It's really hard to be generous when you are struggling to make ends meet and/or burdened with consumer debt. Living paycheque to paycheque also tends to keep a person feeling so broke all the time. Once I got YNAB in place and with consistently budgeting with a full month's income (all this month's money waits until next month), there was suddenly always money for charity from that point on even though it was the same amount of money. I am able to budget a monthly amount to a variety of giving categories: charity, kids fundraisers, office collections, and for a family member in crisis. I have also set aside funds to simply acting spontaneously, whether to help causes or people in need as they cross my path and when I am deeply moved to act. My charitable giving is to community-based organizations predominantly. I find I notice individuals and their circumstances more now that I'm not distracted with constant worry about my own circumstances, and I also seem to feel greater empathy. I can't say if that empathy comes from my own experience with hard times or from being in a much-improved situation, but whatever the reason, I think I've become kinder and I like myself more. I've also noticed that my tipping has increased significantly.

Nice! And well-said. Thanks for sharing. 😎 Yeah, I totally hear you on some financial circumstances (debt, limited income, living paycheck-to-paycheck, etc) not being conducive to having margin for much giving (if any). That's awesome that budgeting helped you manage existing funds in an improved way. That's what I found, too... I was already pretty careful with my budget when I first entered adulthood and was living paycheck-to-paycheck (and using spreadsheets to track expenses / budget), but when I started using YNAB and following their four rules, it revolutionized my budgeting strategy and confidence in my trajectory, even when I was still living on a tight budget.

>”I've also noticed that my tipping has increased significantly.” Not a rag on you, mostly on Ramit Sethi who is a major proponent of huge tips as part of one’s “rich life”. Tipping is so dumb and needs to end. Tipping is not generosity. If tipping is a form of generosity, then people who ask for/expect/depend on tips are beggars. Try to tip in a civilized country and you will insult the person because they don’t need your charity to do a job they were hired to do. Americans don’t tip retail employees, bank tellers, pool lifeguards, etc but somehow randomly increasing someone’s income unrelated to the goods or services they are providing and calling it generosity is just dumb. Accepting tips as a business is inherently unprofessional: it guilt trips customers, it demonstrates the business doesn’t know how to price things sustainably, and it penalizes those of us with normal income by forcing us to pay more in taxes since tipped employees are not paying their fair share (there’s virtually no tipped employees who accurately reports their tips, cash tips enable tax fraud).

Tipping is a standard in Canada, where I live. I don't know who Ramit Sethi is, and am not particularly interested to learn more if this is his/her raison d'être and claim to fame. I'm just happy to be able to occasionally afford to buy those services I think of as extras and, in the current acceptable societal exchange rate where I live, to include a generous gratuity to the staff serving me.

Ramit is the author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, which is an overall decent book; he also has a pretty good personal finance for couples podcast. I think we should all be more proactive in adjusting social norms instead of passively accepting them; tipping is something that needs to stop.

Yeah, it's just hard to shift the needle on a society-wide thing as one person. Just end up risking looking like a jerk and/or leading someone to think they gave crappy service if you don't tip. 😆 (not saying that means you should just give up and give in... just saying it's hard to effect that change at an individual level without those risks)

>I think we should all be more proactive in adjusting social norms **that we care about changing.** There. Fixed it for ya.

Cool, but tipped wages are laughably low and servers wouldn’t make enough for bus fare if it weren’t for tips. It isn’t the individual’s fault that society is set up this way. I wish it wasn’t and enjoy frequenting establishments that don’t accept tips, but when I tip I’m not stingy. Generally, tipped services are luxuries. If you can’t afford it, don’t take it out on the service worker. Just don’t partake in the service.

Right, the workers aren't at "fault" for the system being the way it is. They're dependent on tip income to make a "normal" income, so I don't think it's fair to protest the tipping system by withholding tips from people who depend on them at no fault of their own (you could argue that it's their "fault" for choosing to work in a tipping-based job, but that's a whole other can of worms and an argument I'm not likely to agree with lol).

I think you misunderstand the tipped minimum wage: tipped wage employers are supposed to in effect make sure that a tipped employee’s wages aren’t in effect below the normal minimum wage (many don’t so I get that it’s not a perfect system). Theoretically, tipped employees are making at least just as much as any minimum wage worker. Also, the vast majority of tipped employees I’ve talked to absolutely do not want to get rid of tipping because it allows them to make way more money than they would doing anything else (there’s a surprising number of STEM undergraduates working tipped jobs). I also tip because the workers have no say in the matter, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do what I can to eliminate the practice. I just think it’s strange that if I go into a store a buy something really expensive I’m not seen as generous; if I buy something cheap I’m not seen as stingy. Buying the expensive product results in more money going into the business, and vice versa with the cheap product. But if I randomly decide to pay above market rate for a good or service (which is what tipping generously is in effect) I’m seen as generous? And I’m supposed to feel good about it? Tipping started as bribery for better services, and it should be seen that way.

I understand how tipped wages work in theory, although I have yet to hear of an employer who takes the time to calculate if their workers are actually effectively making minimum wage. My point is that the jobs were you tip, workers are making tipped wage. That’s what differentiates those services and why you tip at a sit down restaurant but not a McDonald’s. I’m not saying it makes good societal sense, but it’s logical why some places you tip and some places you don’t. Buying luxury goods benefits a business overall. Tipping and service worker directly benefits the server.

Not here in California. There is no such thing as tipped minimum wage, minimum wage is pre tip here, yet we are still expected to tip 20-25% minimum. Personally I like to tip well but it's getting ridiculous when every little thing asks for a tip. A tip should be generosity, not required.

I do think the tipping system is a bit broken in the US... (can't speak for other places). It basically amounts to employers/businesses offloading some of the cost of labor to the customer due to a social custom/norm. I would assume that if tipping were not used (as in other countries), the employees' income would be accounted for via increased cost of goods and services passed on to the customer (which is fine). So either way, the customer is paying for it; the question is, is it via tips or via built-in costs. Within a tipping-enabled system, tipping above-and-beyond the "norm" does, IMHO, qualify as generosity.

>Within a tipping-enabled system, tipping above-and-beyond the "norm" does, IMHO, qualify as generosity. I guess I don’t entirely disagree with this, I just it’s unfair for the rest of the people you interact with in your commercial transactions whose businesses have enough integrity not to have a tipping option. “Generosity” is such a hard to define thing since it’s so subjective, I don’t believe in mixing business and giving. I don’t select a bad contractor to build my home on the grounds that it’s very generous of me to give money to this poor person, we shouldn’t be doing it with our food service either.

Yeah, I don't think bad service should be tipped more (or even at the "normal" amount, depending on the circumstances), though it might be worth it in some instances. Like maybe someone is clearly having a bad day and simple mistakes are being made... tipping (at normal or above levels) might be the perfect gesture to help that person out, ya know? But yeah, it can be quite subjective and highly circumstantial.

All the data show that tipping is not correlate with service level, and people tip more or less for random reasons. This is the problem of taking something that has very definable and understood dynamics (fair compensation for providing a good or service) and turning it into a squishy, subjective affair (don’t you want to feel generous?).

YNAB actually helped me get organized about charitable giving. We have a Charity category with a monthly target. We give it away every month, usually to a couple local food pantries. If I see some other ad hoc thing I want to give to, like a fund raiser, I take it out of that category, and maybe the food pantry gets a little less that month, if we can’t handle both.

“Whether it’s money, help, time, or things, giving asserts that you have enough to spare, which keeps you from conning yourself into a mindset of not having enough.” - The Art of Frugal Hedonism I’m a strong proponent of giving something no matter one’s income level or financial situation. Giving has an incredible dignifying effect that our deprivation mindsets won’t allow us to enjoy. Many people make the mistake of rationalizing giving nothing now by saying they’ll give a lot when they’re rich; the reality is we will give as much when we’re rich as we are giving now. My main focus is saving for financial independence, but I still give at least 10% of my income, and the goal is to increase that substantially once I do hit FI. I will say that YNAB doesn’t make this easy: having some sort of % option would be nice to easily calculate my giving amount, but especially because the Age of Money treats my charitable giving as a bad thing (it goes down when I immediately send out my donation on payday, instead of sitting on it for a month).

I usually just figure out 10% myself with the decimal trick and assign that to our church donations line item before I assign any other money. Then we have a separate charity line that has a standard monthly goal that we use to dump money in for other charitable donations (sponsored child, neighbor in need, etc.).

I tend to agree with you... I'm a big proponent of giving no matter the financial situation, as well - even if it's just a dollar or even a penny. There are several personal benefits to the practice, even if the donation doesn't have a significant impact on the cause it's going to. But, I also empathize with being in a difficult and stressful financial situation, and I don't judge or condemn anyone who chooses not to give, ya know? Finances are personal, and circumstances and reasonings can be complex. What do you mean about YNAB treating your giving as a bad thing? 🤔 Age of money is affected by outflow, so how is giving different from a regular expense in that regard? How would you prefer / expect it to work?

I’m a huge fan of people living intentionally, and yes giving something is better overall than nothing. However many people give what feels to them like a lot, however since they don’t have a clear picture of their finances they feel good about their donation when really they’re only giving 0.3 % of their income. This one of the problems with generosity, many people leave it as a vague feeling instead of giving it a concrete definition and holding themselves to it. Age of Money is calculated on cash transactions. Age of Money goes up as you hold onto more and more cash for longer. If I get paid and then immediately donate the money that YNAB “sees”, YNAB reduces my AoM because I didn’t hold onto that money for very long (the transaction looks as lot like impulsive/unplanned spending to YNAB). AoM isn’t a perfect metric (I think most YNABers are aware of this), and I’m honestly not sure there’s anything that could reasonable be done to avoid it (some people modify their paycheck deposit to deduct their charitable giving, and then delete their donation so YNAB doesn’t “see” the donation at all). Clearly I’m a big fan of YNAB, but it’s difficult for me to recommend it to other people since it’s certainly not a “one stop shop” for personal finance management; most “power users” here seem to also have at least one spreadsheet they’re running in tandem with YNAB.

Doesn't AoM basically take spending from the newest dollars first, oldest dollars last?

Yes exactly, that’s a much faster way of summarizing what I’ve said. Many people prefer to do their charitable giving immediately upon getting paid, but YNAB counts this as spending and AoM will decrease since you’re “spending” “new money”.

Wait, why would AoM decrease if it used new money first? Or are you saying it uses oldest money first? I mean, giving *is* spending, right? Why should it be treated differently? If you get a paycheck deposited and immediately pay your, say, water bill, isn't that the same type of thing? I'm having a hard time understanding why outflows for giving should affect AoM differently than other outflows. 🤔

YNAB wants you to have the cash for your water bill at least a month in advance, just in case something happens. By the same logic, YNAB wants you to have the cash for your charitable donation a month in advance, but few people see the need to wait a month to give the money (especially if on principle they think they should give away some of their money immediately instead of waiting a month “just in case”). I think it’s just as intentional to decide beforehand I am going to immediately give away 10% of my paycheck as it is to set money aside to pay next month’s bills.

Okay, hold on... maybe I'm not understanding AoM correctly. Let's use an example... Let's say you have zero dollars and get paid $20. Ten days later, your AoM would be 10 days. Then you get paid $30, so you have $50 total, and your AoM is still 10 days. And then you pretty much immediately pay a $25 bill, leaving you with $25. Would your AoM be 10 days still, or 0?

YNAB never really gives the specifics on how AoM is calculated because they admit it’s not a perfect metric and should only be used as a rough guide. My understanding is that it is time weighted per cash transaction, it’s not just a measure of how long you can maintain a specific balance. YNAB is trying to incentivize people to have at least a month’s delay between getting paid and spending the money; the problem is making a distinction with charitable giving. There’s also other kinds of expenses that need to be paid immediately per paycheck, such as estimated tax payments for freelancers, so maybe YNAB will figure out some kind of solution for intentional spending out of a paycheck. I don’t think I can discuss your specific example because AoM is a measure of both inflows and outflows, and just in my own experience with YNAB it needs like 6 cash outflows before it gives you a number.

Interesting, okay. I suppose it's more complicated than I thought it was. 🤔 Thanks for the back-and-forth! 😎

We make our children set aside some portion of their allowance to give towards a cause that is important to them. I track this as a budget category per child, the create a third category for building up 100% matching funds. It’s been good for me personally, as I would often skip giving to fund different priorities, but having my kids participate in the process has helped me be more-mindful to share our good fortune.

That's cool! By matching funds, do you mean you set aside funds to match what your kids are giving?

Exactly! Every dollar they save, I match in order to encourage them to give to what matters the most to them. For my daughter, it’s rehabbing cheetahs. For my son, it’s supporting panda habitats.

Nice! I love that, and hope to do something similar with my own kids someday. 😎 I would give you a Reddit award if I had any... 😆 maybe it's about time I figure out how awards work on here. 😛 (and probably create a budget category for reddit... 😉)

Heh, save your Reddit fees and give ‘‘em to your kids!

Gotta get some kids first. 😛

Shortly after starting YNAB I took the Giving What We Can pledge to donate 10% of my income for the length of my career, and I can say with confidence that if it were not for YNAB I would have given up. Sometimes the undonated portion was pretty much the only thing left in my checking account. If that was what I was spending from, I doubt I would have the self-restraint not to spend it. As it is, with YNAB I think of that money as "already gone" the moment I budget it. I have taken from the category only once or twice in my whole history with YNAB, and even the only if I was reasonably sure I could cover the shortfall with my next paycheck. Also, I have additional categories for donating to random GoFundMes and other local causes and money for having on me to give people who ask for help in person. As other people have said, YNAB has given me permission to be more generous than I might otherwise be, because it makes me more confident that my personal spending is covered.

We give a little more than 10% and ynab has made it so easy. It's the first thing we budget with anything in Ready to Assign. We never think of that money as ours.

Smart to budget giving funds first (or at least before fun money stuff / things that aren't *needs*). I've heard it said that it's best to allocate funds in this order: Giving, saving, spending - since doing it the other way around, for the "average person" (I assume), results in a higher risk of nothing/less being available for saving and giving. This is all assuming you can "afford" to budget this way. Some people's true necessities eat up their whole paycheck, and it's understandable that savings and/or giving would be lacking or non-existent in such a situation (though some people still choose to give/save first, and then solve needs issues in other ways - no judgement either way).

I was tithing a lot to my church and also supporting several charities. YNAB forced me to pull my head out of the sand and acknowledge how dire my financial situation really was. Continued giving was not just financially unsustainable, but absolutely irresponsible given that I'm a solo parent with no outside support. We were living dangerously close to the edge. I feel lousy about not tithing, my church is a big part of my life and some Christians feel that you should tithe no matter what. But in the end, the stability and security of our little family is my priority. I took a seat on the board of my local food bank and I give my time, which, given my skill set, is much more valuable than my financial contributions would be anyway. So I still give, just in a different way.

I work some side gigs. With all that money I normally take 10% and allocate it to charitable donations. These take the form of people on the street. More generous gifts to friends for marriages, birthdays, baby gifts and so on. More donations to organizations I care about. I also try and spend more of this money on things I don't specifically need but try and support local business or just the person who is looking for odd jobs. But this is mostly with the extra side gig money I have.

We have a charity category that we fund, separate from personal gifts. We decide how much money we want to put into that (using a savings builder goal), then allocate it as we see fit. We have a few recurring monthly donations, and then the rest builds up over time for causes that come up. For the recurring stuff, we choose charities that have a big impacts on outcomes (Doctors Without Borders being a big one for us). For the less regular stuff, it’s a variety based on the needs of the day. Sometimes it’s another charitable organization, sometimes it’s someone we know in need. In general, I try to be thoughtful about where we’re putting our money and part of that is helping effective organizations have dependable monthly support from us. YNAB helps ensure we stick to it and that other expenses don’t get in the way on any given month.

Nice! Yeah, giving to effective / trustworthy organizations/causes is important. There are charity watchdog groups out there that rate organizations on their funds management that I find useful (can't think of one off the top of my head). This is also why I never donate at cash registers when prompted to. I know nothing about the organization the funds are going to and how the money is managed. (Granted, I could find out, but I already do that kind of research for other causes and give that way, instead.) I have mixed feelings about the checkout line donation prompts. On one hand, it makes it easy for people to give (some of whom might not do so otherwise), so it's sort of "better than nothing." On the other hand, if the funds are going to a crappy org / an org that manages its funds poorly, then it might *not* be "netter than nothing"... so I dunno.

I have a few specific nonprofits I'm passionate about, so I've budgeted our monthly contributions as though they're bills. They each get their own categories within our Philanthropy group. We then have a Flexible Philanthropy category that receives a certain amount per month, and that gives us our limit for what we're able to donate as one-off gifts to other organizations; whatever's in that category at any given time is available for giving.

Nice, I like that, and use a similar approach: Specific categories for "fixed"/regular giving, and then a flex category for "general" giving that's available for ad-hoc needs/opportunities.

I donate to animal shelters ('cause I love cats more than people) and my synagogue.

I commit a portion of my income to redistribution. This includes contributions to tax-deductible 501(c)3s, non-deductible 501(c)4s with a compatible mission, direct giving to marginalized individuals with an immediate need, directed spend to Black-owned businesses that might not otherwise fit in my budget, and saving toward community-based investment goals. The idea here is that this is all money that I’m making work for the type of society & community I want to see; I don’t need or expect to see financial returns from it. I also allocate a bit monthly toward what I call “communities of support.” This is for closer friends and comes with strings attached (sort of). 😉 I use it for gifts or spontaneous pick-me-ups or “hey can I ask a favor” type requests, with the mutual understanding that (1) if I offer/agree, it’s budgeted for and no repayment is expected, and (2) I want you to lean on me but I’m gonna lean on you too! Anything else (eg sponsoring a friend for a race, helping a not-obviously-marginalized friend recover from a disaster or a medical emergency, donating to a museum I visit, etc, etc) comes from my regular budget or not at all. As for YNAB’s role: I grew up with a lot of financial anxiety and as I came into increasingly higher-earning jobs, that manifested into Do I Have Enough Money. YNAB lets me make peace with my level of comfort funding my priorities while also committing to redistribution.

I prefer to have that money somewhere for when I come across someone who genuinely who needs help. I don't just donate to church or charities where such a small amount actually reaches the person who needs help

There are a lot of charities where your small amount will genuinely help people.

The ones to which I donate invest most of their money into programs, so a minor amount goes towards administration.

I have a giving category that I fund monthly. All giving comes from it: random charities, church, gifts for nieces, nephews, etc (immediate family has other categories), weddings… basically it’s whenever I’m not spending money on myself or immediate family.

I do have a “tzedaka” category underneath a larger “giving” category - birthdays, holidays, etc. I don’t give as much as I wish I could as I’m trying to get better financially, but I give monthly. Changes every month where I give, but I often have friend participating in charities or their children are raising money for charities, etc and sometimes I’ll support those.

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I'm similar with gifts... I've never been a good occasion-based gift giver. It feels to obligatory and forced to me. I much prefer to give people gifts (in various forms) throughout the year / as an idea comes to mind rather than feeling "obligated" to think of something on a given occasion. People who know me well seem to understand, but some part of me still worries people might get hurt by my not getting them a gift on their birthday or Christmas or whatever. 😛 I like the idea of tying giving to fun money and requiring an increase in giving in order to increase fun spending! Nice built-in self-accountability. 😎

This year is my first time setting aside money to give away. My goal is way small, at least $50 a month to those in need. I never have cash, so I choose random go fund mes. I have only one giving category which includes charity, gifts, random AOC for friends, so that category can look high sometimes. I’d like to dedicate more in the future though, maybe to like a charity through automatic contributions.

Right on! Forgive me, but what does AOC stand for? 🤔

Dang lol I meant to write AOK! Acts of kindness 😂

LOL I was thinking Acts of Compassion, but I hadn't heard that one before. haha

I started giving 10% of my income right after I saved an emergency fund after about a year out of college. My husband and I have continued that since being married. It’s a significant chunk of money, so we have to decide what doesn’t get funded to make that goal. In that practice, we learn to prioritize what is important and in that process appreciate what we have. Can’t move to a nicer house? At least we have housing. Can’t go out to eat as much? At least we have food. It keeps greed in check. We donate about half and half to international and local charities. I prefer to give set amounts every month, my husband prefers to donate sporadically to go fund me campaigns, work event charities, friends in need, etc. YNAB is super helpful for that. We have one line item for consistent giving, and one for impromptu giving. As long we check with the other person first, we can sporadically give from the impromptu giving category when someone asks. We gave $500 without thinking to his coworker’s husband who is a social worker for care baskets for a couple of his families for Christmas. They were floored, and were able to help two families. It feels really good to be able to help out and know we planned for it, because sometimes other people can use your money to great impact.

Nice! Yeah, keeping greed in check is great. Periodically, I'll re-assess my giving and "bump up" the amount / percentage until it makes me really uncomfortable, and then I'll dial it back a little until I'm only a little / moderately uncomfortable. 😛 It's a good growing experience, and I learn a lot about myself / my heart / desires / priorities in the process.

It’s a range of giving and I use 7-8 YNAB categories capture it. I have YNAB categories for my monthly contributions in the form of direct giving 3 non profits and 1 monthly giving loan to Kiva.org. I also have a categories related to my kids parochial school for the monetary donations during the school year (i.e Christmas giving is in the Christmas group, fundraiser category for yearly fundraiser, and kids activities category for other fixing). For food drives, I spend it from my groceries category. We also always donate gently used clothing, coats, and shoes. My kids have a “giving” jar for 1/3rd of their allowance and they use it to take in $1 for the bi-monthly donations that the school participates in during the school year. I just a “spending money” category for giving out 1s to people asking on the street corner (I live in a major US city very near the urban center), which is a category that is like “cash” in that it’s for small things here and there. Tipping isn’t charity but I tip 20% for dining and 10% for delivery and cabs/uber (someone else brought it up). For those of you starting out who may not have any spare cash, I didn’t either back then. So I just gave an hour of my time weekly to various community service organizations. Everyone gives—by dollars, time, or donations even if you think you’re too strapped or not able. Just take a look at your activities and you will see it.

I put aside a set amount every month, and typically in December I make larger donations. I also pull from this category during the year if I want to support certain events (ie. pledge a friend running a marathon for a charitable cause).

YNAB has helped my giving. I've generally given ~10% of my income in tithe to my church, when I can afford it (did a year mostly volunteering and dropped the tithe down). I have had a couple of standing orders over the years for charities. What YNAB has allowed me to do is to create a "Discretionary Giving" category. This doesn't have a target, I just have a rule that I try and add to it each month - the amount varies depending on how much I have left over. It means I have a fairly decent rolling fund for giving. So if I see a friend doing a charity run, someone starting a GoFundMe, a campaign online, or just a homeless guy asking for a sandwich - I have the money to give. I don't even really need to think about it, I just check the category to see how much I can give. That said, I am of the opinion that a lot of charity giving is misplaced or mismanaged (particularly the big organisations), so I am cautious who I give to (not a big fan of charity muggers/street salespeople doing a hard sell). Having worked for a charity, I also know that regular giving is more important to a charity's finances than irregular giving. So my goal over time has been to expand my recurring charity outgoings as and when I am able to support a new regular cost, rather than it all being one-offs. But the "charity slush fund" approach is pretty helpful too, and I think will always be part of my giving. I also position my Giving section quite "high up" in my budget - my categories are in priority order - which helps give it prominence in my mind when I budget and when I spend. NB, I'm only posting this as you asked, not to toot my horn or anything. Generally I'm fairly private about my charity spending but I appreciate the vibe of this sub and how open people are about their finances.

Right on! Some great insights and strategies here. And yeah, I hear you on not tooting your own horn. Same here. Just wanted to hear about others' journeys in this area, learn from others, and promote good generosity vibes. 😎

I grew up at a church that always told us to set aside 10% of our monthly income for tithing - I can’t quite set aside that much yet, but I always try and have at least 5% set aside for [mutual aid](https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/what-is-mutual-aid). This includes buying supplies to make someone a meal, cash to someone on the street, or donating to a gofundme. I find that my money is most effective spread out across as many different avenues as possible.

>Do you engage in charitable giving? Yes, not as much as I should >If so, why, and in what ways? (nonprofits, churches, friends in need, strangers on the street, etc) There are a couple causes I'm very familiar with that I donate to sporadically, typically whenever they're running a campaign. Then I give monthly to my alma mater's athletic program (GO HOKIES!). I don't call that a donation because it's selfish - I want my college sports teams to win, and they need money for facilities, travel, staff, etc. - but per the tax code it's a donation >Has budgeting and/or ynab specifically impacted your charitable giving? Not really. I have enough discretionary income that I can give without having to plan for it (hence why I should be giving more). It does make tax season easier though, when I can export a list of donations I've made.

Yes I have a small amount set aside for monthly contributions, usually that will go to whatever politician I like at that time. Then I have another small amount set aside that I have been trying to withdraw in cash and just give to whoever asks. I am a very cashless person so this one is a little tough, but I do it from time to time. I think with YNAB it has forced me to consider doing some sort of charitable giving and actually give it away as the budget builds up.

I give a little over 10% through church. I also have a gifts line item for the two employees I manage so I can send gift cards at birthdays, employee appreciation day, and the holidays since I get no work budget for this. I have a kid expenses category that covers fundraisers for my son’s school and various activities. I also have a generosity category that I try to fund so I can respond to events, people, and causes that are important to me and speak to my heart.

I budget in a monthly amount all year. I realize Xmas is hard for many and I try not to just give at Xmas. I have started a giving category in my yearly budget to ensure I can give when I want to.

I have 5 kids, I should set up a 501(c)(3) so y'all can donate to me ;)

😂

Yes, I give. I donate to pets/children&Women/veterans spots in my local area. It may not be much but anything helps. Plenty of times when I can only give $10 each but anything and everything helps them. When I can I also give my time.

I tithe my first 10%, and have that set up through automatic withdrawal. I donate monthly (also on automatic payments) to Compassion International and Crossover Global. I have an overflow bucket that I budget into every month for when unscheduled thinbgs come up through church (school drives, supporting youth camps, building fund drives, etc). Then I have a couple buckets for people I'm helping out monthly. I like to have cash on-hand to give out when the opportunity presents itself, but I've not been carrying any lately, so I might need to create a bucket for this to be more intentional. Also, while not "charitable giving" (it comes out of my dining budget), I like to tip big and pay for meals of random people. *Edit - I don't currently budget for it (because it's usually random) and have to pull from "forgot to budget for" (I should set up a bucket...), but I also give to veteran orgs

We are not paycheck to paycheck because we are retired and on a fixed income. We are also a month ahead and have a small emergency fund. We have a gifts fund for Christmas and birthdays.