Giving

[Parsad]

Americans donated a record $617B in 2025!  Cheers!

 

https://philanthropy.indianapolis.iu.edu/news-events/news/_news/2026/giving-usa-report-2026.html

[bizaro86]

Giving is something I'm spending more time thinking about lately. For the last few years my (non-investing) business has been throwing off way more cash than I need. I'm intentionally keeping my lifestyle fairly flat, to not spoil my kids and to keep from becoming an asshole. That leaves savings for investmemt as an option, but with good returns the last few years even if my business crashed (which is 100% possible as I have significant and unavoidable supplier concentration so they could kill me if they wanted to) I'd be fine.

 

At some point piling up more money stops being gratifying. I'm likely dramatically less rich than many on here, but I have enough to live more than comfortably the rest of my life - and there is some level where accumulating more and more seems like getting dangerously close to asshole territory to me.

 

Anyway, the solution I've decided on is a fixed amount of money going to each of spending and investing every year, with the remainder going to charity. I'd be interested in hearing how other people manage that though.

[73 Reds]

41 minutes ago, bizaro86 said:

Giving is something I'm spending more time thinking about lately. For the last few years my (non-investing) business has been throwing off way more cash than I need. I'm intentionally keeping my lifestyle fairly flat, to not spoil my kids and to keep from becoming an asshole. That leaves savings for investmemt as an option, but with good returns the last few years even if my business crashed (which is 100% possible as I have significant and unavoidable supplier concentration so they could kill me if they wanted to) I'd be fine.

 

At some point piling up more money stops being gratifying. I'm likely dramatically less rich than many on here, but I have enough to live more than comfortably the rest of my life - and there is some level where accumulating more and more seems like getting dangerously close to asshole territory to me.

 

Anyway, the solution I've decided on is a fixed amount of money going to each of spending and investing every year, with the remainder going to charity. I'd be interested in hearing how other people manage that though.

Made my first - large for me - six figure- donation to charity about 10 years ago, much larger than usual because the donation was meaningful to them and to me.  Try to do this each year with a charity where smaller amounts go a long way.  Also try to keep it mostly local so I can monitor and/or be involved with the activities and ensure the money is used for its intended purpose.

[bizaro86]

1 hour ago, 73 Reds said:

Made my first - large for me - six figure- donation to charity about 10 years ago, much larger than usual because the donation was meaningful to them and to me.  Try to do this each year with a charity where smaller amounts go a long way.  Also try to keep it mostly local so I can monitor and/or be involved with the activities and ensure the money is used for its intended purpose.

 

Yeah, I think the value proposition of small and local is much better than national charities.

[Gregmal]

51 minutes ago, bizaro86 said:

 

Yeah, I think the value proposition of small and local is much better than national charities.

100%. Ive always found impacting individual lives creates for bigger ripple effects than giving to broad organizations run by the wives of rich dudes who want tax breaks. 

[RichardGibbons]

3 hours ago, bizaro86 said:

Anyway, the solution I've decided on is a fixed amount of money going to each of spending and investing every year, with the remainder going to charity. I'd be interested in hearing how other people manage that though.

 

I've started thinking this through, but am still early in the process.

 

I'm a Gen Xer. IMO, the children of my generation have bigger opportunities than my generation, but have fewer and are in a more difficult world financially. So, I'm thinking about how much extra money those kids would need to level the playing field with Gen X, and what I can do to directly address that issue with the young people I know who don't have high-income parents.

[SharperDingaan]

I accepted a limited partnership in a small local craft brewer for pretty much this exact reason; building things, share the risk and time commitment, create a lot of employment, enrich the community, and enable one to brew purely for the fun of it. The keys are partners you like, clearly defined duties (I'm the finance/accounting guy, and floating 'grunt'), staying small, and keeping it lean. Treat your capital investment as an immediate loss, your share of the years (modest) profits as a bonus to spend as you wish. Could just as easily be a bakery, etc, depending upon your interests. 

 

It has worked out well, is well suited to the early 'retirement' years, and the challenges are a great counter weight to the constant 'draw' of retirement. All our employees (including the part-time) have a partnership interest in the brewery, and we do at least 2-3 contract brew collaborations/year for staff development. We run it as we would any other business, but also include some 'non business' KPI's, as we're not in it for the money.

 

Different strokes.

 

SD

 

 

Edited 29 minutes ago by SharperDingaan