Happiness in My Inbox

A while ago (actually it was a couple of months ago) I posted about our efforts to put a box of books and school supplies together to send to our grandson's school in the Philippines.  We were pretty surprised when we went to the Philippines last fall, visited his elementary school, and found that they had very few books and a whole lot of kids (like 50 students in each class room!).  Well today I got a happy surprise in my email box--a note from the teacher saying that the box had arrived and a bunch of pictures from her showing the kids with the new books and school supplies.  Here's a cute picture of the kids (the one in the front with the soccer shirt is hubby's grandson...cute huh?) holding up their new pencils.

Giving

While the majority of my blog is dedicated to saving money and being very frugal with the money I spend, today's post will be about parting with some of your money via giving. 
I have always been very helpful by nature.  If someone is hungry, I will buy them a meal, if someone is cold, I will buy them a coat.  And then some years ago, I learned about tithing.  Even though I am not religious and don't go to church (I tend to go randomly if I come across a church that interests me but I think God can be found everywhere so adhering to strict religious doctrine tends to make me want to run the other way), I learned about tithing and have been tithing a part of my income ever since (it's probably been about ten years so far).  The weird thing is that it really does seem that what you give away tends to come back to you multiplied.  So while it is not right to determine how much to give based on a particular financial calculation of how much you intend get back, giving and tithing seems to open the flow of money both coming from and going to you.  This is how I give away some of my money:

• I tithe monthly to the Unity/Daily Word organization.  This is about as close as I come to a regular church. I love the positive message of this religion and I read Daily Word quite often to find inspiration.
• I give randomly to organizations, churches, non profits, and events that need funding.  This was much easier to do when I actually had a good income coming in.  These days I mostly give my time and effort instead of money since I have much more of the former than the latter.
• I give my money, time, and effort to the non profit I started some years ago.  After volunteering and working with various groups (kids--not my thing, the homeless--definitely not my thing) I started working with refugees and immigrants and then it hit me that working with this group is exactly my thing.  So as much as I can, I still work with this group and tend to automatically run into many situations when traveling where I can help other refugees and immigrants too.
• I rarely donate to political causes because I think most politicians are....well there is no polite way to say what I think of most politicians.  However I am a big fan of Ron Paul so during the last election when he was having an online fundraiser that raised over $4.2 million in one day, I donated and was a part of that which was a very amazing feeling.
• Sometimes I come across causes that I just feel pulled to donate to like these ladies that I saw on a television program and thought they should be supported.  They help so many people that I felt like I should help them.
• Finally, there are emotional pulls that I sometimes can't resist.  When I saw this girl's story tragic story, especially since her death happened so close to where we are, I felt compelled to donate and amazingly, what started out as a girl trying to raise $300 for charity has now grown to over $1 million in donations.  Being part of that gives me the chills!

The bottom line is that while being frugal with your money, especially if you are still trying to get out of debt, is obviously the most logical thing to do, don't forget to give away a little of what you earn.  Carefully spending your money is one thing, but hoarding your money is totally different.  Share and give when it is needed and you will be amazed at how your generosity is repaid!