Ep 136: Align Your Money With Your Values

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Join Dave and Nick on today’s topic, which is an extension of an earlier podcast they did on the book review of The Soul of Money.

An underlying topic is how to make yourself heard with the voice of money. What we mean by that is we all make conscious or unconscious decisions on how we spend our money. Put another way, where we purchase things from and what we do with our excess discretionary money.

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If your goal is to make sure that your money is going to things that you support, join us for some tips on how to think about this and execute it.

Budgeting and Values

We reiterate something we’ve said before, which is looking at your budget. You can really see what your priorities are by the way you spend your money.  In this day and age, everything is so easy and accessible. It is rare for us to just stop and take a second to think about where I am purchasing this from.

“What are my dollars doing here and is that important to me and for some people”

Tune in to this episode for a couple of different strategies for this. Whatever doesn’t match your values you know and you get to choose. That’s the unique thing about this.

Everybody’s values are different and everybody prioritizes them differently so these are just some interesting ways to get stuff done and feel better about the use of your money. You are the only one who can make that decision.

Donating to Causes

Do you consider yourself financially generous? Giving money away can come in a lot of different forms including charitable contributions.

There are a couple of different financial ways to do this. However, before you do, it is important to do your research and figure out where your money is going if it going to be used in the way you want it to.

There is a website called Charity Navigator that will give you detailed information on organizations. It scores all the major national charitable organizations and lists how they utilize their money.

Don’t forget to look toward your own community as well, before deciding on a national organization. You and your money may be able to make a bigger impact closer to home. And you can be involved and directly see the difference you are helping to make.

Qualified Charitable Distributions

Join us as discuss the tax advantages of giving, and how to set that up properly. This can come down to itemized deductions and donations.

Donor Advised Funds

The last topic we cover in this episode is donor-advised funds.

Scenario:

You are donating money into an account that is under the auspices of a foundation (typically a 5013C).

You still control the account and control the investments and make a contribution of $25000 in one year. You take the deduction for that and then you make grants from it over your lifetime to charities. You don’t deduct them at the time you give the money to the charities but instead deduct the money at the time you put it in the fund. It’s essentially the same strategy as batching.

This allows you to spread your money out how you see fit over time but also get the best tax deduction.

Do you have questions about your charitable giving or how to set it up to maximize your tax benefits?

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