Please Put a Penny in the Old Man's Hat

Just in time for the most wonderful time, this year's school photos:



Warms my heart.

Speaking of which, it's also that time of year when I try to take stock of what we've been doing with our money and whether any of it's been well spent...

So, here's the latest breakdown:

More going toward those most in need and less toward music and whatnot. And yes, if you're tracking it from the last couple of years, that's partly on account of Peter Singer and his damned compelling reasoning. Not only that, but some friends hosted a book club meeting a couple months ago about his book The Life You Can Save, which really only made things clearer...

Anyway, I kind of struggle with what to say in this kind of blog post.

I mean, I want to make this somehow more than an annual ritual of congratulation and flagellation, but it's hard to get past those superficial moments. Yes, I am proud of the fact that we are giving away this much of our income. And yes, I am disappointed when I do the math and see that we spent more on vacations in 2014 than we did on helping others...

To put that another way, although I can pat myself on the back because we give to the King County United Way at the "Leadership" level, we're still not even close to giving 5% of our income.

Also not even close to the recommendation from the Life You Can Save website...

Well, damn it. Here's a commitment to up our United Way and Oxfam giving in 2015. 5% or bust! Damn it!

Meanwhile, where are we spending money on ourselves? Let me count the ways ;)

How about: Had some fun watching KU come back and win against Florida last weekend:

(And how about that win at Georgetown yesterday?)

And a little holiday fun at the West Seattle Farmers Market:

Horse-drawn carriage? Mule-drawn carriage? Whatever—it was charming and they had jingling bells on...


Hope you're feeling that holiday spirit, reader! More soon!

Yet What I Can, I Give

Okay, that title's a quote taken out of context (see below), and it's meant to be not truth but rather aspiration. This time of year our thoughts of course turn to questions about giving, and I thought I'd share an update since last year's post about our giving.

Thankfully, the Times did another story too, this time with lots of helpful links and even more Peter Singer references.

As you can see, our distribution is relatively unchanged from last year: a questionable commitment to the arts even though we know that helping people living in extreme poverty is the only morally justifiable choice. I guess we could pat ourselves on the back for giving almost 30% to Oxfam while the US average for overseas giving is just 6%, but I think our first step for 2014 should be telling Oxfam that we'll up our monthly gift.

Now you might wonder about the stuff further down the list: is the Nation Magazine a charity? Well, we subscribe but never read it, so I put in on there. On the other hand, we hardly ever use our YMCA memberships... if you put even half of the cost of that onto the chart, it would actually rank above the radio stations.

It would still, alas, not get us to the 5% mark...

The cool calculator the Times linked to agrees that we should be up closer to 5%. What's worse, we're actually down from last year. I'm ashamed to say that although a pay raise explains part of the decrease in the percentage we're giving away, we also let a couple of things slip and just forgot.

Emily and I are discussing sending a one-time end of the year gift—probably to, yes, Oxfam—to offset our mistake a little, but even if that happens we likely won't make 5%.

Where are you at on all of this, reader? What's a good distribution? What kind of percentage do you think makes sense?

Personally, my hope at this point is that writing about it now will make it a little harder to ignore in 2014. Tune in next year to see how it goes!

[Clunky transition alert!] Speaking of tuning, we've been enjoying some wonderful music during this season of giving.

First, take a listen to Franklin's rendition of Old McDonald:


And Sunday took us to St. Joseph Church for the Seattle U Festival of Christmas. Truly beautiful music. Glad we got to share it with Grandma Christine this year!

Also the source of the title of this post, which is a partial quote of a line from In the Bleak Midwinter, one of the songs we heard yesterday. Nothing like hearing it live, but if you want you can listen to another version On YouTube.

While we're here talking about atheists who love Christmas music, I have to tell you about this amazing story on NPR the other day. Actually, take a listen:

I can't remember the last time something made me smile this much.

In fact, I can't stop yet. Here's their version of Angels We Have Heard on High:

Man I love this time of year!

Okay fine, here are the pictures of Franklin. Helping to decorate the tree:



Thanks for giving your time, reader.

The Joy of Living Is In the Giving

Or, to put it in another way, we probably need to up our joy around here...
I mean, sure, it's pretty joyous looking at this enthusiastic young man every day:

But that line from that catchy Toys For Tots song kind of haunts me.

For a while now I've been considering a post about this sort of issue, but the article on giving in today's New York Times—which even included quotes from a philosopher (huzzah!)—sealed, as they say, the deal.

So, for one thing, the author mentions making an actual pie chart, which I agree seems helpful. Here's ours (UPDATED & improved):

(Slightly bigger version here.)

Okay, there's some data, but what does it mean? Well, for one thing, we give to three radio stations, which are definitely among Peter Singer's "morally dubious" cultural institutions. Look, KEXP and KUOW are basically non-negotiable. And come on, how can we not give to Kansas Public Radio when they keep making (and we keeping playing) episode after awesome episode of the Retro Cocktail Hour?

And who knows whether campaign donations really even belong on this list? But there we are. (Most dubious from my point of view? Boy Scouts. (Why? Mostly this.) But who can say No to a charmer like Braxton?)

Interesting to note that whereas most Americans apparently give mostly to schools and churches, we basically ignore both, and give the major chunk to human services groups at home (United Way of King County) and abroad (Oxfam).

But okay, here's the real reckoning: what do all of these numbers have to do with our actual income? I've been known to puff up a bit when recalling that we give $1200 a year to Oxfam, but all of this giving—ALL—doesn't even add up to 5% of our total gross income.

UPDATE: And just where does that put us, I wondered, with respect to the rest of the country? Well, fortunately there's a super fun website run by the Chronicle of Philanthropy that has all kinds of interesting info on giving (though they're focused on charitable giving, which may skew things a bit since I'm thinking about giving in a more general way...). And it looks like although the dollar amount we're giving is on the high end, when it comes to percentage of income we're barely average.

So, yeah, I guess I'd say things are looking morally dubious after all. How about this: we can call it a start, and do our best to seek a little more joy next year. But how about you, reader? What's your take on all of this? How much is enough? Where should it go?

In the meantime, here's one more look at Franklin, doing his part to spread some joy this season: