I’d like to think most of us want to give as much back to others as possible. The problem lies in our limited resources. If we don’t make a lot how can we give a lot? If we’re working like dogs at our jobs and have to raise a family where are we going to find the time either? Some companies offer volunteer programs but they are few and far between. They are also almost always scheduled during our precious personal time.
Being charitable is a very personal decision. There is no right amount of time or money to give, so don’t ever let anybody tell you otherwise. That said, I’ve often struggled with figuring out what is optimal due to the feelings of guilt. I could have very easily been born in an underdeveloped country with no way out. Yet here I am living in America with all the opportunity in the world. I’m not sure if others feel the same way, but if you do I’d love to hear your thoughts on why we just don’t work as hard as possible given how lucky we are.
BLOGGING AS A FORM OF CHARITY
If you’ve ever wondered what the average percent of income donated to charity is take a look at the post I wrote on Financial Samurai. The range is roughly 3-5%. I wrote the post to understand whether taxes are a form of charity given such an uneven tax burden in our country. If you are paying more in taxes to the government than you are saving, which is the vast majority of people, doesn’t that feel a little off? I think so.
When I first started blogging I’d spend three hours online on average after spending a full day at work. Sometimes I’d go five hours until the whee hours of the night as a full blown blogging addict! For all of you in the first year of blogging, enjoy the rush! It may not last for much longer.
We all know that the online world is a tremendous amount of fun. What with social media, the Yakezie Forum, conferences, and random meetups and all, who wouldn’t love to just work online all the time? Our writing often evolves into topics that are helpful to others as we build a following and become more authoritative in our niche.
Spend some time taking a look at your post progression over the months and years. My posts went from ranting against the progressive tax system that feeds a bloated government to detailed retirement advice on 401(k) savings, and net worth asset allocation in order to flourish during boom times and survive during crises. My last post on net worth took over 10 hours to write. I’ll never get that time back, but I had a very focused mission to get those who are 100% invested in the stock market to diversify. I’m seeing way too many people in their 20s overallocated to equities given all they’ve experienced is a bull market.
For the first year of writing, there was hardly any revenue coming into Financial Samurai. Take three hours a day times 365 days and that equals over 1,000 hours of work. Take 1,000 hours and multiply by a median wage $25/hour job and we’re talking $25,000 a year! Now I’m sure most people would rather receive a nice $25,000 check instead of a year’s worth of blogging advice. But my point is that our time is valuable, so don’t underestimate it.
Our readers who have never tried writing blog posts don’t realize how much time we spend coming up with ideas, writing content, editing, formatting, scheduling, etc. Those hours quickly add up, yet we make it look effortless. They get to enjoy all of our efforts and even lob in a few complaints when we don’t do things well. Weird isn’t it?
BLOGGING SHOULD CURE ANY GUILT FOR NOT GIVING ENOUGH
If we combine the amount of taxes we pay plus the amount of time we spend on our sites helping readers with their finances, I don’t think any of us should ever feel guilty about not giving enough back to society. Running a successful blog takes consistency, dedication, and character. A lot of us share our own personal experiences to let our readers get to know us better and also to help them learn from both our mistakes and successes. A lot of times it takes courage to publicly share our feelings, opinions, and experiences.
What’s worse is that sometimes we put ourselves out there and get attacked by readers! I’ve got to imagine not being able to deal with dissenters is a main reason why so many bloggers quit. It takes guts and fortitude to have an opinion and take all the attacks. And it’s not easy talking about the mistakes we’ve made. It’s easy for readers to criticize without revealing their own weaknesses and mistakes. Fortunately most people in our audiences are supportive, eager to learn, and offer up tidbits of their own experiences and knowledge.
At the end of the day, blogging is a labor of love that can one day become very lucrative if you stick with it long enough. Financial Samurai has helped me deal with plenty of demons. One of the biggest ones was figuring out whether I should take the leap of faith and leave corporate America or not. Even writing this post is a way to get over my concerns of not donating enough to charity. Blogging helps others just as much as it helps ourselves.
START A MONEY MAKING BLOG
It’s been around six years since I started Financial Samurai and Yakezie and I’m actually earning a good passive and active income stream online now. The online income stream has allowed me to pursue other more interesting things, such as consulting for various financial tech startups, traveling around the world, and spending more time with family.
I never thought I’d be able to quit my job in 2012 just three years after starting Financial Samurai. But by starting one financial crisis day in 2009, Financial Samurai actually makes more than my entire passive income total that took 15 years to build. If you enjoy writing, creating, connecting with people online, and enjoying more freedom, see how you can set up a WordPress blog in 15 minutes with Bluehost. You never know where the journey will take you in 2015 and beyond!
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Regards,
Sam
Sam, I have a secret goal (don’t tell anyone) of some type of service every day. It could be giving food to the homeless, donating new clothes to foster kids, or even helping out my daughter (does that count?). Of course giving to charity is a no brainer, but now I can include sharing my financial wisdom on y website as service to others as well. Great perspective.
That’s a great daily goal! I’ll keep your secret no problem. :)
I love giving back, as I completely agree with you that we’re have all the opportunity in the world here. I have personally been blessed with a wonderful family, my health, a home and food on the table every night. That’s enough for me, and I want to help people to manage their money smarter so they can enjoy the blessings right in front of them. When I put together a budget for someone, it’s a MINIMUM 4 hours, possibly more, with email questions, formatting the spreadsheet, and tweaking everything. But I LOVE getting emails back about how they feel a burden being lifted now that they have a plan, or paying off the CC debt a year sooner, or moving toward retirement quicker. It take s TON of time, and I can’t even keep up with the requests, but giving back is just the right thing to do seeing as how blessed I am.
I’m going to respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree with you. I think blogging is an outlet for the narcissistic (and I’m not immune!) and if you polled people who were thinking about starting a blog, I think you’d find that “helping people” is not at the top of their list. Most people start a blog because they have a story bubbling out of them and they don’t have another place they can share it. Helping people is nice, but it’s not the primary thing.
Interesting point. There’s definitely a lot of “look at me and what I’ve done” online.
Perhaps write more helpful content that answers burning questions to change your mind?
I definitely think that my content helps people — and that’s my goal now, to help. To connect. It’s just not why I started writing in the first place.
Admirable of you to admit the blog was started out of narcissism! Congruency is key!
I had no idea how much time blogging and writing takes until I started doing it. I spend a lot of time writing my posts because I want to write well organized, thorough, and helpful posts. Every now and then someone emails me or leaves a comment that something I wrote inspired them, made them smile, or taught them something new and that totally makes my day. It’s nice being able to give back and share through blogging.
For sure. Those occassional email “thank yous” really are terrific.
I disagree with you on this one. Very few bloggers are blogging out of pure altruism.
Most bloggers want to make money, hence their site is filled with ads, affiliate links, and ebooks. These people are entrepreneurs, not charity workers.
Other bloggers use their blog to promote some other service of theirs. For example a CFA writing about personal finance advice, or a hospital writing about medicine, to get more business and build their brand. These are marketers, not charity workers.
Other bloggers are blogging to promote some kind of agenda. Saving the planet. Vote for my political party. Etc. These are activists (usually for profit ones), not charity workers.
I blog to educate myself. That makes me a student, not a charity worker.
Some people blog for fun. For example people talking about what they cooked this week or comic books. This makes it a hobby, not really a charity.
Some people blog as a way of keeping track of some aspect of their life. Paying off their debt, training for a marathon, etc. I would classify these people as diarists. Certainly not charity workers.
Just because blogging takes a lot of time, distributes information for free, and doesn’t necessarily turn a profit immediately doesn’t make it charity. You have to look at the underlying purpose of the person or group writing the blog.
The post doesn’t argue that blogging is for “pure altruism.” The post highlights whether blogging is another form of charity to help those who may feel guilty for not giving as much back through time or money.
@My financial independence journey and others, The conversation here highlights a reality that we are more complex than uni-dimensional and that our motives may be broad. For example, my spouse is a child psychologist and professor, and helps untold numbers of people. He also gets paid. Teachers, social workers, probation officers all help people, and get paid. Does that mean they are not charitable? I started out blogging wanting to get a book contract (got it) as well as to help others. Now, as I become more committed to my website growth and development, I also want to enhance my income. The two motives, making money and helping others aren’t mutually exclusive.
Wise words Barbara. Appreciate the perspective.
You can be charitable and get paid, for sure. But that doesn’t make it a form of charity. We all help others. That’s the meaning of life! :)
Interesting take. I can see how it can have the potential to be charitable, though I would tend to find myself a bit closer to Kathleen’s take on it. I started as a way to have an outlet as well as to help people not make the same stupid mistakes I did. I think there can be a strain of charitableness involved, though I would hesitate to say that it is truly charity.
It’s interesting how one defines charity. The more we put the word “charity” up on a pedestal of something holy, the more we cannot accept the fact that writing helpful content online may be a form of charity. That what we spend our hours on our sites is for some reason not as charitable as spending time with the sick or elderly or cleaning up a public park.
I’m trying to encourage bloggers to take more pride in their work. To improve the reputation of blogging.
That’s definitely a valid point Sam and I do agree that we do need to take pride in our work. I can see how, through writing, we can be helpful to those who might be in need and that would be considered giving back. I know it always feels great to see when I have impacted someone or helped them out in a certain area. That’s something we all have possibility to do through our writing.
I think that regardless of the reasons you blog, you’re doing a huge service for someone out there. That’s why I enjoy trying to write clear posts: if someone can understand my POV on a topic, it’ll hopefully expand their ability in their job or with their pocketbook. Charity? Maybe that’s too far….but underpaid pursuit? Absolutely.
I agree. Someone out there will inevitably find your content helpful. And anybody who blogs long enough will have some reader who leaves an appreciative comment or a thankful e-mail.
I never thought of blogging as a way of giving back but since I’ve been blogging 3-4 times a week since February I can see the impact its having on people who do read. It definitely is a form of service. Any type of educating people is a plus and we need more of it. Blogs work because its how people naturally learn through stories.
Welcome to the blogosphere. I hope you will flourish! It’ll be interesting to see how your attitude changes, if at all in one year’s time.
That’s a really good way to look at it. I always tend to think of charity in terms of writing a check or volunteering my time for some direct need. But blogging is easily the equivalent of volunteering my time. I write articles that I know will help people achieve the goals as my niche. I tell them my secrets and leave nothing out so that they may have a shot at accomplishing the same or greater success. The only difference is that with blogging it has the potential to reach a much wider and diverse audience than with a one-to-one encounter. That’s a huge advantage, and better for the common good.
Really interesting article, and I enjoyed reading all the comments. Thanks!
I remember my sociology professor in college admitting that his father didn’t give to charity, a central tenet of his faith, because he paid taxes and the government already had programs for that.
I think the like between charity and narcissism can be blurry. If you mow a elderly neighbor’s lawn, that is charitable. But if you do it because you don’t want their lawn to detract from how well your own lawn looks, that is narcissistic.
What if the reason you mow it is because you feel bad that they can’t do it themselves any more and you don’t want to feel bad anymore? Frankly, that’s me. That is my secret that I don’t like telling people: I give when and where I can but mostly because I want to feel better about myself.
I never thought of blogging as charity. Teaching has some of the same elements and I definitely do not feel it is charity. Sharing information or helping other people (for me) is just part of life. I feel we do things naturally such as helping friend or relative and expect nothing in return. Teaching is rewarding despite the fact, I cannot help everyone. Blogging seems like just an extension of teaching.