The need to give is everywhere.
Giving is an important and integral part of personal and family budgets throughout the nation. As American’s we are blessed with an abundance, and with great abundance comes great responsibility. But are we forgetting our own communities by focusing our giving efforts on national and international tragedies?
No matter where you [...]

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If you’ve been on the fence about donating to Haitian earthquake relief efforts, Congress just gave you one more reason to open your pocketbook… The House and Senate have both approved legislation that will let taxpayers claim their donations on their 2009 taxes.
In the absence of this bill, you would’ve had to wait until you [...]

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As you’ve likely heard by now, Haiti recently suffered a devastating earthquake. If you’re interested in helping the relief efforts by donating money but don’t know where to start, please check out the following non-exhaustive list of options:

The American Red Cross has pledged an initial $1M in support. You can help support their efforts by [...]

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Last week, I gave myself a crash course in donor-advised funds. Unfortunately, it was too late, as I didn’t have time to act before the end of the year. I did, however, learn a lot, so I thought I’d share some of that knowledge with you.
What is a donor-advised fund?
A donor advised fund is essentially [...]

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I’ve recently been thinking about the concept of setting a personal “savings ceiling.” In other words, figuring out how much I need to live a happy, fulfilling life, and then giving the rest away. Now, before you start thinking that I’ve lost my mind, I want to say a few things…
For starters, it’s important to [...]

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I’m guilty of buying small gadgets and/or books that I don’t really need. On the surface, many of these items look like they’ll save me time or money, but I either rarely use them or otherwise find that I don’t want to keep them around. Not only does this waste money, but it also results [...]

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Every year around this time, my wife and I sit down to figure out our charitable giving. I’ve mentioned in the recent past that times like these can be tough for charities, as monetary giving often dries up. Fortunately, we’ve had a good year, and are planning on increasing our giving this year as compared [...]

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Tough economic times are a sort of double whammy for many charities — the need for services spikes, but donations shrink. Not a good combination. While we’re in the fortunate position to be able to maintain (if not increase) our donations over years past, that’s not the case for everyone. With that in mind, I [...]

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This is just a quick note to let you know that FiveCentNickel readers donated a total of $2879.84 to their local foodbanks. Adding in my match ($1000) as well as that of a reader named Noam (another $1000), that brings the total to $4879.84!
Thanks to all who donated, including: jim, C, Andrew, Jesse, Cap, Rachel, [...]

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This is just a quick note to let you know that my offer to match food bank donations last week resulted in $783.84 in contributions by readers to their local food banks. Now for some exciting news…
A reader wrote in over the weekend and said that they wanted to extend the program by offering to [...]

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