Personal Finance Blog by Debit versus Credit

The Automatic Millionaire: Chapter 8

August 22, 2008 | Filed in: Friday Book Club | 1 comment

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Today’s Friday Book Club will feature Chapter 7 of The Automatic Millionaire and is entitled Make A Difference With Automatic Tithing.  In this short - and final - chapter David Bach makes an argument in favor of charitable giving.  We’ll start things off right again this week, with a quote (also quoted in The Automatic Millionaire) from Winston Churchill…

We make a living by what we earn - we make a life by what we give.

Before we go much further I have to admit that I’m a big proponent of charitable giving and philanthropy  (see Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty and A Charity I Recently Donated To).  I suppose this makes me a little biased toward this topic.  With that being said I’d like to get back to discussing the points that Mr. Bach is trying to get across in this chapter.

There Is More To Life Than Money

It’s true.  He said it.  In fact, he said exactly that.  There is more to life than money.  But… isn’t this book all about becoming a millionaire?  Isn’t the whole point that money is the ultimate?  Not exactly, at least not according to Mr. Bach (and I tend to agree).  As he points out in this book, “money will not give your life meaning.”  He instead points to the fact that by acquiring money we are allowing ourselves to feel something - acquiring money allows us to get things which may inspire a feeling within us.  Mr. Bach is under the impression that this same feeling can be acquired, but not so much by buying things with our money but rather by giving it away to those in need.  In fact he goes so far as to say that (essentially) we will feel the same feelings from starting to give tithes now that we will feel when we become millionaires.

How To Tithe

David doesn’t mention it in his book but one way you could give back to those less fortunate would be to spread your wealth around locally.  Honestly an even more fulfilling way of giving back to your community is by offering your time, which can often be more valuable than your money.  However David doesn’t focus on these topics at all.  Instead he chooses to reference charitable organizations.

An important point that David makes is that it’s not good to just hand your money out to some random organization who claims to be a “charity.”  Instead you should research and make sure that the charity you are donating to doesn’t pocket half of it in “administrative costs.”  A good charity has admin costs of around 25% or maybe even less.  Any more than 50% in administrative costs and you probably shouldn’t take a second look.  The idea is to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge out there on the internet and use it to choose some good charities.  I’ll list three of the websites that David mentions in his book right now.

1. www.justgive.org
2. www.give.org
3. www.guidestar.org

These are fantastic resources to use to research charitable organizations.  If you have any questions at all please let me know.  I’d be more than happy to answer them for you, and if I don’t know I will find out.

Tags: Charitable Giving, Friday Book Club, Philanthropy

Sponsor Me For The CMN Bowl-A-Thon

July 3, 2008 | Filed in: Miscellaneous | No comment

My employer is a big supporter of the Children’s Miracle Network and their One Darn Cool School program which they support in conjunction with the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. Every year we hold numerous fundraisers in order to raise funds for this program, which provides educational materials and instruction for children unable to attend school regularly due to their stay at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. It’s a great program and really provides a lot of fun and educational opportunities for the children who, due to health conditions, are unable to attend their regularly scheduled classes.

Every year for the past several years my employer has held a CMN Bowl-A-Thon in an attempt to raise funds for the Children’s Miracle Network. It’s been very successful for the past few years and this year will hopefully be better than ever. I have the opportunity to participate this year in the CMN Bowl-A-Thon and I’m hoping that I will be able to raise a nice sum of money to donate. I’m looking for people to sponsor me in the CMN Bowl-A-Thon.  In return I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures and maybe even a video or two of the Bowl-A-Thon and post them here at Debit versus Credit.  You’ll be able to get a good laugh out of it and you’ll feel good for helping to brighten a child’s life.

All you have to do to donate is either send me money via PayPal or if you’d prefer to donate via cashier’s check or money order you can do that as well by sending an e-mail to joseph[at]debitversuscredit[dot]com and letting me know you’d like to donate.  If PayPal is your preferred method (you can send payments through paypal with either a credit card or your bank account information) then you can send the money to joseph.mcclellan@gmail.com. If you have any questions at all then feel free to send me an e-mail.

For more information on the Phoenix Children’s Hospital and their partnership with the Children’s Miracle Network please visit their website.

Tags: Children's Miracle Network, Philanthropy, Phoenix Children's Hospital