Budgeting Means Getting to Give

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Doing FPU and sticking with our budget, has been hard work.  Besides seeing our debt getting paid off, budgeting, at its core, at its root, at the very base of everything positive that flows out of it, is that I budget part of my money to give away. Common Question: But Treana. We read your monthly debt updates-- you are in debt. Why are you giving money away?

Answer: It's not about me or "my money."  I posted about 6 months ago about my realizations surrounding giving money away to churches or charities.

Those realizations still stick with me and have guided me to find some INCREDIBLE opportunities for giving. This is not a sales pitch for any of these organizations or people or acts, but I have found that when I put this song on, and scour around the internet, I find some INCREDIBLE (lots of incredible happening in this post already... might be a record breaker) opportunities for giving.  I share this list to get you excited about giving, and also to see if you blogger loves have some favorite giving spots as well.

Here's my small giving tree thus far (and giving is not like kids, I definitely have favorites):

  • A crisis intervention program for Denver youth
  • A humane society benefit
  • A law school classmate that traveled to South America to do some seriously cool environmental law work
  • A check to a momma friend of mine who is budgeting her face off so that she could have a little treat yo'self day.
  • A family that a blogger wrote about who was trying to adopt 7 kids to keep them all together (Yeah. People are awesome).
  • Church World Service: read more about them here or over at Momastery.
  • A momma who was having lunch with her daughter and had the most beautiful conversation with her about gay marriage and love and how everyone deserves the right to marry who they want. I was tearing up (and eavesdropping) and could not help but to buy them lunch and leave her a note to tell her that she was a warrior momma and she should keep up the good work. She has no idea who I am. (This is probably my favorite one)

And finally, just to prove that opportunities to give come from EVERY possible scenario, just as I was finalizing this post a representative from a rape awareness coalition stopped by. They are now the list for next month's giving:

IMG_0503 IMG_0504 So. What about you? Do you budget for giving or just give when the mood/the right cause strikes?