What’s More Important Than the Debt Ceiling?

By 2 Cents on July 29th, 2011 | Category: Giving | One comment
plan-canada-east-Africa

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving.

~O. Henry, Heart of the West, 1907

Are you tired of the debt crisis in Europe and the inane arguments over the U.S. debt ceiling? Have you had it with watching wealthy politicians and bankers arguing over who’s going to sit in the last deck chair on the Titanic? While all of these theatrics seem like a surreal scene from The Simpsons, there is a crisis unfolding in another part of the world that has received precious little attention..

Children are starving in Africa. OK, so that’s nothing new, right? Yawn . . .  You may not be aware that things are much worse than usual in Eastern Africa because of a devastating drought. People who normally have very few resources are trying to cope with a [...]

Read on and enjoy … What’s More Important Than the Debt Ceiling?

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Giving: How to Budget for It

By 2 Cents on January 21st, 2010 | Category: Giving | Leave a comment

To give and then not feel that one has given is the best of all ways of giving.

~ Max Beerbohm

Giving is something that most of us like to do. We love to buy great gifts for our loved ones, and we want to support charitable institutions that are close to our hearts. But sometimes when we look at our budget, there just doesn’t seem to be anything left over, or we forget to include giving altogether.

When an occasion to give comes up, it can be a real budget-buster, and may even force us to take on unplanned debt. We’ve been talking about budgeting a lot lately, and the crisis in Haiti has put giving on our minds, so I thought I might go over some ways to incorporate giving – without breaking the budget.

Pay It Forward First

Giving: How to Budget for It

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Help for Haiti: Here Comes the Blogosphere

By 2 Cents on January 16th, 2010 | Category: Giving | 3 comments

We should give as we would receive: cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.

~ Seneca

We’ve all been jarred by the devastation in Haiti this past week. People are coming together from all over the world to help. It’s gratifying to see folks digging deep to give at a time when financial difficulty is common. The absolute horror of what’s going on in Haiti puts a lot of that in perspective. I’ve recently written about the changes in our own financial life, but I know there are millions of people who would dearly love to trade places with us. And as tough as things are for those people, I know that the people of Haiti would probably gladly trade places with them.

Yesterday, I was touched by a blog posting by Frugal Trader and Kathryn over at Read on and enjoy … Help for Haiti: Here Comes the Blogosphere

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