Personal Finance Traditions: Charitable Giving

This time of year, traditions become important. And one of the biggest personal finance traditions is charitable giving. As you probably know, if you do it right, charitable giving can offer you tax advantages. (Don’t forget that this is the first year that new charitable giving tax deduction rules go into effect.)

But charitable giving should just be about the tax deductions. Interestingly enough, many personal finance gurus, including some that aren’t particularly religious, have personal finance traditions of giving.

Why?

Because for some reason, giving helps the giver as well as the receiver. I’ve noticed this in my own life. Growing up, personal finance traditions of giving were always present. My husband and I continue our families’ traditions of giving all year. We give to our religious congregation, and we each have a charity that we donate to.

We’ve noticed that we’ve always had what we need (maybe not always what we want), and of course we feel good about helping others, when we give generously. The toughest time we had financially was when we stopped giving for a while in order to “save more.” To our surprise, we found ourselves struggling. Maybe it’s all in the attitude, or perception, or whatever other reason you can find, but as soon as we made a donation, our financial situation began improving.

So, while not everyone can “testify” that such giving helps them with their personal finances, I know it helps mine. And ’tis the season now. Just be careful of charity scams.