Thomas Scovell

Relatively lucky, scrapes 'n' all

I’m a relatively lucky guy (BMX accidents aside). In the same sense that anyone reading this likely is (unless you’re reading this on an OLPC perhaps…) – I was born middle-class in a first-world country at a time when opportunities were there for the taking. For the most part I’ve had the sense to take them. And hopefully, on occasion, shown how grateful I am for them.

My greatest recurring concern is whether I am getting enough dancing in my life. Other than that I’m pretty low maintenance. (Yes, dear reader – I can hear your laughter from here). When I find myself with a surplus I’ve tried to give it to those who could benefit. For the past few years I’ve tried to be a bit more formal about my charity and give a fixed percent of what I earn away. I’m the first to admit this has met with mixed-success.

Dancing to Yacht

So for 2010 I thought I’d try doing it a little differently. Rather than promising a certain percentage of what I earn each month I’m going to give 10% on-top of everything I spend. Which is slightly more complicated but also slightly more interesting. That is, if I spend $100 on tickets to a show I will give $10 to charity. Hence “spent+10″.

The idea is that this will provide an easy way for me to visualise my giving and think about my own spending. I’ll be excluding regular expenses such as rent for now till I see how the $s work out. I could do some spreadsheet work in-advance but why ruin the fun.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I won’t be posting how much I am giving in this blog but I will keep track of charities I come across and other thoughts on giving so follow along if you’d like. (RSS just for this here.)