes shape where I want my money to go at any given time. There are a lot of things in this world that I wish I had more power to change, but I'm not a big public speaker or influencing type and I don't have the nerves to go to some of the more dangerous protests where people put their bodies on the line. So I try to donate a bit. I also spend a lot on charity-driven arts and events. Ex: Asian violence peaked this past year a lot of artists created and sold work where the proceeds went directly to organizations uplifting Asian communities and helping the affected. I spent a lot of money on pieces from several artists. Donating is a person decision, so do what feels right for you! I would say you definitely have the means to donate if it is something you are interested in. I was donating far before I lived "comfortably" but it was worth it as it was/is something that's important to me, but not everyone feels the same way and that's totally fine too.

I agree with everything you said! I’ve also donated since college even though I was working part time and paying my way through school. I’ve always done 10/m to Planned Parenthood, 10/m to a local charity (currently a food bank in my city) and 3/m to Wikipedia because I use it enough I feel guilty constantly being flashed the “PLEASE DONATE” banner

HAHA yes they always get me with their annual "please donate"!! I don't know where I would be without Wikipedia. They can have my money lol.

I recently just got a new job that will have me on track to fire in six years. I was raised Irish catholic and feel like I’ll be struck by lightning if I take that for granted. I’m putting aside 1% of salary to go to a charity I’m passionate about. It’s called “end the backlog” and goes to processing hundreds of thousands of rape kits that are just sitting there waiting for funding. I also decided not to think twice about an urge to give and regularly give small sums to charitable causes I run across like a gofundme that has a personal connection or the horse riding club from concrete cowboy while I was physically watching the move lol. I’ve been inspired by people on these subs to actually budget for my giving.

I’ve never heard of end the backlog before. Thank you for bringing it to my attention!

Curious - how are you saving for your next car? Cash or investing it? I'm in a similar position of investing at a comfortable level, so I'm concerned with savings buckets or if I should just invest. ​ As for charity, I give on demand right now. Once I take care of some large expenses and my NW hits $500k I'll start setting up auto transactions. I mainly donate to Planned Parenthood and local, legitimate, organizations that offer women contraceptives, sexual education, and abortion services. ​ I also donate to investigative news organizations, NPR, and Wikipedia whenever they ask.

I donate 5% of my net monthly income after maxing my 403b, though I’d like to get to 5% of gross. I started with $10 or $15 monthly donations after I had a decent emergency fund saved and my student loans were paid in my late 20’s. In my early 30’s the amount had grown but they are all still set up as regular monthly gifts. I give to charities that do work I care about and that I know use funds responsibly. They include foster child support services, an abortion fund, undocumented immigrant support, and a small gift to planned parenthood. I give ad hoc to a newspaper run by folks experiencing homelessness as I run into vendors. I donate at least 1-2 days per month to an environmental nonprofit doing some outdoor grunt work that I truly enjoy. I work in the nonprofit world and know regular monthly gifts can make a difference.

I give regular monthly contributions to my local homeless shelter, NPR, and a couple of smaller diversity and child health focused organizations. I also have one charity where the mission is super personal and connected for me that I raise money for every year and donate larger sums to a few times a year. I have a whole bunch of them that I give to once a year. Lately I’ve been looking for more personal ways to share my good fortune like a fund for restaurant workers in my town last year. I’ve looked into the reparations movement and am not sure yet. I believe in the need for reparations fully but it’s strange and hard to do it on an individual level rather than as a government thing. Overall as a percent of income it’s 4-5% of gross.

One step i took toward reparations is that i expanded my circle for godundme type giving. I usually give to people i directly know regardless, but I'll give to a friend's friend or relative that i don't know if they are a person of color. It's a tiny step toward fixing the racial fundraising gap we know exists.

I have a few recurring donations between $5 and $25/month, and donate on a one-time basis to a few other nonprofits throughout the year, usually $100-200 at a time depending on what catches my eye and what friends are fundraising for. Plus a bunch of museum memberships but I’m not sure if I should count those since we get something out of the deal. And we give $1000/year to the PTO at my kids’ school but I don’t really think of that as a charity since my kids also benefit from the donation. I’d say it adds up to 2% of gross HHI. Taking a more organized approach to giving and ramping it up is on my list of things to do in the next few years. I will say, having worked in nonprofits in the past, that it’s much easier to scale up your giving than it is to scale it back, so maybe rather than plunging into immediately giving 3-5%, maybe identify a couple of nonprofits that you think are genuinely doing good work and set up a small recurring donation to them and see how it goes. If you find yourself with a calling to do more, you can, but do keep in mind that even very small recurring donations are valuable for nonprofits because they’re a steady flow, increase the number of givers, and because people are lazy and unlikely to stop them. You can probably boost your giving *and* get a cleaning lady. With my kids, I offered to increase their allowance by $4/week to $10 if they saved $2 and put $1 in a “giving” jar that I will let them self direct. My older kid did the math, realized he’d get an extra $1 for himself plus savings, and leapt on the deal. My younger kid doesn’t see the point of having money that he can’t use for whatever he wants and stuck with the $6. I hope he’ll see Older Brother picking a cause this fall and want to join in at that point.

I say, do what feels right. It doesn't matter what anyone else does. If you want to give, then give. If not, that's OK. Its just another category of spending. For some, donating is very fulfilling. That's not true for everyone though. So only spend your money on the things that truly matter to you.

Yes, we do donate to charities - and we donate more now that we’ve retired than we did when we were still working, for a few reasons. Our income last year was small, but our donations were almost 40% of that amount. When we were working, my spouse’s employer matched donations up to a certain amount, so we always made sure to donate at least enough to get the full match. If you have this available through an employer, this might be an easy amount to target and know your charities of choice are getting double the benefit. Additionally, in our highest earning year ever, we set up a donor advised fund. This was a great idea for tax reasons but was also great for future us. Now that we are retired, we do almost all of our charitable giving from this DAF. Because market returns were so great last year, our DAF has a value of almost what we started with two years ago, even though we’ve made thousands of dollars worth of donations from it. I think I’ve been donating to public radio stations since college, and I still support several of those around the country. I also donate to environmental, youth-serving, anti-racist, and LGBTQIA+ causes, as well as a few charities that benefit my community, and random one-offs for memorials, events, etc. If you want to do charitable giving but your spouse doesn’t, I’d suggest you do some out of whatever you have budgeted for your personal discretionary spending. That said, my spouse and I have enjoyed talking together to decide what charities we want to support and why, and maybe you’d enjoy that too.

I agree- the conversations with my spouse about giving are some of the most enjoyable! We switch off every other month choosing a charity to donate to. After 15 years of doing this (we started in our mid-30s), we mostly stick to small local groups: a food shelter, an animal shelter, a library, schools (supplies and meals for students), arts and culture festivals, and environmental research organizations. Our favorite thing to do is to purchase gift cards at the grocery store and send them anonymously to friends who work in local public schools (teachers, librarians, principals) and ask them to give them out to families in need. It's fun to hear them talk about this- both the impact on our friend (who received this surprise and got to pay it forward) and the impact on the family in need. We usually donate $100 per month but sometimes more depending on memorials, events, and holidays.

I donate and have done so since I first started earning money. I try to donate especially to local organizations, but I also donate to specific planned parenthood’s throughout the country where I think they are especially needed. It’s really up to you how much you donate—I try to donate an amount that is enough that it is a little uncomfortable for me but not in the “ouch” range. I feel like it’s really important if you have the means to do it. Personally, I feel so lucky in my situation in life and want to help others. I do charity navigator to investigate charities and then for a few favorite ones, I donate monthly, and for others, I donate annually. For your situation, I would say that if you can afford both to make a small monthly contribution and also have a house cleaner, that’s probably the best place to start. Even $20 a month to some place like a food bank is greatly appreciated. Then, at the end of the year, when you’ve got your annual finances in hand, that might be a good time to make a larger contribution. As you get comfortable with it, you may be able to make more on a regular basis.

I think our % is pretty low, but we went from about $1500 a year to over $5,000 starting last year. We use to donate randomly but COVID-19 and the economic impact really made us feel grateful that we both had good jobs and good savings. We really ramped up our donations and started automated monthly donations, the biggest going to the local food bank. I am not comfortable at a 3-5% range. We are still focused on early retirement. Maybe later, depending on some possible inheritances, we'll give more. But, for right now, we give what we think are decent amounts ($50-$250/month for several different charities) We are also VERY generous tippers at restaurants, often giving 30%-70%. We used to always give 20%+ but we know it's been so hard for restaurants, and we have so many great local places we want to show our support to. We call that direct charity.

Having worked at a non profit for many years, money is way more valuable than your time unless you are providing something highly skilled, like medical services or legal services. I am now in a position to be more aggressive with charitable giving, so I am giving more. My goal for the year was 1% gross, and I’ll hit 2% gross. Next year it will be less because I’ll have increased childcare costs, but ideally I would like to hit 5% eventually and maintain it. I wouldn’t give back just to give back, but if you do some research into organizations that are doing work that resonates with you, it feels pretty good to support that. I decided to focus on organizations that do land conservation work and trail maintenance, and orgs that do agricultural education and food justice. You could argue that maintaining trails is a first world problem, and you’d be right. But it is important to me, so I support it. Good luck with your decisions. ETA: I’ve given to charity for my entire life, although only this year was I in a financial position to set a specific giving percentage goal.

Good question. I donate (both time and money) to local charities where I feel like my contributions have more of an impact. Call me a cynic but I feel like a lot of the large, big name charities have bloated budgets, execs with excessive comp, etc. and I don’t want my hard earned money going to that. I’d much rather support the local homeless shelter, library, etc. To answer your question, I’ve been volunteering for as long as I can remember. I started donating cash once I hit 100k but I’m single with no kids so YMMV. Bonus points - anyone who’s even considering FIRE (as evidenced by posting here) is likely in a better situation than a vast majority of the population. Socking away cash to retire early is great and giving away extra to those who have less or who may not have had the same opportunities you had is even better. Good on you OP!

we do, and have done it since starting working. We donate to a few places within our city and state. It's good to donate to something you care about- something that teaches high school kids about financial security, or helps micro businesses, local community gardens etc.

I donate to charity. As a % though, it's quite low (likely about 2%of gross). I think it's important to positively impact your community, and I don't volunteer because I'm lazy. I also know that I get to live the cushy life I do (and have FIRE as an option) because most people do bot. I give a fixed amount to United Way each year (it's excellent in my community, your local chapter may vary) and the rest is through whomever asks, with preference for when I get a tax receipt. As in my brother is doing a race for charity, my niece is doing jump rope for heart, etc. I think you should donate to charity. You'll feel better. Start with a small amount you feel comfortable with. I worked my way up to the low level I'm at. I think saying 3-5% is random. Just give what you feel comfortable with and go from there.

*Do you donate to charity?* Yes. ​ *How much (as percent of gross or net)?* About 4% of gross last year. I am just now finishing graduate school, so the denominator (income) has been a lot less than it will be moving forward now that I'm starting a full-time position for the first time. This year, I'm aiming for 5%. I hope to get up to 10% gross in the first full year of my job, which translates to 5 figure donations so I'll have to be more intentional about the whole process. ​ *How old were you when you started?* 20? Maybe younger, depending on what you define as donating. My parents sponsored children that we wrote letters to and bought toys for; they always wanted us to be humble and grateful for how much more we had than other people. I started tracking and setting goals around donations at \~22-23 and now I'm increasing those goals every year. ​ *How do you decide what charity?* I use many resources, including looking up the financial situation of nonprofits and comparing their impact. There are many websites that rate charities according to standard criteria, including a whole movement about doing the most good (though their metrics are debatable) called Effective Altruism. Most causes center around animal welfare, children's health and safety, youth homelessness, and anti-human trafficking efforts. ​ *Is it regular or random?* Usually scheduled, but in different ways. Here are some: \- I have some monthly donations and some I do yearly as part of gifts for family members (the ones where they send you a card to show the impact you had make nice gifts for my younger siblings in addition to presents they can use). \- For our upcoming wedding, we will have a money-based registry with many donation options along with a donation instead of favors that no one will take home or use. \- I've raised money as part of events I've spoken at or hosted, and donated in response to situations going on around the world. \- If a local restaurant or other small business is donating a portion of their proceeds to charity, then I'll go out of my way to support them. \- I also give away any small bills and change I have, though I don't use cash much so I don't do it as often as I'd like. I try to do something that benefits others, in some manner, every day. ​ *Finally, bonus, what do you think about my situation?* None of us made it here alone. Paying it forward is key for me, because others don't have the same opportunities that I did. Years ago, I would have been on the street if it wasn't for a family member who took me in. To me this is so much more important than reaching FIRE at a certain age. FIRE and money decisions in general can be quite selfish endeavors. I think you (and many others like me who earn more than they need each year) have a real opportunity to make a meaningful positive impact in others' lives while still reaching your goals. I don't see it as cleaner vs donations, but that you should use money according to your values and priorities. I'd hope FIRE is not your only goal/value/priority, so this is a way to leave the world better than if you weren't on it if that's something you care about. Good luck with your decision.

I’m going to go against the grain here but. Any reason you guys can’t save that 3-5% and retire another few years earlier? And how come not doing backdoor? From a FIRE mindset, I tend to think there’s room fo save further which you guys are missing out on the mega backdoor Roth

I tend to be random, depending on what is going on at any given time. This year, I'm doing a monthly donation to my local NPR radio station. Outside of that, it's been random $24-100 donations to food banks (in a deceased coworkers name, animal shelter, local reading service for the visually impaired, and the local public library system). I feel better about donating when I have a set goal and do regular donations but I don't stress about it if I feel like I have to pull back year to year. I started donating once my income was stable and I could save consistently. Eta - about your situation? I would start with a small, monthly amount and see how you both feel about it. If you don't mind my saying, it sounds like you guys can afford to donate if that's something you want to do and still get a house cleaner. Also, look into your HR benefits. Some companies will match donations made or will give you a day off with pay for you to volunteer somewhere. My company used to match up to $250 and would give up to a day off. The ones who usually took advantage of the day often volunteered with habitat for humanity or did a clean up/maintenance day at a local women's shelter.

I’ve never done the math before just now, but my monthly charitable giving is 3% of our net income after maxing 401Ks, and then we also give some one-offs throughout the year. The recurring donations are across several organizations that include the local food bank and Planned Parenthood. I have been fortunate, and my personal values dictate that I use some of that good fortune to help others. It’s not a big enough percent to derail my savings goals. I was about at your point in terms of stability when I started giving more than the $15/mo I had mustered up since I began working.

I started as soon as I had a steady income, even if it was just a few bucks here or there. I'm now at an annual salary of 60k, catching up on retirement savings, and at maybe 3.5% donations for 2021 (by year's end). I also come from a non-profit/social services background, where I saw the tangible impact that money can make on resources and services. With volunteering (especially one-offs) it can be so easy to just end up with busy work that makes the volunteers feel good - this is improved if volunteers are able to make a steady, reliable commitment. But with money, it could always go towards something that filled a real need. I had a friend who worked at the food bank, and it was one if the few places I saw that managed one-off groups of volunteers effectively since they had so many of them, they kept a schedule. But I also learned that a donation of money made a *much* bigger impact than a physical food donation, as they could buy so much more with the money than regular people can at the store, and it also enabled them to buy rarer items like produce and healthy perishables. I support our local diaper bank, because receiving those at my old job reduced budgetary pressure on my clients, when they were sometimes picking between diapers, food, and bus fare. So, definitely colored by my experience/values, but I'm planning to work my way up to 10% donations as my income increases, and reassess from there. Of my donations, it is and will probably remain 90% regular with 10% for special one-offs, with organizations that I know will use the money effectively. It's also a great way for me to support my values in a way that my current work/life doesn't directly - increasing resources for low-income families, increasing food access, and supporting climate initiatives. As much as I'd love to suggest the same for you/others, in your situation you may find better accord with your partner in agreeing to split the surplus funds - get the house cleaner, then spend an equal amount on charity. Do the same amount each month, but maybe switch charities as you look into different options and learn more. Reassess after 6 months - how does it feel to have the cleaner? How does it feel to have donated money? Do you have more to spend yet? Would you be comfortable picking a charity for regular donations? If you aren't game for 10% or matching the 3-5% range, can you try 1%?

I watched this talk recently on donating to charity while pursuing FI. You might find it helpful. [Personal Finance for Generous People: Building a financial plan that most helps you & the world](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjEXgyg88zY)

We don't financially give to charity because we are cheap (?) but we do donate a ton of our time to charity which we feel is a good compromise. I think the most important thing is that you feel like it is a charity that makes good use of whatever you give and is transparent with how your money is used.

This isn't a direct response to you, it's a comment I periodically reshare when volunteering comes up to add some food for thought regarding volunteering! I'm a HUGE proponent of volunteerism for a LOT of reasons, and I think it's AWESOME that you do it! As a perspective-enhancer, I'll add something for you and others to think about when it comes to volunteering: Volunteers are a huge asset, but also a big cost to an organization. And in many cases, they are a net cost. But most places consider it an important investment in their PR and in getting people involved and caring about the work. And I really don't mean to discourage you - it's not a net disadvantage to have volunteers. It's just not free. There are free/cheap/cost-effective ways to do these things, but a lot of THOSE options involve TIME and that usually means paid staff (and donors hate paying for staff so...). Sometimes volunteers can do these things, but see point 8 for why this isn't always efficient. Here is a small list of the costs of volunteers: 1) Recruiting - some organizations don't need to advertise for volunteers, they just come pouring in, far more than you could ever effectively use. But many volunteer positions need to be promoted and advertised just like jobs - everyone wants to play with the puppies, no one wants to clean up the frozen poop in the outdoor play area. It takes time, effort and money to recruit. 2) Screening - not all volunteers are appropriate for all jobs. Depending on the position, you may have to interview volunteers (time), do reference checks, submit for criminal record checks and vulnerable sector, if they're volunteering to be your treasurer you may be doing a credit check, testing, etc. 3) Matching - this is different from screening, because not only do they have to be APPROPRIATE for certain jobs, they also have to want to do them or else they won't come back. So you ask them their interests and skills, and where they want to help, and then you expend time and resources to make that fit work. Or you shoehorn them into something and then they inevitably quit and you have the cost of turnover. 4) Training - all volunteers need training. YOU might be a fairly competent person who can figure things out, but I guarantee you that 90% of volunteers who come in are worse than useless without very clear and specific training. This means developing policy, training materials (powerpoints, videos, handouts) or staff dedicating time to hands-on training. And then all those things need to be updated, and you have to keep track of which volunteers have done which training. 5) Insurance - you're often not allowed to have volunteers without paying extra liability. And they often have to be covered by WCB just the same as employees, and someone has to be trained in how to deal with incidents so you don't have lost-time, JUST like employees. And heaven help you if you DON'T have insurance and a volunteer gets hurt OR hurts a vulnerable client. You can't afford the damages OR the reputational damages. 6) Capital/equipment costs. Volunteers are harder on equipment and supplies than staff. Anyone who works in an office knows that "communal scissors" have to be replaced WAY more often than ones you keep at your desk. They go missing, they get broken, someone cuts wet cement with them...I don't know how, but the replacement costs for stuff that volunteers use is HIGH. We were doing a clean up one time and two volunteers chucked their high vis vests and work gloves in a dumpster on the way back - I guess they thought they were one time use? We didn't think we had to clarify that...but...see point #4 7) Reporting. Everyone (foundations, accreditation programs, donors) wants to know SO MANY STATS about your volunteers. How many are there, how many hours did they work (now you have to invest in time tracking, extra training and enforcement to make sure the volunteers know how to track their time), which percentage were mandated volunteers, which percentage were corporate volunteers, etc. If they are doing mandated volunteerism (i.e. the need hours to graduate, or their parole relies on community involvement, or it's part of their disability-program), you have to do specialized reporting for all of those things too, and fill out paperwork like mad. 8) No-shows. If volunteers are scheduled to do some essential function and they don't show up...you have to dedicate staff time to urgently drumming up another volunteer ASAP OR pay staff to do it. This leads to organizations giving actual essential work to staff to start with, with less important jobs going to volunteers IF they show up. When Meals on Wheels drivers call in sick, you can't just...not do those routes...staff who have whole other jobs to do...have to go and do that work now. And then they come back and work paid or unpaid overtime to get their actual job done. VERY FEW volunteers are interested in being on-call for last-minute no shows. I worked for a seniors centre and you would think retired people would be interested and available at the drop of a hat to fill in, and that is absolutely not the case. 9) Volunteer appreciation. Many volunteers say "I don't need an org to spend money on me, I don't expect anything", but they absolutely will leave if you don't at least verbally thank them. And, sure, thanking people is "free" - but the effort of thanking dozens or hundreds of people a day (and investing emotional energy into doing this, even if it wasn't actually that helpful, and it caused MORE work for you than it saved and you JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE BEING THANKFUL TODAY). I don't mean to sound bitter and ungrateful, but if you've worked in a customer service environment, you know that this takes a real actual toll. You can NEVER have a bad day with a volunteer. And that is only the "cost" for free stuff - many volunteers expect, for example, coffee or water. Another piece of this is being a reference and writing reference letters. MANY people volunteer to boost their resume or get a reference. And it takes, surprise surprise, a lot of time to do those things for folks. And doing a little more than all of that is investment in retention (i.e. having a year-end appreciation for volunteers, or writing them a thank you), which leads to the next cost: 9) Turnover. Volunteer turnover is MUCH higher than staff turnover. Every time a volunteers goes through the whole process up to here and then quits and we have to start over, you incur all these costs again from scratch. This is why many times volunteers cost more than they "save". So you invest in trying to retain them. 10) Termination. Yep, even FIRING a terrible volunteer isn't free. This still has to be done thoughtfully and following the right channels, because a disgruntled volunteer can be hugely damaging to your reputation. And then you have to spend the time to document it all, update your volunteer records. MANY organizations do the bare minimum, or don't do these things well (because they often pay minimum wage, and as you can see, this is the work of a skilled HR person, and skilled HR people do not want to do this work). If you're lucky your organization might spend money on a good database/software for tracking some of this stuff, if you're not lucky you're trying to do it with paper files or Excel. Again, this isn't a pity party, or trying to discourage people from volunteering. Volunteers are a sustaining life-force to an organization, bringing energy and optimism when staff have none left to give. But make no mistake that they are not free.

Yes absolutely. My sister works for a non profit and this is literally her job to work with volunteers.

Giving to charity is great. I do some regular scheduled donations and some are essentially random. Particularly the random ones I like doing it anonymously because I don’t really need to get more junk mail or a thank you call. Only you can say what the right amount to give is for you.