{"id":7772,"date":"2009-12-13T05:00:22","date_gmt":"2009-12-13T12:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=7772"},"modified":"2019-10-07T23:45:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T06:45:59","slug":"give-your-wealth-away-an-argument-for-a-secular-tithe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/give-your-wealth-away-an-argument-for-a-secular-tithe\/","title":{"rendered":"Give your wealth away: An argument for a secular tithe"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was written by Sierra Black<\/b>, a long-time GRS reader and the author of ChildWild, a blog where she writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale. Previously at Get Rich Slowly, Black told us about sweating the big stuff<\/a> and the pitfalls of buying in bulk<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"My mother’s family is Catholic. They’re working class people from Buffalo: nurses, drugstore clerks, steel mill workers. Even though they never had a lot of dollars, they always gave 10% of what they had to the church. Like taxes, that 10% was just something they paid out before spending a dime on themselves.<\/p>\n

As an adult I became the first college graduate in my family and adopted the position most of my educated, liberal peers seemed to hold toward charity: give a little, when you can, and feel guilty about not doing it most of the year.<\/p>\n

For most of my 20s, I was living beyond my means. With every dollar being spent before it was earned, giving even a few dollars felt like a huge pinch in my messy budget. I was haphazard and frankly not very generous with my giving.<\/p>\n

Overall, liberals tend to give less to charity<\/a> than conservatives. Religious people like the ones I grew up with give more than my secular humanist friends. The working poor are, as a class, the most generous group in America, reliably giving away 4.5% of their income. The middle class are the least generous, giving just 2.5% on average.<\/p>\n

In addition to making me and my friends look bad in the conservative press, statistics like that are, as George Will put it, \u201chostile witnesses\u201d to the idea that \u201cbleeding-heart liberals\u201d actually care more about the poor and disadvantaged than our conservative counterparts.<\/p>\n

According to the American Enterprise Institute, the single biggest predictor of a person’s charitable giving is religion<\/b>. People who go to church every week give more money, more consistently.<\/p>\n

I think it’s time to make secular tithing a middle-class trend. Those of us who don’t go to church every Sunday may not have the easy, deeply ingrained tradition of giving my great-grandmother had when she put her little envelope in the offering plate each week. That’s no excuse for not giving our share. It’s not right for the affluent and secure to let responsibility for maintaining the social safety net rest on the backs of those most likely to need it.<\/p>\n

Last year, when I got serious about straightening out my spending habits, I wanted to make charitable giving, like saving, a key part of my financial future.<\/p>\n

I adopted something akin to the \u201cbalanced money formula<\/a>\u201d. Instead of allocating 30% to wants, though, I drew up my formula like this: 50% for needs, 10% for charity, 20% for savings and 20% for wants.<\/p>\n

My money is not balanced. I’m working hard to repay a pile of credit card debt and continuing to fine tune a frugal lifestyle. My needs and debts suck up most of our income. Because all the \u201cextra\u201d money goes into savings and debt repayment, I’m still living as if we were on the edge financially. Giving hurts. I do it anyway. Every week.<\/p>\n

I’m not tithing yet, but I am moving towards it. Here’s how:<\/p>\n