S/O: Charitable donations when you don't itemize

[Tradd]

This is a spin-off of the charitable donations & taxes thread.

I don't itemize. As a single with no dependents and no mortgage, it's not worth it. I get more out of the standard deductions.

I primarily donate to my church. I quite writing checks myself since the treasurer is rather slow with depositing them (depending on how Sundays fall, it might be almost three weeks before a check clears my bank!). So I started paying it through my bank's online bill pay, where they would issue a check to me that was mailed to church. However, I've had issues with them not arriving at least once (the check is never cashed so the bank credits the money back to me after a certain amount of time has passed).

Direct debit from my checking account is not possible. So I was thinking about just putting cash (in an envelope with my name on it) in the collection.

Our treasurer does a detailed donations report at the end of the year for each household. It's our letter for the IRS. I actually emailed her yesterday telling her I don't itemize, so to not bother doing the letter for me. It goes immediately into the shredder when I get it.

Anyone else?

[earthmama369]

We've never made enough for it to be worth itemizing our charitable contributions -- the standard deduction has always been higher. So we just make the donation and don't worry about it. Downside, you don't "get the money back." Upside, no paperwork to keep track of!