When DH and I both worked outside the home, we gave 5%+ of our income to charity, as part of our regular budget. Now that I'm a SAHM and our income has been cut in half, we no longer do this -- we now give very little financially. However, we feel that one of the advantages of me staying home with our daughter is that I now have more time for volunteer work. I used to volunteer 3-5 hours a month when I WOH, now it's much more.
We save about 15% of our income for long-term needs, such as retirement, college savings, and major things that might come up (job loss, car replacement, major home repairs, etc.), and believe that this is the most important thing we can do financially in order to have a low-stress and happy life.
As atheists, we're obviously not part of a church that needs financial contributions.
I do not believe in karma as a spiritual concept, but I do believe it's important to help those less fortunate, to work to make our communities stronger, etc. I'm a little disturbed by the notion that I might personally benefit in some indirect way from doing these things -- I do them because they need doing, without any expectation of return, and I would not want it any other way.
We save about 15% of our income for long-term needs, such as retirement, college savings, and major things that might come up (job loss, car replacement, major home repairs, etc.), and believe that this is the most important thing we can do financially in order to have a low-stress and happy life.
As atheists, we're obviously not part of a church that needs financial contributions.
I do not believe in karma as a spiritual concept, but I do believe it's important to help those less fortunate, to work to make our communities stronger, etc. I'm a little disturbed by the notion that I might personally benefit in some indirect way from doing these things -- I do them because they need doing, without any expectation of return, and I would not want it any other way.
