How rich are you?

I recently landed on The Global Rich List website.  It’s a fascinating site, because you input your annual income and the site tells you how rich you are compared to the rest of the world.

Apparently, I’m in the top13.17% richest in the world:

If the idea of wealth comparison and materialism makes you sick, don’t worry.  The Global Rich List is not about boasting about your wealth.  In fact, the point of the site is to show you how lucky you are compared to the rest of the world.  It makes you feel rich enough to realize that you can give to others.  If you want to try it, just click here to visit the Global Rich List site.

Now, you don’t have to give to the  charity that the Global Rich List supports (Care International UK).  You don’t even have to give your money, you can volunteer your time to a cause or organization your believe in.  A few months ago, I wrote a blog post on giving to charities and causes.  Go ahead and read that post in case you haven’t done so yet.  Frugal Pinoy also has a lengthy page that lists several local charities and NGOs.  You can refer to that list if you’re looking for local organizations to support.

Why am I talking about giving again?  Well, first of all, just because we’re experiencing an economic downturn, it doesn’t mean we should stop supporting the causes we believe in.  In fact, these causes need your support now more than ever.

Also, ‘di ba mag-pa-Pasko na? Don’t forget to add these kinds of donations to your Christmas budget.

What charities and causes do you support?  How has the financial crisis affected your ability to donate?

Is poverty really a choice?

From time to time, whether in online forums or dinners with friends, some people share their opinion that poverty is a choice.  You might be familiar with the following statements:

“The attitude of the poor is that they want the best things in life for free, because they are poor.”

“Kapag mahirap ka, tamad ka.”

“Hindi mo kasalanan ipanganak ng mahirap, ang kasalanan mo ay kung mamatay kang mahirap”

But is poverty really a choice?

Personally, I believe that being broke is a choice. But poverty is not.

What’s the difference?

Being broke means finding yourself incapable to support your lifestyle, despite the fact that you have the education, resources, and know-how to pull yourself out of that situation.

Poverty, on the other hand, is the inability to provide yourself and/or your family of your basic needs because you are deprived of access to the education, resources, and opportunities that will allow you to rise above it.  Even them, the system works against you in such a way that it will take so much work and even more luck to get out of poverty.

Being broke is a personal problem.  Poverty is a societal problem. Some examples:

Broke:  The woman who finished college, gets paid P30,000 yet for some reason can’t pay her bills on time and doesn’t have enough savings for emergencies.

Poor:  The farmer who has worked for decades but still earns only P25 per day.  He can’t demand more money or benefits because the last time he did that, he was threatened by the landowner’s private army.  He can’t afford to leave because he only makes enough to feed his family once a day.

Broke:  The young couple who can’t afford to rent their own home because they spent too much money on their wedding, the reception, and their honeymoon.

Poor:  The child who is roaming the streets as a beggar because her parents don’t believe that it’s worth it to put girls through school.

In other words, poverty involves outside factors that most people have no or very little control of.  Even if they do have some way to control or circumvent these factors, they aren’t empowered enough to know about it.

And who can blame them about their lack of empowerment?  Society at large and the government treats poor people as if cash subsidies and dole outs are the only way out. Because of their desperation, they prefer to eat now rather than look at long term solutions - and because of the lack of education and resources available to them, how will they know about these long term solutions?

Politicians themselves shy away from long term solutions because they take more work and the effects will only be seen years after they have left their position in government. Eh di mamigay na lang ng 500 pesos sa mga tao ngayon, kasi mas maaalala ka nila, at mas iboboto ka nila. Never mind that the 500 is fleeting and unsustainable.

The poverty problem itself is almost cyclical.  Fundamental human needs such as food and water must first be met before you can expect someone to be self-actualized. In other words, what use is education if the people are hungry? What’s the use of opportunity?  Then again, how do you fill your stomach if you don’t have employment opportunities that will allow you to do so?

To get rid of poverty, widespread changes in policy and society need to take place.  To get rid of being broke, one just has to maximize all the available opportunities at hand.

How about you? Do you think poverty is a choice?  Is it a state that could easily be avoided?

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Note to Readers: Today is Blog Action Day, and FrugalPinoy is participating.   Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion. This year’s theme is “Poverty”.

Giving money to charities and causes

Recently, a friend and I had a conversation about “giving back” and donations.  We both felt like we weren’t giving enough.  Personally, I donate to an animal shelter as payment of utang na loob for the people who built it - they were good to me in hard times.  But apart from that, I do nothing, even if I really wanted to.  I don’t know if it was the busy-ness of work, but I haven’t thought about volunteering or making additional donations in months.

I also realized that in Frugal Pinoy I often talk about saving and earning money, and never about giving it away.

It’s about time that I did.  Starting next month, I’ll be donating to some causes I believe in (I’ve already included it in the budget), and actively search for volunteering opportunities as well.  However, I won’t be disclosing how much or to what causes I donate to, but I imagine I’ll be able to talk about the volunteering.

Also, if you have your own stories about volunteering or donating, please share them with us.

Why giving back is important to you

People often talk about how giving away donations is good for others, but that’s self-explanatory.  What’s often left out of the discussion is what good  you will get out of giving.

It gives you a feeling of abundance.  I first mentioned this in the post “Do you have what it takes to be a millionaire?”.  From that post:

Some people may have multi-millions, but if they don’t give away a single peso to anyone, for a cause larger than themselves, they probably feel cheap inside. From David Bach’s research, most multi-millionaires have one thing in common: they were giving part of their income for charitable causes, even when they weren’t wealthy yet. It’s all about the mindset rather than just the measurement of how much money you have stashed away in the bank.

It makes you happy.  Scientists found evidence that giving away money gives you more happiness compared to spending it on yourself - even if you believe otherwise.  For me, this is reason enough.  Here’s a quote from that study:

Statistical analyses revealed personal spending had no link with a person’s happiness, while spending on others and charity was significantly related to a boost in happiness.

“Regardless of how much income each person made,” Dunn said, “those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.”

Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of giving away, it’s time to look at how to go about it…

Read more..