give more to charity

I’ve decided to call this goal completed since I’ve made a shift in the way I view giving to charity. It is now something that always comes off the top of every paycheck, I adjusted the amount to 15$ / week for now, and I’m comfortable with that.

I’m going to keep the list of charities I listed with this goal to contribute to when the funds have been built back up to the level I wanted to give.

Decided to up the amount to 15$ / week. It’s really amazing how quickly funds collect in the fund. Plus when little things pop up, I know that I have the money to fund them as well.

This is one thing that is non negoticiable in my budget. I feel bad because I’m not at 10%, but you know what, better that I make giving a priority and that I give what I can, with an open hand and heart.

I was at the hospital today and saw a plaque for AMI Quebec. Was inspired to add them to the list, since mental health issues are important to me.

Here’s the link, but I’ll probably end up calling them up since they don’t have an online donation option.

http://www.amiquebec.org/Documents/DonationForm.pdf

Here was the original list:
1. Fabi’s Memorial Fund (January)
2. Head and Hands
3. The Sex Party – 100$
4. Auberges Des Coeurs – 75$
5. Plan a tree in Israel (Tu Bishvat) – 150$ = 10 trees
6. Breakfasts for kids in schools – 75$
7. Breast Cancer Walk – 200$
8. Air Cadets – 1 West Mtl – Fundraising

And my progress on the list and my changes:

1. Fabi’s Memorial Fund (January) PAID 72$ Jan 5th, 2009

2. Head and Hands

No longer a priority

3. Auberges des coeurs -?? (April)

I think I’m going to bump this one, and make the donation a little bit more. My charity fund is at 30$ and at 10$ a week I have a little bit more time to collect funds. Let’s call the target date for this April.

Just made the call to donate 72$ (4×18$ Chai) to my foster mother’s oncology charity fund.

Also had a card sent off to her daughter.

I can’t believe that it’s been a year already :(

I think I’m going to change the amount to a consistent 10$/week into the fund. It makes it an autopayment, makes it easier to remember and plan for and makes it impossible to spend it before it can get to ING.

I see now why you need to make giving a priority and take it right off the top, otherwise it seems to disappear into the cracks. I was supposed to have about 25$ to give this week and it seems to have dwindled down to about 10$ which I can’t figure out at all.

I still need to go out and pick that book before the holidays. I’ve wanted to do this for a few years, so I’m thrilled to be able to do it this year.

I think I should change this goal to “Give more” and maybe make it a part of my Hapiness Project. I quickly dropped into a poor_skills conversation on Livejournal and I found a post that went something like:

Hey guys, I just got myself a real world job and I want to make sure I stay on the right path, got any suggestions.

One of the suggestions was to buy the “Money Book for the Young Fabulous and Broke” The Simple Dollar Review I had read it a long time ago and I thought that it was good, but it didn’t really strike a chord in me like TMMO did. I had just been wondering if I should give it away when I saw this post. The next suggestion on the post was not to buy it, but to borrow it from the Library, so I jumped in and said that I would send it to her as a gift for “making it.”

Took the shipping out of my charity contribution for the week, and finally sent the book yesterday, along with a long, Long, LONG letter to my old therapist complete with pictures of my new apt.

It feels great :)

about having a fund for this, is that when an unexpected donation comes up, that I already have the money to cover it. I’d really like to buy a book for the children’s charity that runs around this time of the year.

Actually last year I made a list of 4/5 books that I wanted to get. I won’t be able to get them all, but I do think that I’ll buy my all time childhood favorite “Where the Wild Things Are” which even after reading it as an adult is JUST AS GOOD as it was when I was a child!

So I decided to set the percentage at 3.5%. I’ve collected about 80$ in my ING account, waiting for the 14th of January when I’m going to contribute it to my foster mother’s memorial fund on January 14th. I’m not going to empty out the account, because I find that having money in an account encourages me to add more to it, whereas an empty account makes me go: *Sigh, there’s STILL no money in my Vacation fund :(