How do you think about donating?

There's a great person in the fire community who has set up a whole website on this topic

www.yieldandspread.org

I'm diving into the effective altruism topic right now and it's fascinating. It really is the fire mentality applied to giving. Another case of the vast majority of people just doing it on autopilot vs being very intentional and looking at the math just like we do in fire.

Chiming in with a plug for a baseline giving percentage PLUS an amount each month that you are dedicated to giving when the opportunity arises. I tried this for the first time this month and as soon as I journaled about it, an opportunity arose. It brought me so much joy to give in a more personal way- it really was the most fun I had with money this month. Why not try it as a fun experiment?

Congrats on taking a 10% pledge! That's no small commitment and it's certainly an example for many to follow :)

I actually disagree with some of the previous comments around "Give What Feels Right" and that giving 10% is an arbitrary amount. What you've done in taking the pledge is you've created a baseline for your giving. You've made it a mandatory part of your spending, and are planning to do this for the long run. This baseline will keep you committed to the habit of giving, and it also takes away a lot of the internal guilt that comes with giving (e.g. am I doing enough?). You have a practice and you're sticking with it. Yay!

You're question tho is -- can I do more?

If you are approaching your FI number, I would begin to explore the following:

(1) What a wealth pledge looks like (vs. an income pledge). This will allow you to think more clearly about how to draw down on your portfolio. For example, if you took at 1% wealth pledge, what does your 30 year portfolio outlook look like? What if you took a 2% wealth pledge? In this way you are really thinking about your donations relative to your portfolio vs. your income. Which enables you to think more about drawing down. It's ok if this strategy changes over time, especially as you get older and you find more and more security in your financial plan.

(2) Explore the work of Aubrey Williams and Risk-Based Guardrails

. In a nutshell, he argues that you should adjust your spending based on how the market is doing. So for example, if the market is up X% percent, can you increase your donations Y% in that year? I think this is another clear way to use "the math" to flex your ability to give more.

I have pledged 10% tithes, which I donate to church. My wife and I also wanted to donate directly to some causes, so we do an additional 1%. But that's me for my specific situation. I really like @UncleFrank's response- there is no one right answer for everybody, and that answer changes for an individual over their lifetime as well. But the fact that you give brings value to your life. So I say, do you what you and your family feels like the right amount. If that means increase it, then more power to you. Personal finance requires personal choices.

Not necessarily. There are many forms of giving and they include support of or gifts to family, traditional charity and other random acts of kindness, along with gifts of time/effort. What you want to feel good about is what impact you feel it is having, not on whether you meet some arbitrary 10% number. And obviously your capacity to give changes over the course of your life.

But recognize that giving money away is one of the five ways you can spend money to improve your own well-being per David Crosby and various research. So if you are not giving while alive, you are literally losing out on a chance to improve your own happiness.

We are retired and try to give away about 1% of our annual 5% spend, which includes parental support and advances on inheritances to our children. I think that's a good number to work with in retirement, but we are focused on maximizing reasonable spending while alive.

BUT NO THAT DOES NOT MEAN DIE WITH ZERO, which seems to be a fixation of people who do not wish to spend money, as they think everybody who spends their money is trying to die with nothing, and you either have to do that or hoard your money with no other options than those two.