Aside from saving to pay ourselves first and saving to invest, there is also another key area of savings which is saving to give! Saving to give can be a difficult concept to grasp for many of us who are struggling just to keep our heads above water…and understandably so. In order to give financially, we need to get our own financial house in order first of course. I like to equate it to the metaphor of being on an airplane when the cabin pressure is lost, and masks drops from overhead. We are instructed by the flight crew to place the mask on ourselves first and then help the child or person next to us. The reason is that we will ensure our ability to help that child or person next to us by taking care of ourselves first. Going back to finances, the better we’re able to get our own financial house in order, the more we’ll be able to give and the more people we may be able to help.
For some of us, giving is something we receive so much joy and satisfaction from almost even to a fault! Giving and putting groceries on a credit card for someone isn’t a gift. If we’re giving to a charitable cause or a fancy birthday present for a buddy and after that turning around to put our living expenses on a credit card, that’s not really a gift. We’ll soon discover that the present we gave was paid for 2 to 3 more times than necessary when the bills start coming in. We need to be clever about how much we give in relationship to our household finances. If we feel the uncontrollable urge to give before we can get our own finances in check, with a little brainstorming we can determine how to be generous without money. The main focus here is to get ourselves to a place where we’ve set ourselves up to consistently pay ourselves first, get our debt under control or even eliminated, consistently saving to invest and to consistently be saving to give, with an uninhibited giving heart, without struggle or worry.
Once we’ve reached the point of saving to give, like all other point of saving, start with what we can. Whatever way works best for our individual situation and/or strategy. Start with 1% of our gross pay or 3% of our take home pay, $10 per week or $100 per month…whatever works for our situation, it’s a starting point that counts. From there we can and should increase what we save to give as our financial health improves. This is the beauty of Financeology, there’s no one size fits all! Mix and match strategies and ideas to find the way that works with our individual thoughts and situations. Taking the steps to improve our financial well-being, start saving to give when we can and what we can to help as many people as possible is one of the most gratifying things we can do in our journey toward financial freedom!
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