Hi friends,
Welcome to Better Have My Money, my weeklyish email newsletter about stocks, investing and putting the personal into personal finance.
This BHMM is super short cause Iām on holiday in California (today I hiked AND swam! Although to be clear this was the only non freezing day of the trip so far) but I wanted to chime in because tomorrow is an important day in the (unofficial) finance calendar.
Itās Giving Tuesday! Aka the day you should give money to charities after spending the last few days buying a shit ton of crap for yourself at Black Fridays sales.
If you were following along with my winter coat shenanigans last week, the coat Iāve been hunting was only 10%. Just 10! Outrageous. I refused to buy and am now waiting for it to drop toā¦. min 30% off. Hopefully the Jan sales?
Also: five different people replied to tell me how amazing the Philips light up alarm is, which urgh dammit. Iād request for Christmas but apparently we are doing āno presentsā this year (how convenient).
This Giving Tuesday, Iām going to give some coins this week to Shine Foundation, an organization that gives weekly financial literacy classes for women escaping domestic violence and living at New York City homeless shelters.
If youāre wondering how much to give maybe you can try and donate a percentage of however much youāve spent on retail in the last two weeks? Start with 30% and see if thatās doable.
Or, if youāre trying to save money or pay down debt, there are ways to give that donāt involve cash. You can sign up to the National Bone Match Registry or, if you can get around the arcane regulations, donate at a blood drive.
Reader Emma suggested Celebrate EDU, where she works. As she writes:
āWe develop programs to teach people with developmental disabilities about entrepreneurship and business skills like financial literacy. Our goal is to help this population gain independence and find meaningful work. As I'm sure you know, a huge part of that includes teaching them all about money!ā
Love giving a chance to people from all backgrounds learning about money!
Have a glorious week,
Amber Jamieson
Better Have My Money is on TwitterĀ @bhavemymoney, so please tweet nice things (akaĀ the link to our sign up page) and tag us. Got a mate who loves to give? Forward this onto them and tell them toĀ subscribe.
As always, if you've got any questions about stocks, this is a shame free zone. Just reply and ask away.