Managing the charity creep

Lots of bloggers are talking about how quickly Christmas (and Hanukkah) are approaching. With the Christmas creep happening sooner and sooner, it feels like Christmas is coming way sooner than in about 8 weeks (which really is a long time). December is traditionally a difficult month, financially, due to both holidays as well as my daughter’s birthday. Since I know that these things happen every year, I budget accordingly and have never gone into debt for any of them.

But this post is not about how I plan for Hanukkah, Christmas and a birthday every year. No, this post is about something else that affects my budget every holiday season, and seems to be getting worse every year. This post is about the charity creep.

You all know what the charity creep is. It’s the onslaught of food drives, clothing drives, bake sales, Toys for Tots, Adopt A Family, Salvation Army bell ringers and pretty much anything else you can think of that involves you forking over money for a good cause. But there are just so many! Everywhere you turn, someone else is asking for money or goods for those who are less fortunate. This totally plays on our guilt that we have so much and we need to give back to those less fortunate, especially at the holidays (which is actually a term that bugs me to no end). Which is a concept I 100% agree with. And a concept that I practice year round, even without “the holidays”. But I digress…

When the charity creep starts setting in, if you’re anything like me, you get nervous and sweaty and anxious. After all, how do you discriminate between so many worthwhile causes? The easy answer is don’t discriminate. Give to all of them. But that’s insane and an unreasonable expectation. Another answer would be to just pick one that resonates the most with you (food bank, animal shelter, whatever). This involves looking at your values and deciding what you value more, which is not always pretty. A third answer would be to just not give to anyone at all and hoard all of your money for yourself. But that’s not nice. A fourth answer would be to just put all the options on pieces of paper in a hat and randomly pick one. It’s totally objective and gives each charity an equal chance.

Sadly, I don’t have any solid advice that would point you in a specific direction (except to make sure that the charity you’re giving to is legit. If you see a coffee can on a counter that says “Money for Poor Peopel” (spelling mistake is intentional), it’s probably not real). What I can do for you is tell you what I do and hope that it helps.

Years ago, my husband and I made a collective decision that we would donate to one food drive, participate in Toys for Tots, and give to the Salvation Army bell ringers. We discussed giving to a local animal shelter but instead of doing that, I give directly, from an automatic paycheck deduction, to an organization that has a Trap, Neuter, and Release program. My in-laws also donate money every year in my daughter’s name to a charity of their choosing (let’s not discuss this now. I get way too fired up about it). However, even among those general categories, it’s still hard to pick which food drive, etc. So we took the lazy way out. We went with convenience.

Every year, my daughter’s school sponsors a food drive and has an Angel Tree. Since we have to go there every single day, it makes for an easy drop off location. We just put the items with her things so when we leave in the morning, we just grab the donations, too. To afford it, we put a few extra dollars in the food budget, or look in the pantry, and give that to the food drive. For the Angel Tree, we pick two “ornaments” and set a price limit for each toy. What’s nice about using her school, especially for the Angel Tree, is that we know exactly where the items are going and there’s no question as to whether they’re getting to the intended recipients.

This year, though, I’m adding in something extra. Every year, the morning show that I listen to (Preston and Steve) does a Camp Out For Hunger. The literally live in a camper for 5 days and people bring donations that benefit Philabundance, the largest food bank in the Delaware Valley. Although I live close enough to Philly, it’s really hard to get there during the assigned drop off times. However, there is now the ability to donate online through the Acme (Albertson’s) website, and it can be done in values of $10, $25 or $50 and it’s all food donations, not money. I typically wouldn’t do a donation like this but P&S are really famous and influential in this area, and I’m confident they wouldn’t do anything to screw that up.

So that’s how I manage the charity creep. What do you do?