Am I being too generous ? Or am I too tight ?

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Comments

  • I'll have to look into GAYE and Pennies From Heaven, sounds like a good way of giving a small amount that I won't miss regularly and maximising Gift Aid.

    Seren - I'd love to give blood but always fail the test when they do that test with the drop of blood into glass of water. Even when I've been loading up on spinach and iron supplements! And yet when I have blood tests for iron deficiency it always comes back normal.

  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭
    Wilkie wrote (see)

    Colin has a point - our Government gives a lot of (our) money in overseas aid.  

    According to the Guardian in September 2012: "Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) put total UK foreign aid at £8.6bn in 2011. With a population of about 62.6 million, the figure works out to roughly £137 per head."

     

    Maybe they can take that as part payment for the theft and rape of resources inflicted on many of these nations by the British Empire, which went a long way to creating British wealth in the first place.

    Although in truth many of these "aid" donations are nothing but government sponsored business bribes of sorts, so we're still exploiting poor nations for our own benefit.

    Mind you the first to complain about overseas aid tend to be UKIP type immigrant ranters. People go where the wealth is, always have and always will. Deal with it.

  • Interesting feedback thanks ! Especially the figures. 

    I don't think paying tax is enough charity. You cant get away without paying any tax - sp where is the charity ?

    I'm not religious but I think its only decent to at least try and help out others ?

    Nick - you don't sound like a nice person at all. How do you know I'm a condescending capitalist creep ? I might be a Guardian reader. 

    I'm not sure karma cares about money or donations. Giving to charities just seems to be the right thing to do. I do think I might scale it back a bit though. 

    Hmm - totting it all up - I could have sponsored me for a Gold Bond place a few times over now. Why didn't I think of that !

    Thanks again. 

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  • Jason Wintin wrote (see)

    ive always been wary of many charities as they spend alot on 'other costs' instead of giving to the real cause.

    its like live aid every year they raise (dont quote me here) millions for the starving. 

    and yet every year millions is raised and they still starve. 

    the costs in getting the aid over there is HUGE, boats, planes, wages (bribes to the gorvernment)

    if you want to donate the £70 a month why not donate to a local charity so you can see where it really goes.

    or just  sponsor a donkey/lion/elephant/panda and get free pictures of a generic animal, when really its already died image

    I agree totally with the bit about donating to local charities. They're likely to spend less on administration costs, so more of the money goes to a good cause.

  • Choose your own charities on the basis of your own conscience. How much is again a question of conscience.
    In Biblical readings, the concept of tithes is mentioned. The Bible being the base text for Jews, Christians and Muslims. It means giving 10% of your income to charity. The concept is developed from one community to another, that may suggest more or less (10% of disposable income). Some people manage their conscience by adjusting their will to leave a significant donation at that point. It enables an easier balance between liquid assets and property investments.
    Personally, I have been prompted to review my donations. I balance them on the basis of what I might be spending on my "fun time" or boys toys.

  • International aid can make a massive difference if done well. In recent years it has led to:

    • raised food production
    • Improvement in health including smallpox eradication and reduction in polio and TB
    • Reductions in illiteracy and increase in primary school enrolment by 8% since 1991.
    • The pace of childhood death has declined sharply in recent decades – with an estimated 6.9 million children dying before their fifth birthday in 2011, compared to around 12 million in 1990, UN report in Sept 2012
    • Lifesaving responses to disasters such as the 2004 tsunami.
    • Increased access to water and sanitation, reducing child deaths from diarrhoea from 4.6 million in 1980 to 1.5 million in 2000.
    • In Rwanda for example, average life expectancy increased from 26 years in 1994 to 50 years in 2008. 

    UK aid is helping to make a critical difference to the lives of millions of people 

    • Saving lives – in the financial year 2009/10, UK aid ensured that 15 million people had enough food to eat and provided over 1.5 million people with clean water.
    • Over the next years, the UK’s contribution to the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI) will ensure that 80 million children can be immunised worldwide saving an estimated 1.4 million lives.

     

    • Peace and good governance – the UK’s extensive security and development assistance to Sierra Leone over the last decade has helped to end its civil war, stabilise and rebuild the country and helped the country’s economy to grow by 5% in each of the last two years. Over the next three years, UK aid will help 44.9 million people participate in elections.
    •  “British aid pays for five million children in developing countries to go to primary school everyday. That’s roughly the same number as go toprimary school in Britain, yet it costs only 2.5% of what we spend here.”
  • Colin McLaughlin wrote (see)
    seren nos wrote (see)

    So for those few who think charity begins at home and so won't give any.out of interest would you refuse to ask or take any help from a charity if you ever needed it....eg support from a cancer charity or a childrens charity of your loved ones ever became seriously ill or would you insist on just having whatever the state provides in your area........

    not giving to charity at all out of principle  but taking reminds me of those people who are suitable to give blood but won't because it might affect a training run.....but are happy to accept it for themselves or their families in an emergency

    The Government takes it on itself to decide what we must do, Seren Nos. We pay our taxes. An awful lot of tax, in many cases.

    My charities include unmarried mothers who get free flats, people who could easily go out to work but aren't forced to, my local council's employees' old age pensions (incredibly 30% of my council tax goes to that), a war in Afghanistan,  the courts service, the probation service, jails, the police, schools and the provision of education, provision of roads, provision of an Olympics (still being paid for, please note), and many many more. I am actually very charitable. Loads of things I shouldn't have to pay towards, and would choose not to pay towards were I given an option, I pay towards, extremely charitably. Good of me.

    Once I've paid that lot, my obligations are at an end. I can heave a sigh of relief and not let anyone else get their hooks in me. I have paid my dues. Go away, collection box people.

    My main objections to giving to charity are: (a) that they tend to duplicate what the state already provides/does; and (b) they don't have any definite obligation beyond spending the money they receive, a lot of which goes to pay for themselves, their premises and their wages rather than their charitable objects anyway.

    Would I let a charity help me? Of course, if they are minded to, but I don't expect they'll be obliged to.

    I gave a lot to charity in my younger days, but then I came to my senses and realised I was being a mug.

    I gave about 12 doses of blood in my younger days but then stopped giving because I felt I should be paid for it. (Yes, I know it would attract the wrong sort of people, but nonetheless the NHS pays for everything else. Why should they get blood free?)

     

     

     

     

     

    Just as well we don't all think like you Colin.

    To actually suggest you be paid for giving blood which might save a person's life, potentially even one of your loved-ones, is astounding. I guess you'll be too mean to donate your organs won't you? God forbid someone should get them for free, even if you're too dead to use them. 

    "Altruism" is clearly not a concept you are familiar with.

  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    Based on his hatred of paying tax for things he may not use I'm thinking he's a Libertarian. Anyone with that mindset is going to hate things like that, even though their own system is unworkable and logically flawed.

  • Eggyh73 wrote (see)

    Based on his hatred of paying tax for things he may not use I'm thinking he's a Libertarian. Anyone with that mindset is going to hate things like that, even though their own system is unworkable and logically flawed.

    Quite. There are all thing we don't like paying for but if we didn't nothing would work.

    I don't think his philosophy is evolved enough to be libertarianism though. The fact that he says he would be prepared to take from charity rather makes me think it's more like pure selfishness. 

  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    I always find the my tax money isn't spent on me arguments to be laughable. Even had the classic 'I have no kids so why should I fund schools?' one a few times.

    It does make me wonder if these people really think a completely uneducated under class, or increase and spread of disease due to the poor being unable to afford treatment, or the crime surge due to people being desperate because they are starving is worth it to save paying tax!

    It really does baffle the mind. I'd say there's a better argument that we don't pay enough tax if we as a society require charity work to cover things that the State really should provide.

  • It does sound like we've lived through a golden period with early retirement ages and fairly high standards of living. But now the national credit card bill has just arrived.
  • Colin McLaughlin wrote (see
    .................the courts service, the probation service, jails, the police, schools and the provision of education,............Loads of things I shouldn't have to pay towards, and would choose not to pay towards were I given an option, I pay towards, extremely charitably. Good of me.

    I gave about 12 doses of blood in my younger days but then stopped giving because I felt I should be paid for it. (Yes, I know it would attract the wrong sort of people, but nonetheless the NHS pays for everything else. Why should they get blood free?)

    So how would you fund those services?

    And would you be prepared to pay for blood should you ever need a transfusion?

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Some uncharitable comments on this thread I notice.

    🙂

  • DustinDustin ✭✭✭

    "the courts service, the probation service, jails, the police, schools and the provision of education"   I never realised these were charities, my understanding is they are public services

  • To the OP - you're very generous individual.

    Thanks for the heads up Rickster, I'd suspected that UNICEF (are we naming names on here ?)  weren't ringing me to be friendly after I'd given them a fiver during a televised pro-celeb tv match.  A few seconds into the conversation and I'd rung off, but I must say, they're a tenacious bunch, ringing me constantly over Christmas

  • Oh, and giving blood?  Supported by my company, so i get an hour off work and a cuppa.  Win/win as far as I'm concerned

  • Eggyh73 wrote (see)

    It really does baffle the mind. I'd say there's a better argument that we don't pay enough tax if we as a society require charity work to cover things that the State really should provide.

    Stupid argument! I think tax should be for the essentials (Basic health, pensioner welfare etc) whereas Charity is for the "nice to have" and I see a lot of things receiving the benefit of my tax that I would consider nice to have but not essential

  • There's a balance, isn't there?

    The idea that "I pay my taxes, so everything should be provided by the state" is ridiculous... our taxes would need to be vasty higher, and there are things which simply shouldn't be provided (or, by implication, controlled by the state).

    There is a huge place for charity and altruism in society, and an obligation for everyone to do 'their bit', within their capabilities and means (which doesn't always mean giving money, it could be volunteering for example).

    On the flip side, I think there are certain areas where charity is relied on too heavily, where perhaps state funding should play a bigger part.... I'm thinking of things like Hospices as just one example.

    But when taxpayer's money is spread as thinly as it is currently, those things would still need us to pay more tax than we do currently.

     

  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    Humanitarian needs are "nice to have"! The majority of charity work is based on providing essential items or research.

    Unless your idea of essential is treating the disabled like sub-humans, abandoning those with long term generative diseases and trying to provide basic humanitarian aid to those in impoverished countries often left to suffer after years of colonial abuse.

    Those that complain about tax more often than not are those in the best position to contribute to it. The I have mine and screw everybody else mindset.

  • EKGO wrote (see)
    Eggyh73 wrote (see)

    It really does baffle the mind. I'd say there's a better argument that we don't pay enough tax if we as a society require charity work to cover things that the State really should provide.

    Stupid argument! I think tax should be for the essentials (Basic health, pensioner welfare etc) whereas Charity is for the "nice to have" and I see a lot of things receiving the benefit of my tax that I would consider nice to have but not essential

     

    Oh please! The Trussell Trust is a charity that gives out food parcels to people who can't afford to eat. What part of needing a charity to provide you with the food you need to survive is a "nice to have?"

     

  • There is ample provision for Food and shelter in the welfare state, they are essentials so people should have them, and if they are legitimate in their need they will get them.

    I said that some charity stuff is "nice to have" and stand by that, I didn't state anything in particular, but you've chosen to bring humanitarian needs into the discussion, does it enhance your fragile argument? as it serves no other purpose.

    Finally going back to Libertarian society, I don't see that you fully understand it, but by your logic if you're willing to give a percentage of your wage to charity over and above your tax (do you?) and I'm not, then in your world maybe it's working for both of us, carry on please.

  • EKGO wrote (see)

    There is ample provision for Food and shelter in the welfare state, they are essentials so people should have them, and if they are legitimate in their need they will get them.

     

    Well clearly there isn't otherwise there wouldn't be any need for charities to provide them. I know there are a few scroungers that milk the state for all it's worth but the majority of people on benefits and, let's be honest even some people in work, find it a struggle. All they need is one unexpected bill and the money can run out.

    It isn't so much the lack of empathy that bothers me here, it's the lack of actual understanding of what life is like for some people.  

    Even if you take charities which do provide humanitarian aid out of the equation, what other charites do you think provide "nice to haves" - Age Concern? The RNIB? Macmillan? MIND? Really, I'd love to know.

     

  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭

    So if you have no context to you comment, why post? Just some good old Daily Mail reader type scroungers issue is it? I chose humanitarian need as that is what the majority of charities aim to provide.

    I understand libertarian society fully and it's laughable. Just to point out we don't live in a libertarian society. If the welfare state provides ample food and shelter why do charity run homeless shelters exist? Why are there soup kitchens for the homeless in many of the UK's cities?

  • Screamapillar wrote (see)
    EKGO wrote (see)

    There is ample provision for Food and shelter in the welfare state, they are essentials so people should have them, and if they are legitimate in their need they will get them.

     

    Well clearly there isn't otherwise there wouldn't be any need for charities to provide them. I know there are a few scroungers that milk the state for all it's worth but the majority of people on benefits and, let's be honest even some people in work, find it a struggle. All they need is one unexpected bill and the money can run out.

     

    Screamapillar I have to agree with you, probably most of us on here are comfortable, jobs and reasonable salaries and have been all of our lives, main expense running shoes and race entries, but lose that job and you can see how easy it is to be quickly in trouble. Bureaucracy being what it is many of us might find we couldn't get state help until every last scrap of your assets has gone so help from any quarter would be welcome

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I'd be interested to know, so....

    Hands up those who make a regular charitable donation, over and above the contribution the govenment makes from their tax?  I don't want to know how much, or who it is to, just how many do.

     

  • i give nothing im afraid wilkie but i do religously give blood every time im asked image

    thats my good deed for the time being!

  • Nick Windsor 4 wrote (see)
    Screamapillar wrote (see)
     I know there are a few scroungers that milk the state for all it's worth but the majority of people on benefits and, let's be honest even some people in work, find it a struggle. All they need is one unexpected bill and the money can run out.

    There are many more than a few who milk this country, and if anyone wants to call those people "nice to have" I'd like to see it. The pity is people out of work are getting what we class as subsistence money but it is way too attractive, take it away and make them self-reliant it's the biggest favour you'll ever do for them. I would like to see zero child benefit for anyone out of work, that will at least stop them breeding like rabbits to earn more money for their lousy tattoo, animal and child collections. Grow up and see it for yourselves

    How lovely it must be up there in your ivory tower. Do you have the Daily Mail delivered by the way or do you descend once in a while to visit the newsagents?

    BTW who do you think has done this country's economy more damage - benefit scroungers or greedy bankers? Just curious.

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