I have always wanted to donate more to charity (I guess deep down inside, we all want to be more charitable). However, the biggest obstacle for me is actually the amount of mortgage that I have!

Right now, my mortgage payment is about 25% of my gross income. Take away the taxes and we are down to about 45% of income left for all other purposes. I generally try to save ten percent of my gross income. If I target ten percent to be given to tithing and charity donations, then I’m essentially left with 35% for my other household expenses. Furthermore, I would like to add some additional principal payment to my mortgage to pay off my mortgage quicker.

So the question is how do find the money, or rather the discipline to give ten percent to charity and tithing when I would actually like to pay off my mortgage faster? I’m still trying to figure this out and here are my initially thoughts.

1. Donate my Credit Card Reward Points to Charity - I carry the Amex Platinum Charge Card, the Business Gold Rewards Card, both which earns me Membership Reward Points. I could potentially donate my points to any public charity. Problem with this is that I will be tempted to use my reward points for other purposes!

2. Get a charity credit card - The company I work for supports the Make-A-Wish Foundation. I recently joined the committee to help organize a series of fund raisers. I could potentially get Make-A-Wish Credit Card, use it and have 1% of the amount that I charge to the card automatically donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

3. Purchasing from companies that donate a portion of their receipts to charity - My friend Jim recently set up Giving Bean. It is an online roasted coffee shop which will donate a portion of their receipts to your favorite public charity. Being a coffee drinker, I may well just be tempted to purchase my regular supply from him (although I could easily get free samples!). I wish there are more companies like this one.

Maybe it’s all in my head? - But maybe I’m just finding excuses not to be more charitable? I find it hard to fully give ten percent to tithing (which I should and I guess you can lump in other charities in that mix as well). But I figured that if I get a charity credit card, then at least a portion of the money I charge to the card will be automatically donated to charity and it will not really come out of my pocket. If I also purchase my coffee from Jim, then I will also be donating more without necessarily coming up with more cash.

Having said that, it will still probably not make up enough for me to presently reach the 10% goal. But I’m definitely striving for that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 2:41 am and is filed under Personal Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.