An embarrassment of riches

People interested in effective altruism come from many different backgrounds. I know people whose families expected them to become lawyers or businesspeople, and others whose families would be appalled if they went into something so "money-grubbing."

This post is primarily aimed at those of us who grew up in cultures that emphasized a certain style of simplicity. In some cases I think it can be an advantage, for example, because it's easier to live below our means. But in other cases I think it leads us into bad decisions that prioritize our personal purity above the well-being of others.

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I'll start with an illustration from history. Jane Addams, the founder of social work, spent her life striving to improve the conditions of poor immigrants and particularly working-class women in Chicago. In 1896, she traveled to Russia to meet with author Leo Tolstoy, whose ideas on solidarity with laborers had impressed her. Both Addams and Tolstoy struggled with how to deal with their privileged backgrounds; Tolstoy was a count and Addams had inherited a fortune as a young woman. Tolstoy, who was living on his family's estate dressing like a peasant and participating in the farm work, began the meeting by criticizing Addams' stylish dress. He urged her to follow him in taking up manual labor rather than spending all her time on administration.

When Addams returned to the large settlement house she ran, she was determined to spend part of her workday in the bakery there rather than in her office. (Reminds me of the Undercover Boss reality show in which CEOs work as janitors for two weeks.)

But she grew frustrated with the inefficiency of spending part of her day as baker rather than director. “The half dozen people invariably waiting to see me after breakfast, the piles of letters to be opened and answered, the demand of actual and pressing human wants—were these all to be pushed aside and asked to wait while I saved my soul by two hours’ work at baking bread?” (Twenty Years at Hull House, p. 197) She decided that she could do more for her neighbors by continuing her administrative work than by sharing in their manual labor.

I think Addams gets at an ongoing problem with tendencies to act or appear a certain way rather than accomplishing anything in particular. (Certainly leftists and liberals are not the only ones to fall into this, but I'll focus on us here.)

Tracy Kidder's book about doctor and humanitarian Paul Farmer cites him talking with other Partners in Health staff about "the goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water."

I have a friend who gives away much of his income but realized he needed to spend money on a nice suit to meet with people who care about that sort of thing and influence their giving. "Saving" money by not buying a suit would actually have been a loss for the people he intends to help.

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Some of us come from religious traditions that emphasize voluntary simplicity and solidarity with the poor. I'm interested in the ways that this can help or hinder us in actually helping others.

I've enjoyed reading some of the thoughts of a Franciscan friar on voluntary poverty. The Franciscan order was founded largely in response to the opulent lifestyle of the 13th-century Italian upper classes, and material simplicity has been an important part of their tradition ever since. But the writer, Brother Casey Cole, questions whether friars should take solidarity so far as to shoulder the difficulties that come with being involuntarily poor, like buying low-quality appliances that break because you can't afford ones that last longer.

I spent 10 years active in Quaker communities, a tradition which emphasizes simplicity. The main text of each regional Quaker group includes "queries," or questions for reflection, on many topics. One group asks:

• Is your life marked by simplicity?
• Are you free from the burden of unnecessary possessions?
• Do you refuse to let the prevailing culture and media dictate your needs and values?

2003 Faith and Practice of Northwest Yearly Meeting

I love this approach to simplicity as freedom. Other than my Apartment Therapy habit, I think Jeff and I have been much happier by not letting media dictate our desires too much. Particularly as a parent, I'm wary of the ways we can be led into "needing" things that don't actually improve our quality of life.

But I've also seen the idea of material simplicity extended farther than I think makes sense. At one point Quakers were going around policing the width of each other's hat brims lest somebody have one that was not "plain" enough. And today I think people sometimes slip into policing material possessions, particularly technology, rather than looking at whether these possessions actually improve our lives.

I know people who still look down at smartphones as an unnecessary luxury. As a person who takes public transit, getting a smartphone has changed the way I travel—there's much less getting lost, less rushing to catch a bus only to find it's running late. This material possession makes my life simpler and better. (I notice Brother Cole, quoted above, said his laptop and iPhone are the material possessions most important to him.)

I've seen articles explaining why so many refugees carry smart phones—far from being a luxury, they are a vital source of information and connection to loved ones. Cell phone ownership even among the very poor in Africa has made it possible for them to do everything from transferring money without access to a brick-and-mortar bank, to tracking cattle gestation periods, to verifying that anti-malarial drugs are real and not counterfeit. The way that technology enriches lives from Syria to San Francisco is something I'd like to embrace, not scorn.

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John Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, gave his sermon "The Use of Money" many times throughout the 18th century. In it, he advises followers not to reject money, but to use it wisely. "The fault does not lie in the money, but in them that use it. It may be used ill: and what may not? But it may likewise be used well. . . . By it we may supply. . . a defence for the oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain."

Wesley urges followers to "gain all you can" without sacrificing their health or engaging in immoral action, "save all you can" by living simply, and then "give all you can." The sermon is the first known proposal of "earning to give."

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But those of us who came from traditions emphasizing simplicity (whether via religion or general hippie culture) were often taught to distrust money. "Money is the root of all evil," we heard, rather than the full quotation "The love of money is the root of all evil."

My mother spoke proudly of the low-paying professions her family tended toward: "Farmers, ministers, teachers, musicians—if it pays badly, we've done it!"

When I started to consider earning to give (earning more in order to donate more), I kept noticing a reaction of disgust to the idea of having a high-paid job. I couldn't get away from my vision of "rich people" as bad and greedy people. The idea of being associated with them, for example by going into law and then donating most of my earnings, turned my stomach. That attitude isn't helpful, and I don't want to pass it on to my children.

I think some of this comes from embarrassment about the privilege I have. I grew up in a rich country with parents who could give me everything I needed. I have a college education, I'm healthy, and I'm able to do many things I set my mind to. I got lucky in a lot of ways, and I'm sad that not everyone has these things.

But squandering this privilege by pretending I don't have it would not help anyone except me. It might make me feel better, but me feeling better about my privilege is not the point. I could be a good hippie and spend my days volunteering at the local library and my evenings making pottery in my basement. No one could accuse me of making things worse, but I would hardly be making things better for people in extreme need. I think we should be less like the ascetic Tolstoy barefoot in the woods, and more like Jane Addams using her wealth, connections, education, and skills for the benefit of others.

If we want to make a better and fairer world for everyone, we should use every tool we have—including money—to do so.

Burnout and self-care

I think effective altruism often runs into questions about self-care and boundaries, and might have a few things to learn from social work.

For people in helping professions (like nurses, therapists, and clergy), training programs often warn against burnout and "compassion fatigue." To prevent this, training emphasizes self-care. Self-care might include exercise, sleep, spending time with loved ones, spiritual practice, hobbies, and (at least among my coworkers) the latest episode of "Scandal." My workplace asks every prospective hire about self-care, because we want someone who has a plan for not burning out.

As a helping professional, you maintain boundaries to protect both yourself (you do not tell clients where you live) and clients (you do not burden them with your personal problems). And often boundaries are something you maintain to keep yourself sane.

One early lesson for me, when I was an intern at a psychiatric hospital, came while sitting and talking with a young patient before I left for the evening. When it was time to catch my bus home, I told him I had to leave. "You get to go home," he said sadly, "but I don't get to go home." I felt awful for him, and later I asked my supervisor if I should have kept him company a little longer. "No," my supervisor said, "Go home when it's time to go home. There will always be someone who wants you to stay. You can't come in here and do a good job if you're worn out from the day before."

To me, that's an example of what one author on burnout calls "boundaried generosity." I will give my best up until this point, and then I will stop. That's what makes high-intensity, compassionate work sustainable.

The same principles are applicable to helping work that isn't face-to-face. I've noticed that some of the highest-achieving people I know in effective altruism take sleep pretty seriously and don't skimp in that area. They've learned it's not worth it. They also seem to genuinely enjoy their time off. Unlike Susan Wolf's specter of the "moral saint," humorless and single-minded, these people know how to have fun.

But younger people in particular seem to struggle with the balance of self-care and altruism. Often after I speak to a student group, someone will tell me they wonder if they're wrong to spend money traveling to visit far-away friends or buying things for the mother that scrimped to send them to college. It's hard to think of a better recipe for burnout than distancing yourself from friends and family! No, I don't recommend cutting out this kind of thing if you want your passion for helping others to last more than a few years.

For me, this was an important reason to make a budget rather than asking "Should I donate this money instead?" every time I was in a checkout line. It was the equivalent of going to work with no plan about when to go home—should I see one more client this afternoon? Three? Five?

Knowing I'm leaving work after 8 hours lets me be whole-hearted in my work during that time. In the same way, having a budget allows me to be whole-hearted both in what I give (because I know that money is only for giving) and in what I spend (because I know that money is only for me and my family).

It is okay to take care of yourself. In fact, it's a really bad idea not to.

Donating as a student

Today I was talking with some undergraduates, and the topic of how to manage donations while in school came up. When you're taking on student loans, it can seem like a bad time to be giving money away.

Reasons to donate now, even in small amounts:

• It keeps you in the habit of giving. There will always be a reason to delay — student loans, a mortgage, a child. If you're ever going to donate, you might as well start now.
• It keeps you in the loop. If you need to decide where to donate each year, you end up looking at the latest charity recommendations. And you're thinking about your values and how you want to go about picking a place (or places) to give.
• It lets you talk to others about your choices. Better to be able to mention “this great charity that I support” than “this great charity that I’m going to support . . . eventually.”

Some more thoughts on the student years:

• Invest in yourself. It's worth it to spend extra money or time if you will gain useful skills, experiences, and connections. (Not that this means spending years backpacking in Europe. I always think of Bill Cosby's sketch on finding yourself.)
  
• Value your time, not just your money. Katja Grace writes a good post on Using Time Effectively as a Student.
• This is a time in life when people and experiences are probably much more important to you than material things. After school, keep your needs small rather than ramping up your spending.
• Keep good relationships with your family. It’s not worth fighting with your parents about small expenses in order to donate a little more.
• You probably have some money you spend on clothes, entertainment, etc. Consider donating a portion of that. For example, the Giving What We Can pledge asks students and other people without their own income to donate 1% of their spending money.
• Tweak your budget once a month, or once a semester, or once a year.  Experiment to find what works for you.
• This is a great time to join or start a group on effective altruism. Organizing gets a lot harder after you don't have friends and classmates all living on campus together. See if there's a chapter of Giving What We Can or 80,000 Hours near you. Or consider organizing something of your own, even if it's just talking with people over coffee.

The other mother

Years ago, I got in the habit of making financial decisions by thinking of someone I thought of as the Other Woman. Not a romantic rival, just a woman whose life is very different from mine. She's a mother somewhere in Africa, working hard to take care of her children. I think of how difficult it is for her family to get the basics: clean water, enough to eat, a decent dwelling, safety from disease, fees and uniforms for the children's school.

I think of what that woman would want if she knew I was considering whether to spend the money on another pair of shoes or to give it to her. Maybe she would laugh at the absurdity of it, the excess of what I have compared to what she has. Maybe she would cry at the tragedy of it.  But I am almost certain she would want me to share some of my abundance so that her children could have the basics.

My first child will be born in a few weeks.  My life is about to change in a lot of ways.

People warned that parenthood would change me. Some of them said there was no way I'll keep up my level of giving when it's my child screaming for sweets in the grocery store. Some of them indicated that it would be monstrous for me to even have children if I would potentially give money to help other people's children instead of spending it entirely on my own.

And of course parenthood will change me. The joys and fears will grip my heart like nothing else. My daughter will get more of my time, energy, and money than anyone else. She will want for nothing that she actually needs. But I reject the idea that I am responsible only to my child.  Not as long as the Other Woman has trouble buying food for hers.

Because I am a little closer to her now. That woman loves her child like I love mine.

New family, southern Somalia.  Photo credit: Trocaire / Foter / CC BY

But what will my friends think?

This week I talked to some students about what life is like for my husband and me as people who give away a lot of our income.  Some of them seemed worried about the social consequences: what happens when your friends all have expensive houses and cars? Won't you feel left out? Won't people think you're strange?

I don't remember exactly what my answer was at the time, but here are some better-thought-out ones:

A lot of our friends are also on small budgets.
The bartender? The grad student? The novelist? The one whose job you can't really describe, but it involves postmodernism?  They're not rolling in cash. Unless you actually reach a point when all your friends are corporate lawyers, you probably won't be the only one living frugally.

A lot of our friends are a little weird, too.
We have a friend who commutes to work by unicycle. Another friend believes bacon is a health food and eats it in according quantities. Another friend is a professional blacksmith. Maybe it's just living in the neighborhood of Cambridge, MA, but there are a lot of eccentric people around. I don't mind being one of them.

You can have fun with your friends for cheap.  

• A lot of our friends are from the folk dance scene.  It doesn't cost much money, and participants tend to come from a wide variety of income levels.  It's not that easy to pick out who's a psychiatrist and who's an art teacher.  
• I enjoy cooking, so we often have people over for dinner rather than going to a restaurant.  
• Jeff and two of his college roommates have a standard arrangement whenever their wives are out of town: the bachelor-for-a-day invites the others over, and they play board games their wives don't like.  

Your friends aren't always into conspicuous consumption.
Jeff works as a computer programmer, and in his thrift-store work clothes he actually looks less scruffy than most of his coworkers.

There are lots of metrics to compare people on.
I have a partner I love. My parents are alive and healthy. I have all my teeth. There are lots of ways you can compare yourself to other people  — you'll come out ahead on some, and behind on some. That's true no matter your income.

Some of your friends will follow you.
We've heard friend say they admire us for following our principles.  And some of them say they've changed because of us — looking for more effective charities, giving more, or asking people to donate instead of giving them birthday presents.  I love hearing that.

We've met some awesome people through giving.
Since we started meeting other people who are interested in effective altruism, we've really clicked with some of them. After college I missed being able to talk ideas with people, and effective altruism has brought that back into my life.  (The downside: you have to get over your stage fright about talking to people with impressive credentials. It turns out most of them are regular people.)

What's it like to give half?

It's been a while since I ran the numbers on how much Jeff and I give.  Recently we figured out what we gave in 2012: it was about half our income.  In 2012, Jeff was working as a computer programmer and I was mostly in grad school, then starting a job as a social worker towards the end of the year.  In the interest of transparency, here's what we did with the money:

(Note: it's surprisingly tricky to figure out what counts as income and donations — for example, if I do a job for someone and ask them to donate instead of paying me, does that count as me donating or the other person donating?  For simplicity's sake, this post will use the income and donations from our 2012 tax return.  More detailed information on Jeff's website.)

• Donations: This was our best year yet for donations.  If we earn more in the future, we'll be able to give more.
• Taxes: Our taxes are lowered because of donating.
• Savings: We're saving for a house, children, and retirement.
• Housing: Our costs were unusually low because we're renting from Jeff's parents.  This will go up soon when we buy a house.
• Food, clothes, transit, etc.: We spend about $200 a month on groceries.  We pay $70 each for a monthly public transit pass.  We each get about $40 a week in spending money, which covers clothes, cell phones, gifts, vacations, meals out, etc.
• Medical: Jeff's work pays for most of our health insurance, but we pay for some of the insurance and some out-of-pocket expenses.

These numbers are atypical, because Jeff earns more as a computer programmer than most people do.  (He's an example of the earning to give model — if you want to be able to donate more, seek a higher-paying job.)  We also save on living expenses because we're two people living together.

So let's look at how I might budget if it were just me. This hypothetical budget is based on my earnings as a social worker from the past year, including four months when I was unemployed.  My total income was around $38,000 (close to median personal income in the US).

This assumes:

• Saving 15% of income, which is pretty standard financial advice
• $800/month rent and $100/month utilities, which is doable in the Boston area in a small apartment or an apartment shared with friends
• $150/month on groceries, $80/month for public transit and $45/week on other personal spending, which are all more than I currently spend
• My employer might pay 60% of my health insurance, so I would pay $250/month for insurance and out-of-pocket medical spending
• Leaving $8,500, or 22%, for donations.  Not bad!

So even on a modest salary, it's possible to give a significant amount.  You don't even have to live in a cardboard box, I promise.

Beware false economy

A classic “false economy” is when you get something cheap that turns out to cost more than you thought – a car that breaks down all the time, shoes that fall apart quickly.  But cheap things can cost you not only money, but also time and the goodwill of others.

As a teenager I was suspicious of adults because they seemed less idealistic than young people. I didn't want to become like them. But now I see that it wasn't just that people become more selfish as they age, but also that they have a better understanding of false economies. Some sacrifices that seem noble to adolescents are recognized by adults as wasteful.

I was talking to a friend who gives away a lot of his money but who bit the bullet and got himself a good suit.  He realized that there were circumstances where he needed to talk to important people about these ideas, and having a good suit was part of being credible. Part of him resisted spending the money, but there are times when spending money lets you do a lot more good than donating it.

Saving money may be a false economy if it costs you time.  If you would be doing something worthwhile with the saved time, it may be better to take faster, more expensive methods of transit.   (If you wouldn't be doing anything worthwhile with your time, maybe you should find something.)  An easy-to-use phone and laptop are another good investment. 

Look out for "savings" that tax your relationships with other people. I spent a summer as a houseguest at a stage when I was very concerned about the fuel it takes to heat water, and the family I was staying with found it bizarre that I wanted to wash the dishes in cold water. I should have just done things their way to avoid the conflict – maintaining good relationships probably allow you to do more good than saving a bit of fuel or whatever you're trying to avoid.

I tell myself all this, but I still find false economies hard to avoid.  (Years of skinflintery are hard to overcome!)  I keep telling myself I'm going to spend some money and get decent versions of things I use all the time, like socks and pens. Then I succumb to finding the cheapest ones and usually end up dissatisfied. I think I need to set some kind of price floor before looking. Or maybe have a rule that I can only buy ones I wouldn't be embarrassed to give to a friend.

It doesn't have to be hard

I worry that the effective altruism movement scares people off because it seems hard.  As one friend put it, "It sounds very dreary, living on rice and beans and never going out to a movie."

Wait, guys.  That's not it.

I have been guilty of some cheaper-than-thou, more-self-sacrificing-than-thou posting.  But at this point, I don't think that's what we should focus on.  There are easier ways.

If you want to help more people, I would suggest the following order:

1. Give some money.  
Maybe not that much.  $50 a year?  That would treat 63 kids with parasites.

Why money rather than volunteering? Depending on your skills and income, it's probably easier to accomplish good with your money than your time.  $50 is about two hours of my workday.  I would be hard-pressed to volunteer two hours of my time in a way that would accomplish anything close to deworming 63 kids (which doesn't just make them healthier, but increases school attendance as well).

2. Choose carefully where to give. 
Assuming you're giving any money at all, the next thing you can do to increase your impact is not to give more — it's to choose where you give.  Some interventions just work a lot better than others, and picking a good organization will help your money go a lot farther.

I think GiveWell's charity recommendations are a good starting point.  They take a concrete, better-safe-than-sorry approach, but there are more theoretical options out there if you want.

3. Earn more.
If you want to donate more, this might be the easiest way to do it.  There's a lot of "You should become a banker so you can donate a lot" rhetoric going around among some effective altruist types.  I'm not sure this is a good example, because most altruist-identifying people gag when they hear that.

Personally, I considered the higher-earning careers I had any interest in (doctor, entrepreneur, lawyer) and they still made me gag.  So I stuck with social work, which I enjoy.  I do wish I had given more consideration to being something like a nurse practitioner, and maybe I'll change careers at some point.

But I think some idealists lean away from high-earning careers that they would actually enjoy because they feel they should be doing something more hands-on.  I grew up with the hippie teaching that high salaries were suspect and low salaries mean you're doing something virtuous.

But money is a tool that you can use for good.  If you're working in a preschool for low-income kids and you get a great idea for a business, you might do more good by pursuing the business.  Or maybe you're actually interested in law or medicine or computer science.  Go for it!  You might be able to accomplish far more for the world as a computer programmer than you could as an organic grocer.

4. Spend less.
This is the one that seems most radical to some people.  Especially for people who grew up without financial stability, the idea of having less money can be scary.

But you don't have to decrease your current spending.  You can stay at your current spending level even when your income increases.  Most young people can expect their income to rise with time.  Over the five years since Jeff and I finished college, our cost of living has stayed pretty much the same - we haven't moved to a bigger place, haven't bought a car, haven't really changed our spending pattern.  But our incomes have increased, so we're now donating about three times as much as we used to.  That's pretty exciting, and it didn't feel hard because we never had to cut back.

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You can push your limits.  You can give until it hurts.  If you have the energy for that, great.

But you don't have to.  You can give where it's comfortable, and that will still be so much better than ducking away from the question of what you can do to help.

False sense of poverty

I'm a social worker in a jail. Today one of the inmates showed an untrained but intricate drawing to my colleague.

"This is amazing," she said. "Do you ever go to galleries to look at art?"

"I never had no money for that kind of stuff," he told her.

Later she vented her frustration: "There are so many free galleries he could have been going to! There are passes from the public library. If only he had known! But poor people just don't find out about these things."

I love museums, and I almost never pay to go inside them. I love books, and I can have almost any book for free through the library request system. There are more free events in this city than I could possibly attend.

These are some of the things that make my life rich. Even on a small budget, you needn't have an impoverished life.

This little light

Several times I've heard Matthew 6:2-4 used as an explanation for why talking about giving is bad:

Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. . . . But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.

I prefer a different line from the same sermon, Matthew 5:15:

Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Of course, neither I nor most of the people I hear referring to these verses are exactly Bible-thumpers. But it goes to show: talking about money has been awkward for a very long time.

I try to talk about it, though, because I figure saving lives is worth looking foolish. I'm aware of bystander effect, a classic of psychology research. If you stage an emergency – say, a person choking – a test subject will usually rush to help. But if a test subject is standing in a crowd of people not helping, the subject hesitates. Often they don't help at all.

Recently in a class session on writing budgets, my professor asked the class what our personal relationship with money was like. People started tentatively calling out: “In denial.” “Scared.” “I'm gonna be in debt for a long time.” The woman in the front row who's always ranting about capitalism made some comment about how money twisting us all in its evil grasp.

I said, “But money can be a tool to do you things you care about. My husband and I give away about thirty percent of our income. It works well for us.”

For a second or two there was silence. Then capitalism-rant woman turned around and said, “Wait, you give away thirty percent of your money?”

“Yeah, about that much,” I said. She blinked and turned back to the front of the room. And that was it. The lesson continued.

I felt a bit like a jerk. I know Jeff and I have a higher household income than most of my classmates in social work school. But most of them also have expenses – cars, houses, fancy weddings – that we choose not to have. We live well below our means, and that means we have no debt. We don't worry about money. We keep our needs small, with the result that we have plenty left over for things we care about more than extra bedrooms.

Maybe I just established myself as a show-off or a nutcase, but maybe I planted a seed.

The budget

I talk a lot about deciding how much to give, but I want to make it a bit more concrete. I know it's weird to lay your finances before the world, but I think it's helpful to get a feel for what a high-donation life might be like.

Since finishing college, my husband and I have been giving somewhere around 1/3 to 1/2 our income. For the past two years I've been in grad school earning nothing, so donations haven't been on our usual schedule. We've also been in a variety of living arrangements (our own apartment, a large apartment we shared with another couple, and currently living with Jeff's family).

I want to show you numbers from 2009, because it was a year we were both in paid jobs and living in our own apartment. Jeff was a computer programmer and I was an administrative assistant at a nonprofit. Our combined income was around $95K. We were 24 and 25 years old.



“Saving” was Jeff's retirement fund and my grad school fund.

“Allowance” is discretionary spending money, $38 a week for each of us. This covers clothes, shoes, meals out, gifts for other people, hobbies, phones, computers, and entertainment. It also covers feel-good donations. Having separate allowances works well for us because it avoids the argument about "You spent how much on sound equipment?" or "You already have enough shoes!"

Housing was a studio apartment in Cambridge, MA. Rent was $1,100 a month, utilities included. It was small but pleasant:



Some things that helped keep costs down:

We had no car. We chose an apartment near train, bus, and subway lines that took us almost everywhere we wanted to go. The apartment (and living in an urban area) cost more than housing in a less transit-friendly location, but the increase in cost was much less than a car.

At the time, we had one cell phone. It was part of Julia's parents' plan and cost about $15 a month.

Jeff's work paid most of our health insurance costs. We weren't sick, so there weren't a lot of copays.

Food was groceries, not eating out. Occasional meals out came from allowance.

Some things are different now: We've been giving less because I've been in school and not earning money. Our expenses are lower because we're living with Jeff's parents for a while. But our general spending pattern is the same.

Tradeoffs

Economists love to think about tradeoffs (or opportunity costs, as they call them). Any money we spend can't be spent on something else, so if I use $2.50 to buy a strawberry milkshake it means I'm not using that $2.50 to get the chocolate one or the mint chocolate chip one.

That's pretty easy to think about. But it also means I'm not getting a bus fare, a light bulb, or anything else with that $2.50. And if I buy that strawberry milkshake, according to standard economics it means there's nothing else in the world I would rather buy with that money.

I don't think we're usually that rational.

For one thing, it's unpleasant to think about negatives. We like to think about what our money does get us, rather than the infinite variety of things it doesn't get. Also, there are so many alternatives that we can't really consider them all every time we spend money.

I once saw a flippant proposal that we draw people's attention to this in a gruesome way by labeling all prices in Dead Child Currency. If it costs $800 to save a child's life, each $800 spent on anything else . . . you get the idea.

I used to make myself think that way. Before I parted with any money, I'd ask myself what it could do for a woman in Africa. (It doesn't have to be her, but that's who I always imagined.) Did I value my new jeans more than her month's groceries? More than her children's vaccinations or school fees? Could I make that tradeoff?

Sometimes I made it and felt awful afterwards. After spending $2 on a caramel apple in the fall of 2008, I had one such episode of weepy regret that was the last straw for Jeff. That's when we started having a spending allowance for us both which could not be given to charity. For several years now this is where our mandolin strings, birthday presents, clothes, vacations, and milkshakes have come from. It's also the source of non-optimal donations we make to public radio, etc. It's not a large budget by American standards, but it's made for a lot less angst.

I recently met a young man who was seriously thinking these things over. “But isn't it right to think about the tradeoffs?” he asked. I think it's good to go through a period of thinking that way. Just like when you live in another country for a while you start being able to understand prices without converting back to your own currency, when you start thinking about all your spending in Vaccination Currency or Mosquito Net Currency it becomes habitual. Your spending habits can't help but be affected.

I also think there's only so much grief we can carry. I cannot go the next 70 years counting dead children on every receipt. I would break.

So my advice is to spend a while really noticing that tradeoff. Notice whether you really do value the milkshake more than a child's vaccination. And then, after a time, make yourself a budget that reflects those values. Set aside money for unnecessary things that make you happy. Do what you think will nurture you to age 100 as a generous and strategic giver. Because that, in the end, is what will help the most people.

Value yourself as a donor

I used to work in donor services at a large nonprofit. For low-dollar donors, there was a person who could answer your questions by phone or email. Once you started donating more, you were assigned a “gift officer” whose job it was to stay in touch and be nice to you. They rarely ask you to donate, but they're there to answer your questions and provide you with glossy brochures about the good work you're funding. If you're interested in a particular program, they can get you more information on that. They host receptions for major donors to meet each other.

For its employees, the charity provided an attractive workspace with good coffee and tea. At first I wavered on things like this – did it really make sense for a charity to spend money on courting me as a donor, or free tea for me and my coworkers? Shouldn't it be sending every possible penny to the actual field work?

Well, no. The attractive setting, good benefits, and free caffeine probably reduced turnover and improved productivity. And given that fundraising is a business, I'm sure that the optimal level of sucking up to donors was well-studied.

People love to tell me, “If you give everything away, you'll have to depend on others for charity!” I never proposed to do that. If I did that, I would burn out before you can say “rice and beans.” If my life as a donor is difficult enough that I hate it, I'd quit. That would be a bad outcome for everyone.

Imagine a charity that wants your donation. How would they best interact with you? They probably shouldn't wine you and dine you too much, or you'll think they were wasteful. Nor should they be too pushy or lay the guilt on too hard, or you'll feel used and bitter. But they should be friendly and appreciative and perhaps ply you with your favorite coffee.

If you donate to a good charity, you are doing a good and important thing. You want to reward that kind of behavior - even when it's yourself that you're rewarding.

Of course, you know your own limits better than you know other people's, so you can press yourself farther than you would press someone else. And you know whether you're likely to err on the side of giving too much or too little. But whichever one it is, treat yourself like a valued donor.

So next time you make a donation, celebrate. Give yourself a nap, a croissant, a beer, a long bath, a special meal – whatever would feel good. If you tend towards burnout, a treat after donating will give you some respite. If you tend towards hoarding, it will help remind you that giving can be a pleasure. Either way, positive reinforcement is a good thing.

Fear of poverty, part 2

There are lots of ways to measure poverty. In the US the poverty line is $10,890 for one person. The global figure often used is $2 a day. There are a host of other ways to measure it, either in absolute terms or compared to other people.

Numbers can help us approximate what people's experiences are like, but ultimately what matters is the experiences themselves and not the numbers.

Jeff and I together spend about $20,000 a year. If we actually earned that much, we would be below the United States poverty line and would have more spending money because we'd get free health insurance and food stamps. On paper, then, our spending makes us look like poor people.

So how does our subjective experience compare to actual poverty?

The World Bank did an interesting study on the experiences of poor people around the world. Their findings:

"Experiences of illbeing include material lack and want (of food, housing and shelter, livelihood, assets and money); hunger, pain and discomfort; exhaustion and poverty of time; exclusion, rejection, isolation and loneliness; bad relations with others, including bad relations within the family; insecurity, vulnerability, worry, fear and low self-confidence; and powerlessness, helplessness, frustration and anger. . . . Illbeing includes mental distress, breakdown, depression and madness, often described by participants to be impacts of poverty."

If that's what poor people experience, what about us? Does spending like poor people carry the same effects as actual poverty?

No. Jeff and I experience a few of the inconveniences of a small budget (mostly related to not owning a car). But we have most of the benefits of the money we earn without actually spending it all. We always have plenty of good food. We never worry about whether we can make our rent. We enjoy good relationships with family and friends. We have savings. We got good educations and have similar social status to what we would have if we kept all our money.

Some people are afraid to give because they're afraid of being poor. Which is a reasonable fear – real poverty is an exhausting, humiliating, painful experience. But it is not what you will experience as a result of giving away a lot of your money.

Real poverty is not a choice. Living frugally is a choice Jeff and I make freely, and one we find worthwhile.

Fear of poverty

Last spring, my husband Jeff found that walking to work barefoot helped his knee problems. Once he built up callouses, walking on city sidewalks was no problem. One day as he was walking a pair of teenage girls, perhaps Brazilian or Cape Verdean, shouted, "Where are your shoes?"

"They're at home," he answered.

"Aren't you ashamed?" they asked.

This story still stuns me. Jeff and I grew up in situations where going barefoot was a marker of summer relaxation, not poverty. But to these girls, who had perhaps grown up in places where not everyone had shoes, going voluntarily barefoot was crazy.

People have told me, "You obviously didn't grow up poor." It's true - I might not want to live on a small budget if I had always had to do it. In a way, it's easier for Jeff and me to live simply because for us it's always been a choice, not a necessity. We grew up knowing that our parents could provide for all our needs, so we don't have a built-in fear of deprivation.

Here's the thing: you don't have to care about the same status markers other people do. Other people can be ashamed about secondhand clothes or whatever they want, but they can't choose what you feel ashamed of.

I know this confirms me as a total sap, but I love Dolly Parton's song "Coat of Many Colors." She describes her classmates' scorn for the coat her mother had pieced together from rags:

And I couldn't understand it
For I felt I was rich
And I told them of the love
My momma sewed in every stitch
And I told them all the story
Momma told me while she sewed
And how my coat of many colors
Was worth more than all their clothes.

Although Parton is now a multimillionaire, she really did grow up in a mountain cabin with no plumbing or electricity, and the coat story is apparently true. I find her message - that family love mattered more to her happiness than material goods - an important one.

A day in the life

Recently Anatoly Vorobey asked his audience for opinions on the essay I wrote for Bolder Giving. Surprisingly to me, it got hundreds of comments. (If you don't read Russian, you may find a rough translation helpful.)

Commenters' opinions ranged from “Commendable” to “Excessive fanaticism” to “Behind such altruism usually lurk serious problems, lack of meaning in life, and great tension” and, my favorite, “Most likely the extreme result of brainwashing or disease.”

The part they found most shocking was that I said Jeff and I weren't sure about having children. This, apparently, indicates a really twisted mind. Someone nominated us for a Darwin award, commenting that at least we wouldn't pass on our altruistic sickness. Some were more pragmatic (“If you give birth, let's see you deny your child ice cream for higher goals.”)

I found this all pretty amusing. And so I want to give you a taste of the twisted life we fanatics lead. Yesterday, for example:

Saturday, January 7

We lay in bed for a while and then took down our Christmas tree. I made blackcurrant muffins for breakfast.

Later in the morning, some of Jeff's musician friends came over and they played music for a few hours. I made lunch and we ate with them.

In the afternoon, Jeff went to the grocery store while I took a long bath and read a novel. (Like most people in the world, we don't have a car, so we chose an apartment within walking distance of a grocery store. We carry the groceries in a wire cart.)

We took a nap.

In the evening, Jeff's parents came over to dinner. We spent a while admiring our housemates' baby, then we ate and talked for a few hours. After dinner we had tea and tiramisu.

After they left, Jeff did the dishes while I read aloud from a book of Sherlock Holmes stories. Then we lay in bed reading for a while and went to sleep.

Yes, it is into this perverse life of self-deprivation that we may someday bring a child!